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Torrey Pines Yoga Sunset 🌅

Jun 15, 2020Jun 15, 2020

So, after a very pleasant graduation party for Prinesh, he was able to get back to his video game playing. And we decided to join Karin & other youngsters at the sunset yoga at Torrey pines where Alina was providing the music…

The sun was a couple of hours from setting, paragliders were taking advantage of the breeze and floating around when we arrived. After a longish walk across to the yoga area overlooking the beach, quite a few hip & stylish folks were in the middle of their yoga session, with newcomers arriving, one complete with her baby goat following her.

I walked around the cliff edge taking photos of the phenomenal views and the paragliders (while tactfully concealing my drink 🍸). Times like this bring home to me why it’s so phenomenal living here, as the views were breathtaking.

I spotted a truck with a large lens on a tripod in the bed, and went to investigate. Turned out it was a couple of military guys operating the equipment. When I asked, they said they were looking out for unidentified aircraft in the area! So we joked a little bit about UFOs, and when I asked if I could take photographs of them, they declined, so I only have a picture of the lens they were using.

After the yoga there was music by Alina and it was fun catching up with a couple of folks that we knew.

Events

Prinesh Graduates! 🎓👏🏼🎉 #Caltech2020

Jun 15, 2020Jun 16, 2020

So, just as with the other boys, four years have flashed by, and our youngest son is now a graduate of the California Institute of technology, CalTech!

We had ~40 joining the Zoom from CA, WA, NY, Toronto, London, France, Japan & Australia and a nice cheer and toast when Prinesh’s photo came up and name was announced. We also did a small quiz about him, and his brothers roasted him appropriately, Krishan from New York and Riki super early from Melbourne Australia ❤️❤️

See the summary here: https://youtu.be/P49-u1vJgmY

We didn’t know much about CalTech when he applied in 2016, beyond the name and historic reputation (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-world#survey-answer) but he now joins a select group of ~16,000 students who have graduated CalTech since it got its current name in 1920 (https://archives.caltech.edu/about/fastfacts.html)

As with every other graduate in 2020, the ceremony was held virtually, and poor Prinesh had to spend a whole morning not playing video games so he could Star in the Global zoom call that we organized for the ceremony.

A couple of weeks earlier, he received his cap and gown, and belatedly told us that he had to submit his graduation photo the next day. We had invited our friend Karin over, and decided to find a suitable location nearby and take photos during the “golden hour”. Thankfully, instead of trying to race up to La Jolla, we remembered the Balboa Park Rose 🌹 Garden should be looking pretty nice, and raced up there, with cap and gown and mask, to take lots of photographs as Prinesh blinked and squinted into the setting sun! Karin took some of the prize winning pictures, and Prinesh patiently post with us all in different settings, only looking slightly uncomfortable 😣

Uncategorized

La Jolla Shores and Blacks beach

Jun 9, 2020

Now we have a few mornings that are not so grey, I went early to LaJolla Farms Road and walked down to the beach, and then back up the Scripps oceanography Institute, and then another day back up via Gliderport.

The days were clear and beautiful, with the usual surfers making the steep trip down to the beach, and I was surprised at how flat and level the beach is at lower tide. The sun coming up over the cliffs was just spectacular and as usual very photogenic ❤️❤️

The trip along the beach to Gliderport was equally unbelievable with the tide out at least 100 yards exposing flat and even Sandy Beach

Uncategorized

George Floyd protests downtown

Jun 9, 2020

As the terrible news about George Floyd sparks protests around the world, San Diego protesters have generally been peaceful and numerous, but police headquarters is sealed off one block all around with lots of cops hanging out outside

I took a walk downtown around police HQ, and along Broadway, and took pictures of all the businesses that have put up plywood in preparation for any trouble. It was a pretty surreal sight to see groups of protesters coming back from various rallies, as well as creative things going on, including spray painting of murals, and broadcasting music.

Definitely disturbing to see armed soldiers outside the halls of justice, although they were more interested in chatting with pretty girls walking by. Unbelievable that this is America 2020.

Hikes & Walks

Los Peñasquitos creek walk

May 25, 2020May 27, 2020

I wanted to check out the Peñasquitos creek falls from a different direction to the one we usually took, so headed to the main part of the park to the east. The car park was pretty full, and it was a nice sunny day as we headed into the walk.

The first beautiful sight was crossing the creek on stones sheltered by lots of large trees overhead, and over a wooden walkway after which the path loosely followed the creek

There were lots of mature trees growing alongside the creek, creating lovely shaded areas where the water ripple through or pooled went deeper. We took the walking path, as others went down the cycling path, and tried to find each opportunity to be at the creek bank to watch the splashes and ripples of the water, which we have – like the locals – come to love in this dry landscape.

The winding path, water, trees, and flowers were just beautiful as we continue to walk, with poor D getting tired as we got closer to the falls.

On one walkway across the Creek, I tried to get a horizontal panorama, from Horizon to Horizon, and asked D to crouch below the camera. She ended up lying down and we had a couple of goes, getting the camera angle straight so her whole body was captured on the photo…

She recognized the walk as we stepped down to the falls where we had crossed over with Krishan’s friend Allen on a lovely walk last year.

The falls had a number of kids who were jumping into the water, sunbathing and chatting, so we took our shoes off and waded in the cool refreshing water

After hanging out, and waiting across with shoes and hands, we walked up the other side and cross cross the creek all the way back to the car, feeling a bit tired as we covered nearly 8 miles in total. But the scenery was well worth while

I texted our friends Steve & Lisa to ask if they were around and we dropped off some of my last marmalade, and had a drink with them sitting in the driveway with D sitting in the car (pretending to be dialed into her art class!)

Then back home where D made her delicious shrimp tacos, and I cooked some pineapple for a pineapple pie 👍🏼👍🏼❤️

Events

Rancho Santa Fe Orange picking and hike

May 25, 2020May 27, 2020

Our friend who runs the point Loma rotary club invited us to orange picking in Rancho Santa Fe for the local food banks. So we drove up to do a short hike first in horse country. The houses were beautiful and sprawling with ranches vineyards and citrus groves everywhere

The initial path of the wildflower walk was deceptively steep going up and then as steep going down into the canyon towards the stream, with beautiful views of all the way down and sounds of the flowing stream below

The path along the river was lovely, with some huge trees that had fallen over lifting their entire route system into the air.

The path climbed up and up the side of the canyon was lovely with lots of wildflowers and birds which twittered away.

Then through several horse ranches where we saw a lovely white horse with a unicorn platted forelock, and cute tiny donkeys

We drove by our friends Greg and Celines house and gave them one of my marmalades, and they gave us six eggs laid that morning! we also dropped a lime marmalade at Seth’s, and drove over to the church where the Rotarians were meeting.

We introduced ourselves and once Karin showed up, the group drove around the corner to the citrus grove which was part of a lovely estate. We thought we would exhaust the supply of oranges quickly, so picked a tree that was heavy with fruit. We filled up three crates, and had only done about 30% of what was on the tree! Hauling the oranges back to the tarp where we washed, dried and bagged them ended up taking a lot longer than the picking itself.

In all, our group of 8-10 probably picked 1500 oranges for the food banks, and we took some for ourselves also!

Then back home for a quick hair trim, soft boiled egg with buttered toasted and D saw Curran for her back. We invited her to stay for dinner and finally had my cornflour chapatis with the remains of the keema, lovely artichokes and my cheesecake/ key lime pie 🥧👍🏼❤️

Hikes & Walks

LaJolla Shores walk…

May 24, 2020May 27, 2020

Decided to check out more of LaJolla figuring that it would be quiet / not busy as we hit end of month 2 of the pandemic lockdown. Alltrials app showed many of the key photo sites and paths through woods, and along the shore.

We parked up from the Oceanographic Institute and walked thru grad student housing with beautiful ocean views… D still going thru her challenging phase, so we were saved by our dear friend Ken calling from NY! ❤️ Finally found one of the many swings dotted around the area and an overlook with some branches arranged around trees to form small meditation shelters 

We walked down the steep roads across a pretty pedestrian bridge to the Chinese themed and concrete oceanographic Institute building and from there down onto the beach. The seafoam was thick at the oceans edge and we walked north to see around the corner towards Black’s Beach. kids were out sunbathing and many others just having their daily walk like us. Then we walked the entire beach, under the pier, past the 20 beautiful ocean front houses and the golf resort, to the giant monstrosity house at the end.

Then, through the narrow alleyway, around the golf resort – passed the house that was hosted on last year’s green homes tour – and back on to the beach to retrace our steps back up through the Scripps Institute and up to the car. Ended up covering 7.2 miles, but it was lovely.

Then back home, where the maintenance guy had replaced the faucet, and I made some delicious turkey keemo with peas ❤️👍🏼

Hikes & Walks

Hiking at Iron Mountain via Ellie Lane

May 18, 2020May 27, 2020

Headed up to Poway on a beautiful Saturday morning and found the car park was jammed, but we managed to find a space.

Setting off at 7:50, through the lovely little tunnel of trees, we passed people who were already coming back from the top! The straight path continue to rise gently, and eventually the crowds send out, and we went past the Iron Mountain turn off.

Time lapse through the tunnel of trees at the start of the hike

I tried to find the Wildwood mountain trail, but it was clearly overgrown, and so after scraping my legs through several bushes, decided to do a complete circuit of the area along Ellie Lane. There were hardly any clouds in the sky, and we went down towards the Ramona overlook, and then went up and up and up to. The view was unbelievable, and lots of bright yellow flowers everywhere.

The overlook with a large group of rock to the left was stunning, and then we continued to hike up to the saddle, Where we had a short rest and met a large sweaty guy whose friends had left him behind! Then the path went down and down and down, eventually into a beautiful copse of trees and towards a pond with reeds all around it

Then back to the start, covering just around 7 miles, but 120 floors climbed. Well worth it and beautiful ❤️👍🏼

Hikes & Walks

Hiking Marian Bear park

May 18, 2020May 27, 2020

We decided to visit Marian Bear park because it is right by a road I like to drive, and recently the flowers have looked amazing from the car.

We parked in a cul-de-sac and hiked down some steps, and along a stream that joined the main hiking path. It was an amazing sight to see all the flowers, birds and rabbits, and to cross the stream a couple of times in places where it was reasonably deep, and covered by huge Live Oak trees that provided beautiful caves of shade.

There were lots of stops where I was busy taking photographs in panorama’s, and D decided to strike some of her yoga poses in the pics.

We hiked about 2.5 miles and turned back to walk on the other side of the stream, which was not as pretty.

Heading back, I avoided looking at the phone, and we just followed the path. Turns out we just kept going, and D was positive in “recognizing“ the path and bridges we walked! When I finally checked the phone and so we were way off, we backtracked and it ended up being over 6 miles altogether.

Beautiful flowers and views all the way alone, with some traffic noise, otherwise amazing

Events

Meeting the tuna boat…

May 13, 2020May 27, 2020

So, I heard the tuna boat was coming in on Wednesday and would be selling to the public early Thursday morning, and wanted to check it out.

So after waking D up early, we drove off into the marine foggy morning and swung around to check out the doc. Turns out a few people were already in the line by 7:15.

So we decided to mask up, hop into the line, and watch the bustling activity on the boat where they chopped up large tuna into pieces and wrappedthem up. Some people wheeled away whole fishes.

We ended up buying 5lbs and raced home to cut into manageable pieces, scoffing some as I cut into pieces! We gave a piece to our friends Lim and Joe, and proceeded to have dinner so Lana, followed by sashimi in the evening and next day.