California Visit

We spent  several wonderful  days of visiting, catching up and sightseeing, with Pat’s oldest brother Johnny and his wife Paula. They live in Santee, CA which is a suburb of San Diego.

On Wednesday before arriving in California (no this isn’t the way we traveled), we stopped at the sand dunes just inside of the California border. We visited with a gentleman that was there for the weekend and is actually a guard at the prison in Florence, AZ. The image below is a vehicle he made especially to haul his sand buggy. Very nice man.

Thursday brought a day of revisiting many places we had seen in the past several years ago, and being amazed at some of the changes that have come about. As you may notice in the images, the day was beautiful with blue skies, puffy clouds and sunshine, a photographers dream conditions.

Mission Bay Area

San Diego Skyline

One of the many walkways along Mission Bay and a showcase for the palm trees, and shoreline.

Point Loma

This is one of our favorite places to visit. Not only is the view breathtaking, but if you go during the right time of the year (February) you may catch sight of the whales migrating. It was the right time for us, but we were not so lucky this year, but still had a wonderful day. 

Point Loma Lighthouse

Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo led three Spanish vessels in the bay at Point Loma on September 28, 1542. The Kumeyaay indians were there waiting for what they thought were hostile intruders, and let their arrows fly at the “invaders”. They ceased their hostilities once they found out that Cabrillo and his party were simply sojourners in the bay (staying only six days), and exchanged food and goods with the crews of the ships.

Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo

Another Point Loma lighthouse

Ocean Beach 

This is a very popular area with skateboarders, inline skaters, walkers, joggers, antique seekers, and surfers. The surf was producing fair size waves and there were a few brave souls in wetsuits. Notice the two surfers in the upper right of the  image below.

 

Some of the beautiful homes and buildings in the area with a never ending ocean view.

 

And of course we can’t slight the gulls. This one actually did a lot of posing for me. What a “ham”.

 

Below is one of the four or five gun turrets embedded in the side of the cliffs that were put there to protect our shorelines from  Japanese invasions during World War II.

 Wild Animal Park

On Friday we visited the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. It is setup so that the many different animals are housed as close  as possible to their natural habitat even though they are in captivity. There are many species of Asian and African elephants, deer, birds, water fowl, and much more. There are many beautiful flowers and foliage along with tall palm trees. It took most of the day to see even a portion of it. I hope you enjoy just a few of the many pictures I was able to capture.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Town San Diego

On Saturday (Valentines Day), we went down to Old Town for the day. We had a really great lunch at an authentic Mexican restaurant before spending the afternoon wandering in and out of some of the quaint (albeit) expensive at times, shops and historical buildings. One of the things that caught my eye during a rest break was this beautiful old mission building that is now part of their museum buildings.

Old Town San Diego Mission

Simpson Nursery

Sunday, Johnny needed some things for his garden so they took us to an unusual nursery in El Cajon. It was a combination nursery, antiques, gifts and an array of museum type autos, campers and trucks from the 50’s and 60’s, along with tools, posters and many other interesting things along the walk of memories. There were also a few animals that loved our attention. Everything was placed in such a way that it was so fun to wander around and view the different items. Here are a few of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about this RV park…actually old campers on display, but sure brought back some early on memories of Lucille Ball’s Long Long Trailer movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you remember these prices then you are as old as us…lol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brothers

Pat helped Johnny plant a new apricot tree as soon as the rain let up. I hope it produces some wonderful fruit for Johnny and Paula.

Here are a few images of other fruits in their yard. It is so neat to look out and see all of this fresh citrus just hanging here for the picking.

Heading Home

Pat and I will be heading home (or at least to our temporary winter quarters) to Arizona tomorrow (Tuesday). It will be a bittersweet farewell to Johnny and Paula. We have had a grand time and they have been wonderful hosts, but our time as snowbirds is growing closer and closer to coming to an end.