Of This And That, And That Again

Yesterday was the last day of rain.  Below are more pictures from January 20th, the Day Of The Big Flood.

There is a little tiny stream coming down the slope from the left.  The down hill neighboring house to the right got a bit flooded, and the owner was not happy. 

Wet wet wet!

I managed to break my bird feeder trying to mount the seed catcher securely, so I went to the hardware store and bought me an official Audubon feeder today, one that fits the seed catcher.  It is very nicely made, mostly all metal.  Too bad they didn't clean the threads on the bottom for the screws that hold on the seed catcher.  I don't know how some little ol' lady with arthritic hands could manage, I had QUITE a bit of trouble myself!

After that exciting and dramatic night photo I have nothing else to say.

Thanks for reading!

Kinda Wet

January 16th -- Checking on a geocache of mine, I observed (through a fence!) a large pile of tie plates.

Later in the day (or maybe the 17th) I was fooling around, trying to attach a bird feeder seed catcher I had purchased.  One that didn't fit my particular bird feeder. I made a wooden plug to fit inside the boom of the feeder, but found that the catcher would not just screw in. Plus, it would be difficult to remove it for cleaning.  I found this brass fitting (from ancient days!) that fit the attachment screw perfectly, so I drilled a hole in the plug, and it worked perfectly!

And here it is, in place!  The birds were very happy!

The next morning I found the plug'n'plate on the ground.  The press-fit wasn't tight enough.  So I got out the drill and tried to drill a hole.  That went well, but when I screw it together I cracked the feeder, so it is no good now.  I guess I'll have to buy the correct feeder to fit the seed catcher, now!


January 18th -- Pancakes for dinner, and pancakes (sans butter and syrup) for bedtime snack.

January 20th -- Much rain today.  The yard is very very wet.

Panorma this is!  Large file size, too!

Later in the day  -- Later in the day, much MORE rain, much MORE wind.  Stuff knocked down, the down-hill neighbor reports flooding from the water in my yard topping the concrete wall separating the properties.   It's up to the property owner, now.

Another panorma.  This one is even larger!

The temps were in the low fifties today, but it rained 1.88 inches.  Pretty windy, but the wind meter only reports 4 MPH.  It's not in the optimum location, though.

Thanks for reading!

Snow Day

One of the reasons we headed off to the mountains this morning as to ascertain whether there was any snow left.  As we see in this photo, yes, there was snow.  Not a LOT of snow, mind you.

There is a short video on The FB showing this snowball, or one very like it, being thrown at your humble photographer.  What a sad state of affairs...

We saw several snowmen being constructed along the Sunrise Highway in area that had more snow than this.  I saw a FIELD of abandoned snowmen, too.  It was very sad.

So much sadness today...

We found a bunch of geocaches today.  Nine, to be precise.  We hiked about, rounding up, 4 miles, to Big Laguna Lake and back.

It was in the 40s F most of the day, but got chilly on the way back to the car.  We drove higher and the temperature dropped into the high 30s.  My driver turned on the heated seats.  Why don't I have heated seats in MY vehicle?

 Coming back via Cuyamaca there was a lot of cloud activity, and I notice that it was pretty windy, what with a flag almost fully extended.  Duh, probably why the clouds were moving past at such a rate.  Too bad I didn't made a video of THAT!

This is at Cuyamaca Lake.

This is a little further down the road.  The clouds were very pretty, but the poles and wires were not.

Tendrils. That is the word I trying to think of.  Tendrils of clouds reaching down to the water.

On the freeway 8 it got pretty dark all of a sudden, but with an opening through the clouds to see the light above.

That is about it for today!  Thanks for reading!

Drizzle Drizzle

It's been rain and drizzle all morning, but it seems to be clearing up in the afternoon.  It is 55 F outside right now, which is 4:21 PM.

I went caching in the drizzle this morning near Descanso.

The Reader article about Roberts Ranch and Ellis Ranch access.

One cache required a bit of stealthy and possibly not-entirely-legal hiking.  But there was a good view!

This is one panorama I did.

Then I thought better of it and did another, which captures the road to Descanso on the left.

I don't know what this is, is it cow related?  It's a cache, anyway!

I visited the Ellis Ranch Cemetery.  It is interesting and historical.  I walked around and looked at most of the markers.

Close-up of the informational plaque.

This was a particularly poignant marker. I straightened up some of the light-powered things (what DO you call those?) that had been blown over by the wind.  Which was MOST of them!

After leaving the cemetery there was one more cache, then the long trek back to the vehicle!

One of the caches had this "picture" in it.  The artist is Eoin O'Connor.  Ain't it something?

Now back to home to dry my shoes!

Much Water

This morning I went down to National City to see the king tide risen over 18th St. at Paradise Creek.  I was the last vehicle to use the turn lane from National City Blvd. before the city crew blocked it off.

Link to Google Maps

I parked down the left from that white truck, see below in this very interesting and odd panorama. Just to set the scene.  How do you like that nifty vehicle in the center, does not that look fun?  Paradise Creek passes under the road (mostly!) between those two buildings, behind the strange vehicle.

Panorama 1

Looking to the west we see flooding, and children heading to school at the elementary school.

These students passed behind me on their way to school, then had to swing out into the bike lane in an attempt to avoid more flooding on their right.  Maybe the water is coming up in the storm drains, I don't know.

I managed to get just one photo of a vehicle splashing.

I moved my vehicle behind the elementary school, then walked to the viewing platforms.  To the left would be the street I was on before.  The water is almost to the bottom of the platforms.  There is a bit of redevelopment going on.  Those apartments to the right of center are new low income housing. Too much junk floating in the creek, though.

Panorama 2

This panorama is pretty much the same as the one above, but I was trying to get two egrets I saw into the image. They are just to the left at the end of the "fence" on the left, at the water's edge, but they are white so the glare really overpowers them. I didn't want to get too close, for fear of disturbing them.

Panorama 3

Please remember you can click on the images to see the full quality full size image! 

Thanks for visiting!

Three Doggies

We went to the grocery store the other day and I was amused by jars of salsa.  And the taco shells. I can't explain it.

I hope you remember these are just thumbnails and you can "click the pic" to see the original size!!

My daughter said there were more spices from Mexico here than were available in the stores in Mexico!

What I had for dinner on January 2nd.  It was very good.  Broccoli soup! With pork on the plate over there!

On January 3rd I was over by Gillespie Field looking for a geocache. I took a picture of these aircraft parts (through the fence!) and spent a couple of hours trying to figure what kind of plane that yellow one was.  Well, it is an AT-6 Texan, I believe, and it's TWO of them! Or at least PARTS of two of them!

Same day, I guess, later on I went past the Lake Murray Blvd. old/new Jack In The Box joints that I had heard about.  I took some pictures of them for posterity.

If you were on Facebook you might have seen two other pictures from the 60s that I took standing right in front of this old Jack.

I may be dreaming, but I'm pretty sure there used to be a big ol' Jack In The Box on the roof. A LONG time ago!

The new one is  now open for business.

On January 5th I happened by the Serra Mesa branch library to use their parking lot as a staging area for an assault on a geocache.  Saw this, glad I'VE never done that. Right?

This Jeep ain't no "Mall Crawler".  But it DOES kinda bring down the tone of the  neighborhood.  Or maybe it raises it, what do I know?  I know I like it.  Just needs a winch!

Dinner for January 6th, but not mine!  I had a GIANT carne asada burrito. Banana for scale.

On January 7th we went to Palomar College to look at the trees, mostly, and the plants.  They have labeled a goodly number of the trees and plants, so it is very interesting walking around.  Also, there are various art installations.  This abandoned water feature was on top of the hill in the arboretum area. The vandalized electrical box powered a pump.  There is a water outlet hidden in the rocks, and the pool is outlined with rocks.

This popcorn looks defective, as I said on Facebook.  I didn't even try to eat it, I would surely break one of my precious crowns.

On January 10th I went out to the Torrey Pines Reserve Extension to get three geocaches that I didn't get last time, as they were missing.  They were all replaced, so time to get it done!

Link to map (GIF format) of location and trails of the Torrey Pines Reserve Extension.

Spider web with dew drops jewels.  The spider says "Please dew drop in"??

On the eastern side of the Extension, looking east.  In Real Life you could see the reflections (in those windows) of vehicles passing by on the freeway, which is right in front of those buildings.

Still on the eastern side of the preserve, looking south.  There is the 5 heading off to San Diego.  I thought it was going to rain today, but it did not.

Looking west from the eastern side of the Preserve we can see Torrey Pines beach, and the Torrey Pines Grade, so beloved of bicyclists.  Might be a Coaster going by on that track way down there.

This one is pretty zoomed in and cropped, that certainly looks like a Coaster.

Last time I was here, a couple of months ago, this tree was standing.  And I thought it was the where the cache might be.  It was not.

Walking back to the vehicle I spied this cement ring.  I wonder what it was for, way out here?

I drove a few blocks to the northern side of of the Preserve, and hiked over to the western side.  This geocache was one I had a lot of trouble finding.  And yet, there it is, in pretty much plain sight, and reasonably un-small, too.  I covered it up a little better though.  Make the next guy suffer a bit. 

A panorama shot at the south end of the DAR trail (see map link)  Ain't that pretty?  And the trees smelled so good, too!

Pretty much the same thing as a single image.  Print it out and frame it!

Walking back, this is looking down into the valley.  We came up from there last time, but this time I parked in a closer and higher spot.  What are those black things hanging on the PVC pipes?  I don't know!!

The sign, so I don't forget!  Here's another link to an article about hiking the Torrey Pines Reserve Extension trails.

One of the caches I found here was part of a series with a 101 Dalmatians theme.  I'm guessing there are 101 of them.  I've only found around 20.  I found the one here, then I drove over to the end of Mira Mesa Blvd. and found two more.  That makes three doggies today.

Then I went home and took a nap.

Thanks for reading!