2018 Adler San Diego Road Trip

Starting mileage:  6392 Starting time: 9:30 am Ending mileage: 6799 Ending time: 5:00 pm Travel mileage:  379 Travel time: 7:30 hours It is pitch dark when I got up at 6am. Hot and sticky already. I went swimming just as a storm was coming in, bobbing in the crashing waves. There were black clouds to the south-east that soon came in blocking the sun. Fortunately, we were able to get the car loaded just before it started to rain seriously. It rained fairly hard for about half an hour which was good as it cleaned all the butterfly remains off our windshield and the front of the car. It is absolutely flat here, similar to south Florida. The vegetation is mostly mesquite, grassland and prickly pear cactus.  There appear to be huge cattle ranches - we see the entrance to the ranch and a driveway that disappears into the distance. We saw hundreds of snowy egrets, often among or on the cattle. There are large cotton fields and huge bales of white cotton sitting in...

Starting mileage:  6013 Starting time: 8:00 am Ending mileage: 6392 Ending time: 5:00 pm Travel mileage:  379 Travel time: 9:0 hours We certainly enjoyed our visit to San Antonio and would recommend it. This is apparently a popular time to visit as it gets very hot in the summer. We decided to take the longer route down via Laredo. In Laredo, we went to the Museum of the Republic of the Rio Grand, a very short lived country declaring independence from Mexico in 1845. It was taken back by Mexico but then shortly afterwards by Texas and the US. It would have been interesting to take the short walk across the bridge to Mexico but wouldn't have been able to come back as we didn't have our passports. On the way down to Brownsville, there was a swarm of butterflies that made quite a mess on our windshield and the front of the car. Carmen "Googled" and found out that there is currently a migration of the American Snout Butterfly to the Rio Grande valley! The Monarc...

Zero miles on the car today as it stayed parked since we got here last night. But I did get in 13,750 steps and 6.5 miles according to my FitBit. This morning we went back on the River Walk on the way to the Alamo. The River Walk is (was) a natural rectangular bend in the San Antonio river where Spanish missionaries from Mexico (New Spain) founded a mission and fort in 1738. This section of the river became popular in the early 1900s with restaurants and accommodations but was almost completely destroyed by a flood in 1921 that killed over 50 people. An enterprising architect came up with a plan to prevent flooding but it took about 10 years for it to be funded and put into place.  The fix mainly entailed "short-circuiting" the loop with a deep canal and installing gates to control the water height. The actual River Walk was created in the 1930s as a WPA project and substantially improved after WW II and again in 1968 for the big Expo in San Antonio. San Antonio has qui...

Starting mileage:  5305 Starting time: 8:00 am Ending mileage: 6013 Ending time: 7:00 pm Travel mileage:  708 Travel time: 10:0 hours (lost another hour to time change) We had quite a long driving day. We had thought that we would stop a couple hours short of San Antonio and drive the rest of the way in the morning but decided we'd rather stay here for two nights so we went the extra distance. We were glad we did as it gave us time in the evening to explore the area. We had a bit of undesired excitement. We were in the middle of nowhere in West Texas when Carmen noticed that the yellow gas warning light was on. The dashboard indicated we had enough gas for 40 miles. The GasBuddy app showed the next gas station was 35 miles away. The dashboard indicator went down to 20 miles and then disappeared. We were so relieved when we finally got to a gas station and put 15.4 gallons into our 16 gallon tank! The scenery going from NM to Texas near El Paso is interesting, rela...

Starting mileage:  4751 Starting time: 9:00 am Ending mileage: 5305 Ending time: 6:30 pm Travel mileage:  554 Travel time: 8:30 hours (lost an hour due to time change) On the road again! We had a great visit with Amy and Anna over the last 6 days. Did some fun things and had lots of great food. After passing over the Tecate Divide about halfway across California, it became much hotter and dryer the rest of the way across California, Arizona and into New Mexico. The temperature ranged from 90 to 102 degrees when we stopped for lunch in Gila Bend, AZ. In eastern CA there are a number of large wind farms and a large PV solar installation. We noticed that there was a lot of dust/sand on the solar collectors and wondered how much that affected efficiency and if there was a process to clean them off. Near Gila Bend we saw the Solana solar power plant that uses parabolic reflectors to heat a liquid salt that is stored in huge tanks that can later be used to create steam to ru...

Another quiet day. Did some shopping at Lowes and Staples. Had lunch at the San Diego Chicken Pie Shop which has a chicken pie dinner for $9.99 including a piece of pie, a good deal. Good comfort food. Had dinner at the Coyote Cafe in Old Town. Dinner at Coyote Cafe

No photos for today. After a relaxing morning, we all went to Coronado where Anna was going to a bridal shower and Amy, Carmen and I spent several hours at Coronado Beach for people which is next to the dog beach. There wasn't huge surf, but the crashing waves was enough to knock one over. We enjoyed watching the pelicans dive into the water for fish and then swallow them whole. This is right next to the naval air base and fighter jets regularly roar in and out, not very high above the beach. We all (including Blake) had a delicious dinner at the Azuki Japanese restaurant downtown.

Carmen, Amy and I went to the zoo in the morning and spent most of the day there. Anna was busy going to a baby shower and going to a party at the zoo this evening. Baboon Elephant Jaguar

Coronado Dog Beach

Thursday was largely a work day. Anna headed off to her office, Amy is working from home, I did IBM work and Carmen was doing laundry. In the afternoon, we took some time off and Amy took me to the zoo while Carmen stayed here to read her book "Pachinko". I hadn't been to the San Diego zoo for over 20 years when the girls were small. The zoo is huge with large natural-looking habitats for many of the large animals. The zoo has been very involved with protecting and propagating endangered species. For dinner we went to a Mongolian "hot-pot" restaurant where you cook your own food by putting meat, seafood, vegetables and noodles in a large pot of boiling broth. Amy & Anna's apartment in San Diego Low-land gorilla Panda Dinner at Mongolian "Hot-Pot" restaurant

Starting mileage:  4553 Starting time: 1:30 pm Ending mileage: 4690 Ending time: 4:00 pm Travel mileage:  137 Travel time: 2:30 hours We had a relaxing morning at the hotel as we wanted to visit the Huntington Library & Gardens which as only a couple miles away and didn't open until 10am. We had wanted to go there 3 years ago when we were in Pasadena but were there too early in the morning and didn't want to wait. Henry Huntington, nephew of Colis Huntington - a railroad "robber baron", came to California in the late 1800s and became very wealthy by first selling merchandise to gold miners and subsequently, the electric tram system in Los Angeles. He bought a 600 acre farm in Pasadena and built a mansion similar to the Vanderbilt's in Hyde Park. He and his wife Arabela filled the mansion with European tapestries, paintings and sculptures. They also had large gardens constructed on the property. On their death, they wanted the property to be open to the pu...

Starting mileage:  4530 Starting time: 1:30 pm Ending mileage: 4500 Ending time: 2:30 pm Travel mileage:  30 Travel time: 1:00 hours We spent a relaxing morning wandering around Avalon, bought some postcards and sent them out. On the way back, our ship was the Catalina Jet with 450 passengers, the largest in the Catalina Express fleet. Many people arrive in the morning who just visit for the day and many of the people leaving have just checked out of their hotels. There were rolling waves on our trip back but I survived without getting seasick. The drive from Long Beach to Pasadena is only 30 miles but it took us an hour due to the heavy traffic. This is the part I dislike most about California. The hotel looked familiar when we turned in and it turns out we stayed here 3 years ago on our trip out - just a coincidence. We enjoyed visiting Surana, Nic and Mia at their new place in East LA and had a relaxing dinner of take-out Thai. Mia is just over 2 years old and ...

A huge cruise ship, the Carnival Imagination (max 2600 passengers), is anchored out in the harbor and "tenders" are running back and forth to bring people to shore so I expect it will be pretty crowded in town. We had breakfast on the rooftop deck of our hotel looking out over the harbor - very pleasant. A seagull was sitting on a post just a few feet away hoping that we would give him something or be distracted so he could help himself. The human history of Cataina Island goes back about 10,000 years to Native Americans who lived here and fished in the abundant waters. They discovered soapstone on the island which they quarried to make into utensils and other items for their own use and to trade for other goods from coastal tribes. Their population was decimated by the introduction of European diseases in the 16th and 17th centuries and in the late 18th century, the Spanish missions on the coast removed all the remaining Native Americans to be educated and civilized on t...

Starting mileage:  4291 Starting time: 11:30 pm Ending mileage: 4500 Ending time: 3:30 pm Travel mileage:  209 Travel time: 4:00 hours After breakfast, there was a strong smell of smoke and when I went outside, it was very smoky down the street and to the mountains to the east. Sitting outside, small particles of ash would come down. Apparently a small brush fire started this morning and it was put out within a few hours. We went to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church with Eric and Kathy this morning and enjoyed the service. The sermon was very good relating to the 2nd lesson from James which was about how speech can be like fire - a small thing can spread and be very dangerous. It was significantly relating to the current political state of affairs. While the "off-peak" time to get to the ferry launch is 3 hours, 15 minutes, when we left, Google Maps was predicting a little over 4 hours which left us with zero leeway to meet the ferry. Traffic was terrible but expecte...

In the morning, Carmen, Kathy and I visited the historic downtown area and the San Luis Obispo Mission that was built in 1782 as part of a series of missions along the Pacific coast. We sat outside and had cappuccinos at Peets coffee. Eric joined us and gave a tour of the Masonic Temple built  in 1913. It was interesting to learn about the symbology of the architecture and the decorations of the temple. We then went on a series of small walks along the coast, starting in Morro Bay which is dominated by the huge Morro Rock which sticks up dominantly in the middle of the bay. It is the volcanic plug that remains after a very large volcano eroded away. We walked up to the jetty that protects the harbor from the ocean waves crashing on the outside. Lunch was at a restaurant along the bay where we had grilled oysters. While I am not a fan of raw oysters, the grilled oysters were absolutely delicious, drenched in butter and lemon juice. It is something that I would have again. From...

Starting mileage:  4010 Starting time: 12:00 pm Ending mileage: 4182 Ending time: 5:00 pm Travel mileage:  172 Travel time: 5:00 hours In the morning, I went to the IBM Silicon Valley Lab to meet with my manager, Frank Butt, and to give a short presentation on the application support for the DB2 spatial functionality. After that, Frank had organized a lunch at an Italian restaurant for his team and invited both of us - very nice. Carmen had the less pleasant task of doing laundry while I was at IBM. After lunch, we drove down the 101 to San Luis Obispo to visit our friends Eric and Kathy, professors at Cal Poly. Eric and I were neighbors from when we were about 10 years old and have been friends ever since. We had a nice walk up to the top of the hill they live on which has spectacular 360 degree views of the surrounding countryside. Day 12 map Kathy, Carmen and Eric View from the top