Out & About—San Diego Harbor boat tour with Captain Randy Phillips

When you come to San Diego, be sure to put “Harbor Cruise” on your list of things to do. There are quite a few harbor cruise boats full of tourists.

Sure, you can take one of those. They are fun. I’m here to suggest even more fun. Take a smaller cruise, like one with Captain Randy and Randy Phillips Tours.

Much more personable and enjoyable. Since Captain Randy was just a few feet away during the 2-hour boat tour, it was easy to ask questions…. And darned if he didn’t know all the answers!

That’s Captain Randy’s boat just to his left, so there’s no place to hide from the glorious San Diego Sun. If you’re not a sun bunny like me, take a hat, a long-sleeve shirt, sun screen…. whatever you need to have an enjoyable 2-hour harbor cruise.

Some of the sites you might see:

Seals and sea lions

Boats bigger than the one you’ll be on….

….up close and personal
(not available on the big boat tours)

Sunrises or sunsets.
Captain Randy took my group out at 6:30 a.m.

If you go early in the morning,
you’ll have still waters with the sunrise.

Beautiful vistas of the San Diego skyline
(once the sun is up)

The San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge

I even have a short video of us going under the bridge

Unusual ships that you have probably never seen
and probably will never see again.

Captain Randy will take you into Glorietta Bay
so you can see the Hotel del Coronado
and the Coronado Shores condominiums

Contact Captain Randy at Randy Phillips Tours, 858-531-3186. Tell him Russel Ray sent you his way.

Out & About—Old Highway 80 & the best. chocolate. ever.

Now that I have a fine fine fine super computer that will process pictures much much faster, I can do longer blog posts. Yahooooooooooooo!

So today I’m going to continue my tour of Old Highway 80 through the boondocks of East San Diego County.

For previous posts on the beginnings of this Old Highway 80 tour, see these:

1. Glad I could add some laughter to Mr. Agent’s day (Jan 27, 2017)
2. Reminds me, something about a big wall (Jan 29, 2017)
3. Marshall Scotty’s Playground Park (Feb 19, 2017)
4. Stand down. Local tourist (Mar 2, 2017)
5. The San Diego & Arizona Railway (Mar 7, 2017)
6. Who wants to drink brown water (Mar 9, 2017)
7. Halls of History—The Coogan Ranch (Mar 15, 2017)
8. Out & About—Cruise historic Highway 80 (Mar 23, 2017)
9. Bankhead Springs, drive-through ghost town (May 17, 2017)

Since I already have taken things out of order with the above posts, it’s best not to try to follow Old Highway 80 using my blog posts. Instead, get a copy of Chris Wray’s book, Highways to History, and following the “Highway 80 from El Cajon to Ocotillo” tour, pages 15-52. Alternately, if you’d like a personal docent for the tour, all you have to do is contact me. Give me 24 hours notice, and I’m yours. We’ll even take my car! Meanwhile, here’s the rest of the Old Highway 80 using unprocessed pictures that are left in my computer folder, seeming to indicate that they have not been used in a blog post yet.

We’ll start in this post at the Acorn Casino since it’s such all roads—Interstate 8, Highway 80—lead to the Casino. Looks like this:

Next, go through Live Oak Springs and past Live Oak Springs Road until you get to the Tierra del Sol Road intersection. On the north side of the intersection is a stone tower sitting on top of a rounded boulder. Looks like this:

Sources don’t seem to know what it is but best guess, which I agree with based on my 55+ years of experience in real estate, is that the it is part of a building foundation sitting atop the boulder. I’ve seen such construction many times in many states.

Highway 80 joins with Highway 94 past Tierra del Sol Road. Look for the Highway 80 intersection with Jewell Valley Road (south)/Ribbonwood Road (north). Lots of buildings around, including the Wisteria Candy Cottage at 39961 Old Highway 80. Looks like this:

Stop!

Stop at the Wisteria Candy Cottage.

Even if you don’t think you want candy.

They have the best chocolate in the world. Buy some for later.

As stated on their signs, they have been providing “old fashioned candies since 1921.” Everything I bought on my trip was based on chocolate. Maybe they have other “old fashioned candies” but I didn’t see any. Or maybe my eyes simply were focused on chocolate because my mouth was watering for chocolate. Best. Chocolate. Ever. I had read, and I agree.

The Wisteria Candy Cottage actually is located in Boulevard (pop. 315) but Wisteria is the name for western Boulevard left over from fifty years ago. It also is located in the original building and in the original location of the Mountain Empire High School.

You can start eating your chocolate while you walk around outside to the back of the Wisteria Candy Cottage. There you’ll see a huge dead building. Looks like this:

That dead building is the ruins of what sources say is an old lodge or temple for the Masons located in Imperial Valley. Sadly, that’s all the information I can find online. It’s probably the only dead building I’ve ever seen that is not ruined by graffiti.

She was on to something

Investment Opportunity

Every occasionally, like this year, my anniversary falls on Memorial Day Weekend, and when it falls on Friday, as it also did this year, it pretty much means that Jim and I have a four-day weekend, like this year.

So if the last you’ve seen of me was Thursday, now you know why.

Lots of touring, margaritas, good food……… and locks.

When I went off to college in August 1973, my wise old grandmother told me, “Invest in locks.” She was on to something.

“Off with their heads!” he’d say.

Hello, there, classic WordPress editor! You are sooooooooooo much faster than that new clunker, and I have you and the new clunker working in two tabs on my fine fine fine new super computer, so I can make that statement definitively. It’s good to be back.

Speaking of being back, for the last couple of years I have only been working on one computer. Previously, I had a work computer and a music computer. The music computer died so I had to move all my music to the work computer, and I can tell you that listening to music all day really strains a computer.

Well, this fine fine fine new super computer is now my work computer, and the old computer is now my new music computer. Now that I have two computers side by side again, I can multitask better again, and that means visiting more of my blogging friends each and every day!

Not having anything interfering with my music enjoyment is really nice. I hated all the boops and beeps from all other programs and web sites messing with my music listening pleasure.

I can definitively state, with absolute certainty, no doubt about, it, that I

really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really

hate web sites, especially news sites, that automatically start playing videos when I visit. If I want to watch and listen to a video, I will watch and listen to it on my own.

One of the advertising sites explained why they do that. I don’t know if their explanation is true, but it certainly makes sense.

Many organizations make their money from advertising, and advertising means unique hits and views. YouTube counts a view as at least 30 seconds watching a video. In the case of those organizations that start videos playing immediately upon you loading their page, it turns out that many of them get credit for you watching a video if the video goes for at least 3 seconds. That makes it almost impossible to NOT watch a video as far as their advertising dollars go.

Once I learned that, whenever I visit a site, I’m standing (sitting, actually) at attention with my hand on the mouse and I’m prepared to stop that video as soon as it starts so that it doesn’t get to 3 seconds.

One doesn’t even have to click on the pause or stop button. You can click anywhere on the video, and if it’s playing, it will pause. If it’s paused, it will start. So I immediately pause it and then decide if I want to give them 3 seconds of my time to support the organization.

I have decided that if the video has Twitler or any of his ilk speaking, I refuse to watch it. I don’t want any organization thinking that a video of Twitler or any of his ilk is good because it causes their visits and views to go up, making them more money. I can’t stand their faces or voices, especially when they start dealing in alternative facts.

For example, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross offered two highlights of his trip to Saudi Arabia in an interview with CNBC.

He was given two bushels of dates by Saudi Arabian security guards. He was touched. That gesture really warmed his heart.

Second, he was overjoyed that he saw no protesters, indicating that the Twitler administration was well liked in Saudi Arabia. Of course, he pretty much admitted that he did not know that protesting in the Saudi Arabia kingdom is illegal and can result in a summary death sentence. Their death sentence usually involves beheading the person in a public square with thousands of people watching.

Unbelievable.

Perhaps if Twitler and his ilk like Saudi Arabia so much, they should move there. I’m betting they won’t, especially once they accept the fact (not an alternative fact) that the Saudi Arabia king pretty much has absolute power. He’s not going to put up with competition. “Off with their heads!” he’d say.

Rant over.

Margarita time.

It speaks to me

I made it through these past two days of hiking here and there and everywhere.

This morning I did the Navy’s 31st Bay Bridge Walk/Run.

I don’t know how many steps I took….

but I’m pretty sure it had to be close to 15,337.

And in just 1 hour and 59 minutes.

4 miles.

I took 31 minutes to go from starting line to bridge.

The winner of the race finished in just over 20 minutes.

I’m thinking he didn’t get any pictures.

I got 191!

I win!

I got so many pictures from these past two days that I have enough pictures to use in my blogs for, well, probably the rest of my life.

A lot of them will make great Photographic Art, too, such as this one:

That’s a good picture, but it doesn’t have any emotion.

It’s just a picture.

So I made it into Photographic Art:

Rarely do I like black & white pictures, but sketches are a different story. I can see the college student in his drawing class sitting out at Tidelands Park in Coronado and sketching that bridge. Suddenly the picture speaks to me.

Blogger might have died from exhaustion

If you don’t hear from me anymore, it’s because I died of exhaustion.

Today, 8:30 a.m., I went on a 7-mile round-trip hike at 4,700 feet above sea level on Mount Palomar.

I don’t know whether or not I made it back—this post is set to publish at 1:00 p.m., with or without me.

If I did make it back, Sunday is a 5-mile round-trip hike on the Coronado Bay Bridge.

I’m registered Sunday as a walker in the Navy Bay Bridge Run-Walk.

Walkers are encouraged to stop and take pictures, and I assure you, I will.

Make sure all is well before taking possession

Many of the birds at the San Diego Zoo have nests with eggs in them.

The flamingos are the most noticeable but if one looks closely one can see a pair of southern screamers (Chauna torquata), also known as crested screamers, taking care of three eggs in their nest in Flamingo Lagoon.

Those two were having a changing of the guard. It’s virtually impossible to distinguish mama screamer from daddy screamer, so I have no idea whether mama was taking over or whether daddy was taking over. You can see the one taking over was checking out the eggs just to make sure that they were okay before taking possession of them.

According to Wikipedia,

The southern screamer establishes monogamous relationships that last its lifetime, estimated to be 15 years. Courtship involves loud calling by both sexes, which can be heard up to two miles away. For the nest, the couple makes a big platform of reeds, straws, and other aquatic plants in an inaccessible place near water. The female lays between two and seven white eggs. The couple share incubation, which takes 43 to 46 days. Chicks leave the nest as soon as they hatch, but the parents care for them for several weeks. The fledging period takes 8 to 14 weeks.

Southern Screamers live in southeastern Peru, northern Bolivia, Paraguay, southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. And, of course, the San Diego Zoo.

The following picture shows what the little ones will look like, although this little one from 2010 was giving me a little attitude:

Remember, if you get to San Diego, give me a call. I often have free tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I also have been known to play docent for a day or two at no charge!

Complements the swamp monkeys in the White House

It’s spring time at the San Diego Zoo,

which means little ones are everywhere.

Here’s an Allen’s Swamp Monkey mama

with her little one.

Complements the swamp monkeys in the White House……..

Remember, if you get to San Diego, give me a call. I often have free tickets to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I also have been known to play docent for a day or two at no charge!

Out & About—Bankhead Springs, drive-through ghost town

After my wise old grandmother adopted me in December 1965, I had daily access to a television and got addicted to Lucille Ball. I watched anything and everything in which she made an appearance, beginning with “I Love Lucy.”

In 1957, “I Love Lucy” morphed into Season 1 of “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show.” The second episode, “The Celebrity Next Door,” originally broadcast on December 3, 1957, left an impression with an impressionable teenager, not because of anything specific about the show but because of one of the guest stars, Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968), the celebrity. The name was so unusual that it stuck with me for many years….

….even unto the present.

Earlier this year when I was out touring Old Highway 80, I came upon Bankhead Springs. Bankhead. Couldn’t be any connection.

“Au contraire, bison breath,” someone more famous than me used to say.

Bankhead Springs was named for John Hollis Bankhead (1842-1920). While serving as a U.S. Senator from Alabama (1907-1920), John Bankhead was instrumental in advocating for the development of highways, specifically a cross-country highway. Eventually, the Bankhead Highway connected Washington DC to San Diego, with the western section eventually becoming U.S. Highway 80.

Wanna guess who his granddaughter was? Yep. Tallulah Bankhead.

Bankhead Springs currently is “a drive-through ghost town,” as are many of the towns along Highway 80 which were bypassed when Interstate 8 was built in the early 1960s.

In the early 20th Century, Bankhead Springs and nearby Jacumba were hot spots for Hollywood celebrities and the idle rich because of their natural hot springs. Although local legend says that Tallulah was involved in the town’s development, there is no evidence of that. There also are rumors that prostitutes out of Bankhead Springs pandered to the lonely construction workers building Interstate 8. Those rumors also appear unfounded and might have more to do with Tallulah’s well-known status as a libertine.

The Bankhead Springs Hotel, built around 1920, provided glamorous accommodations, and for a little extra money, one could get a rental cabin. The hotel is still standing, serving as a roadside store.

The Bankhead Springs Hotel apparently has an interesting history, although I was unable to confirm its history from any source other than an online blog similar to mine. Apparently the hotel closed for a decade, with the story being that the owner simply disappeared one day and was never heard from again. Police found room doors open, beds made, kitchen and dining area clean and set for the next meal, and no sign of robbery or violence. There was a bank fund to pay the property tax so the hotel doors were locked and the hotel left undisturbed. When the property tax fund ran out, the county seized the property for back taxes.

Many of the rental cabins still stand, too, although just barely. I don’t think anyone will be renting any of them any time soon.

Silly bird

Considering that I got started in photography in 1966, one might think that I would know everything there is to know about photograph. As someone more famous than me said several times: “Wrong, bison breath!”

Computers have turned the world of photography upside down, so when digital photography came along, some old dogs had to learn new tricks.

One of those new tricks is the burst mode. My Canon 760D is capable of taking 5 pictures per second, and that’s on the low end of digital cameras. I’ve read reviews of cameras taking 60 pictures per second, which is on the order of quality video without actually being video.

I have been playing around with the burst mode on my camera using my new Tamron 150-600mm lens since it allows me to get so much closer to wildlife.

Today, at the San Diego Zoo, the Great White Pelicans were preening themselves. Watching that is kind of like watching cats groom themselves. I could sit there all day long and just watch.

I got quite a few funny pictures of these pelicans preening. This is one of the best: