In mid August during the height of a nasty fire season, we head south for a family celebration of Patti's 90th birthday. The giant
Soberanes fire in the
Los Padres National Forest of Big Sur has already been raging for almost a month and will continue to burn for yet another two months devouring over 130,000 acres before finally being tamed. Although Soberanes hasn't been California's biggest fire ever recorded, it did turn out to be the state's most expensive fire to fight, mostly due to the difficult terrain. I often wonder how the trees and vegetation will change if these drought cycles continue as the climate scientists predict. Only time will tell.
We reach the
Bradly Rest Stop around mid afternoon. As we step out of our air conditioned car, we are immediately hit by the 105+ degree temperatures. Parked along the edge is a long line of fire trucks from different cities (Davis, Sonoma, Bakersfield, etc). The fire fighters are friendly and explain they are moving from the Soberanes fire to a new one currently threatening
Bakersfield. I sincerely thank them for their hard work. They shrug their shoulders and say it's all part of the job to fight different fires in hot weather.
As we drive further south,
Google maps navigation tells us part of Hwy 101 is being closed down due to a new fire a little north of Santa Barbara. We are rerouted onto
Hwy 154 which is a beautiful drive and takes us into
Santa Barbara from the east.
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| Fire trucks parked at Bradley Rest Stop |
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| Detouring onto Hwy 154 |
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| Back on Hwy 101 the fog greets us north of Ventura |
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| Full moon raising over LA |
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| Dinner with friends in Leucadia |
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The next afternoon, we meet Sarah who is renting us her lovely home to Jill/Mark and their family as well as ourselves. It's a large beautiful home and we feel very fortunate to have such a lovely place to stay for the next several days.
After the east coasters arrive, it's time to explore nearby
Swami's Beach. This beach was named after the nearby
Self-Realization Fellowship founded by
Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, author of
Autobiography of a Yogi, which is required reading for anyone living in North County San Diego. When I lived in Cardiff during the 1970's, Swami's was my favorite beach for hiking and taking photos.
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| Jono, PD, Tracy, & Alex |
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| Tiki welcome |
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| Self-Realization Fellowship |
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| Looking north |
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| Looking south as we descend the stairs |
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| Peter tests the water |
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| Low tide reveals a small reef |
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| Water draining off cliffs |
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| Rocky shelf |
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That evening just we enjoy being together as we haven't seen each other in several years.
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| Jono gives me a quizzical look |
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| PD plays for us |
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| Jill and Mark set out drinks and snacks |
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The next afternoon, a group of us meet at the
Hunter Steak House in
Oceanside before the party to set up decorations.
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| Our first stop is the bar |
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| Holly demos the Queen Frog headpiece |
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| Ahh - dirty vodka martinis all around |
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After the staff has set up the tables and chairs, we swing into action putting up decorations.
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| Happy 90th Birthday |
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| Balloons |
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| and cake - of course! |
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As people arrive and get seated, everyone puts on their frog eyes and gets photos of themselves with the guest of honor - Miss Patti, Queen of the Frogs.
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| Karen & Patti |
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| Patti & me |
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| Alex |
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| Tracy |
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| PD |
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| Colin & crew |
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| Patti, Jennie + new no-care puppy |
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| Neighbors and friends |
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After the celebrations, we return home to Patti's where the family beauties pose for photos. Sorry ladies, Lorelei seems to have all of us beat in the beauty department.
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| Lorelei |
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| Beth, Tracy, and Holly |
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| Lorelei |
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That evening PD initiates a wresting match with his much larger uncle Colin. It's not much of a match, but PD keeps coming back for more. Who knows maybe one day PD will finally defeat Colin?
In the morning, we take a day off to see the
San Diego Botanic Garden. At first, we are attracted to the striking pieces of sculpture displayed throughout the grounds. Many are for sale and we are even more stunned when we take a look at the prices... ouch!
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| Motorcycle |
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| Mermaid |
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| Froggy |
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We do see some pretty incredible plants along the way.
Then we have to stop and take photos of ourselves on this fun outing.
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| The In-laws: Mark, Jill, Tracy, PD, Jono, Alex |
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| The Out-laws: Mark & me |
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It been a fun family event, but everything has to end so we all prepare to go our separate ways. We stop at Simon's where Suzy gives us an array of her beautiful veggies.
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| Suzy picking tomatoes |
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| Suzy & me |
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| Vegetables as art piece (photo by Jill) |
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We pack up the car and head north towards home. Fortunately, most of the traffic is heading south. Around
Camarillo, our
DQ app tells us one is nearby. So we navigate to a local shopping center for ice cream. This shopping center turns out to be a
factory outlet where there's a nice seating area just outside a
North Face store. As we sit and enjoy our ice creams we watch a wide variety of different international visitors coming in and out of North Face. Naturally, we have to check the store out and discover they are having an end-of-summer sale with very good prices. Inside the store, we hear visitors speaking French, English with British accents, German, and an assortment of Asian languages. Intrigued we ask a friendly store clerk about all of the foreign visitors here. He laughs and points out this is the last factory outlet on the way back to
LAX. Ohhh - who would have thunk? Camarillo is now on the map for international shoppers.
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| North Face factory outlet in Camarillo |
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| Back through forest fire smoke |
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| Ahhh - back to the green fields of the Pajaro Valley |
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