RenegadeRider

Dianne insisted that I take her out for dinner tonight. OK, OK we went to the beach to watch the sunset. Guess what? With the typical San Diego weather pattern the beach was overcast and there was no chance of seeing the sun. We did, however, see a school of porpoises just off shore. They even surfed, alongside the surfers. I lived on the beach for many years and have spent a lot of other time on the beach. I think this was the first time I had seen porpoises at a San Diego beach.

I am posting excerpts from an email from a friend that recently moved from San Diego to the DC area. It shows her observations on life in a different world. I notice people here, on base, talk a lot about their gardens, which plants are in bloom, and how we need rain . They are not pedestrian friendly, definitely not pedestrian friendly. one woman stopped to allow me to walk from the store to the parking lot and the car behind her started to go around her and just about hit me. I had some profane words for car no. II Californians are in for a shock when dealing with east coast traffic. Slow as heck drivers. the I-95 is the main artery going N and S. Everyone is going N in a.m. into DC. It starts to back up a good 25 miles south of DC. I see the gridlock/parking lot from my on ramp. I-95 is only a 3 lane interstate and it is ugly with all the big rigs. there are yield signs getting onto the freeways, scary!! there is the HOV lanes with 2 lanes for 3 or more they open and c

Bikers-in-Training

The well equipped frogman ready for duty.

The Frogman. Hey!@ you guys, I'm ready for the pool. Are you coming or not?

Today I was invaded by bikers and alien frogmen. My cousin needed to run an errand and asked me to watch her kids for the duration. They immediately demanded, and I obliged, to explore our garage. Therein they found all manor of strange and curious things to explore. My Yamaha motorcycle was ridden for "miles". Trevor began dis-assembling boxes of diving equipment. He tried on numerous items and selected certain things for a trip to our local pool. Holly spent time moving boxes around the garage using othe hand truck. She soon became bored with the garage and demanded to explore our upstairs. I reminded her that both kids had th go in or both had to stay in the garage and Trevor wasn't ready to yield his treasure. Eventually she prevailed and the exploration zone changed. New treasures were found, but none so exciting as those in the garage. Eventually Mom returned and we all went to the pool. The frogman had to take all his equipment.

Nervous? Who? Me?

Coming in for a successful landing.

Today was the day! I Soloed in the Cessna 172. I had three takeoffs and about a dozen landings. I don't think I can log all the landings.

I have been taking flying lessons. It's something I have wanted to do for a long time. I am licensed as a glider pilot and as a hot air balloon pilot, although I have not been active in either for about 8 years, but I have not flown airplanes. I now have the time and since we live two miles from the airport I ran out of excuses. I had started before we left for Florida last fall, but stopped because I could not reach any rational plateau before we left. The typical San Diego weather for the month of June is overcast with a heavy marine cloud layer thay may or may not burn off before mid to late afternoon. Some days it never clears up and the airplanes stay on the ground. I have reached the stage where it was time for a cross country flight along with the flight planning. Yesterday we had a glorious clear sky. It even matched the scheduling between me and my flight instructor. Since we had room, Dianne came along as a passenger. The flight was about 40 minutes each way an

For your viewing pleasure I have added the "Day by Day" cartoon to this blog. It was an exercize in copying and pasting into the existing html and not destroying the entire thing.

The heavy rains of last winter have produced a bounty of wild flowers. Thursday we drove out to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park to tour the area. It had been heavily damaged by the wild fires a year and a half ago. This was the first time I had passed through the park since the fires. We could see that a lot of trees had been heavily damaged from fire and many near the road were marked for removal. We went to see the wild flowers. See photos below.

Flowers on a hillside near Lake Cuyamaca.

Poppy.

Is this a budding Imogen Cunningham?

California Poppies.

No. I don't know what it is.