We chose to spend the winter in sunny California. We began with a couple of weeks in the Sacramento area, which allowed us to do some chores (appointments, visiting our storage unit, etc.) and to celebrate Andy’s December birthday. We rented a house in Orangevale, across Lake Natoma from the historic Gold Rush city of Folsom. We enjoyed walks along the lakefront and we even saw bald eagles nesting in a tree not far from our house. We also had a chance to see beautiful Christmas decorations on a stroll through the upscale “Fabulous Forties” neighborhood in Sacramento. The neighborhood association goes all-out to decorate the entire neighborhood for the holidays.
We spent Christmas with our family in Camarillo. We rented a small house in Silver Strand, a half block from the beach in Oxnard, and Andy joined us there for a few days. We took along Christmas stockings and some of our decorations to make the place look like home for the holidays.
We spent January in San Diego. Carrie’s cousin lives in Las Vegas and she and her husband have a condo in San Diego that they generously let us use for a month. We drove to Las Vegas to have a short family visit and to pick up the keys, and then we were off to San Diego. The condo is on the edge of downtown so we had an urban experience, which was very pleasant considering that San Diego bills itself as “America’s Finest City.” We enjoyed the shorts-and-t-shirt weather, making it seem more like spring than winter.
We took long walks almost every day. One of our first treks was to the Tijuana River Estuary, a wildlife sanctuary at the ocean, just north of the Mexican border. The river begins in Mexico and flows northward into the US, where it empties into the Pacific. The delta wetlands are a natural bird refuge, but we didn’t see many birds on our visit. The nearby hills of Tijuana form an urban backdrop to the idyllic wildlife preserve.
We walked in La Jolla several times. There is a long walkway along the ocean front at the top of the cliffs. We looked down on sea lions and birds at the beach.
We took a day trip out to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, about a two hour drive east of San Diego. We had never been to this park so we wanted to take advantage of it while we were in San Diego. The park preserves a beautiful piece of California desert land. It seemed like the Palm Springs area might have been before development took over. We enjoyed an orientation at the visitor center followed by a desert hike after lunch.
We had never been on campus at San Diego State University (SDSU) so we decided to take a walk there on a weekend when it wasn’t crowded with students. We were very impressed with the beautiful campus. SDSU is over a hundred years old and it features a number of old buildings built in the mission architectural style. Beautiful southwestern gardens are interspersed among the buildings.
Our friends Sue and Leo came to San Diego to visit Sue’s college friend, Mary, and we all spent the day at the San Diego Zoo, one of the finest zoos in the world. We had not been to the zoo in many years so it was fun to return. We also enjoyed several of our daily walks in Balboa Park, the home of the zoo. Balboa Park hosted the Panama-California Exposition in 1915 to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, and most of the exposition buildings remain. It was a treat to walk through the park and see these magnificent old buildings.
