Escape to the sunshine

David and I spent last week in Southern California visiting my family and soaking up some vitamin D. We arrived on Super Bowl Sunday, and spent the next day in La Jolla at the Birch Aquarium, which is part of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. David got some nice shots of the sea creatures; here’s one I especially like:

On Tuesday, my sister drove down to San Diego from Upland with the kids. We spent the afternoon at the playground at Liberty Station, which is what the old Naval Training Center has been turned into; it’s now a complex consisting of housing, shops, hotels, and schools. Max is five and Tali just turned three. They’re very cute and were lots of fun to watch! (Somehow we ended up not taking any pictures that day, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

On Wednesday, we went to Balboa Park, where we visited the Museum of Man and the Japanese Tea Garden. The Museum of Man, San Diego’s anthropological museum, was my favorite museum when I was a kid, so it was a great pleasure for me to see it again. They have totally re-done their exhibit on human evolution, making it much more extensive and interactive. Fortunately, they have incorporated many of the original life-size models of our hominid ancestors, so I was able to say hello to my old friends Australopithecus afarensis and Homo neanderthalensis. At the Japanese Tea Garden we saw an exhibit of temari, which are wrapped thread balls with intricate geometric designs. Here’s one of David’s pictures of them:


On Thursday, we left San Diego to go east, over the mountains and down into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. When I was growing up, our family vacations were always camping trips in various state parks up and down California, and Anza-Borrego was my favorite. This time we didn’t camp (Mom doesn’t do camping anymore), so we spent Thursday and Friday nights at the Palm Canyon Resort in the town of Borrego Springs, which is actually completely surrounded by the state park and is just a stone’s throw away from our old campground.

On Friday, David and I made the 1.5-mile hike to the oasis at the head of Borrego Palm Canyon, which was my secret reason for wanting to do this whole trip in the first place. I remember going on this hike with my dad and sister when we camped here, and it was always a highlight of the trip. Now I wanted to share the experience with David. It’s not a tough hike, but it’s hotter in the canyon than in the big valley, so we were very glad to finally get to the shade and coolness of the oasis.

I don’t want to post too many pictures of the desert here because I’m afraid I’ll make the page too slow to load, so here are a couple of my favorites.

The morning light on the mountains, seen from our hotel balcony:


The Visitor Center at the state park — it’s built into the side of a hill for energy efficiency and minimal disruption of the landscape:


David the desert rat, with a magnificent ocotillo behind him:

Looking downstream at the creek that flows down to the campground from the spring at the oasis:

The oasis:


Me in the classic Anza-Borrego landscape:


After we got back from our hike, we drove east to Peg-Leg Smith’s monument. Peg-Leg Smith (1801-1866) was a “mountain man, prospector, and spinner of tall tales,” according to the plaque on the monument. He supposedly found a rich mine, but was unable to find it again later; in the 1940’s, someone started a legend: whoever adds 10 rocks to a pile in front of Peg-Leg’s monument will find the lost gold. So here we are, hunting our fortune. (I guess it’s only slightly less probable than winning the lottery.)

We drove back to San Diego on Saturday and returned to Seattle early on Sunday. There is much more to tell, but this post is too long as it is. Thank you Mom and Dad for a wonderful visit!