Hikes & Walks – Mistry family site

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 👍🏼👍🏼❤️

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 🥧👍🏼❤️

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 ❤️👍🏼

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 ❤️👍🏼

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

South Fortuna trail and flowers…

Mar 15, 2020Mar 16, 2020

Headed off early to Mission trails South Fortuna Trail, and was amazed by the number of cars already parked and people hitting the trails to deal with social distancing for the coronavirus outbreak

Rain over the past few days left the ground a bit soggy, but it was lovely to see some of the flowers beginning to peek out. No California poppies yet, but lots of other bright and brilliant little flowers were blooming along with fields of California daisies.

After completing approximately 6 miles on the Fortuna trail, drove around to the old mission dam, and pulled over to take some pictures of some spectacular road side treasure flowers.

The entire Dam street was jammed with people taking their kids out and going hiking themselves, so headed back for a nice quarantini and soak in hot tub 👍🏼❤️

Our actual 7th Anniversary…!

Mar 2, 2020Mar 2, 2020

So, another 4 years have zoomed by, and it was our actual 7th anniversary this weekend…on a Saturday, just like on 29/2/92…

We had a nice roof-top dinner at a friends on the Thu overlooking Balboa park, with great food and – although the sun had set – views of the city and planes coming in for landing… I made my hummus and the new recipe meatballs – turkey with pork, bread, stock, onion, masala & parmesan – which are coming out great, as well as butter-chicken which everyone loved.

Our friend Lynne had given us a bag of limes from her tree, so we made Lime Marmalade, lime pickles and a pineapple-lime chutney, and salted some cutup limes for another pickle. I’m on the lookout for wild fennel for a new infusion, and hit on the idea of using the iNaturist app to see where recent sightings have been but, so far, have only have old, dry plants…

Fri morning, we headed to Rachelles for lunch with the old ladies that D does her pastel art with – she’s their mascot, and probably the youngest person there (I was one of 2 guys…) Her house up by La Jolla is lovely & eclectic and has a hedge / wall of beautiful ficus trees all round. Then off to our favorite little walk off La Jolla Farms road, where the rabbit and hummingbirds didnt disappoint, and we took pics of D with her glamorous straight hair, posing with various backdrops, and then down to Blacks beach where lots of surfers were out (had to edit her hiking boots out of the pics!)

On Sat, I had laid out the new silver & copper rings I made in the lovely copper enamelled bowls for her to find in the morning, and she gave me a sumi-e painting of the many things we’ve done. She ended up pretty much ignoring the rings, and apparently chose to wear a crappy earlier version of the enameled initial earrings I’d made weeks ago…

We went to the fish market, which was packed, including some politician being filmed shaking hands with the locals… The catch looked great, but we were too chicken to try anything new or exotic… After her meltdown, I dropped her and went to my pottery, where my new pieces had all come out pretty well, and I trimmed the bottoms and also found the rounded vase from the most recent firing

On returning, she was still in a complaining mood, but had made lots of food, including prepping her biriyani… She didn’t know what we were going to be doing so, while helping, I coordinated the ‘surprise’ guests for the evening. Unfortunately the front desk wasn’t staffed well that day, so it made it difficult to arrange – I stashed a box with a bottle of wine, bottle of Rye, plates and forks on the 10th floor for our friends to set up the surprise. Thankfully, Steve and Lynne were game, and while Faisal and Karin came to the apt, the others managed to make their way in with me popping out under the guise of ‘looking for my Amazon delivery’… But, of course, D was too smart and suspected / expected something to be going on… Faisal was nudged into asking to ‘see the roof deck’ so we headed up with drinks.

D saw our guests as she walked around the outside of the building, and made knowing noises indicating she knew something was going on.. Thankfully, they were all very excited, so we took pics, grabbed everything and headed back down to the apt, to munch on D’s delicious samosas, eat hummus and Joe’s excellent rosy red lamb chops – he has been challenged to a ‘poke-off’ as he claimed his is the best…!

The gang liked my homemade gin & anise vodka, the red wine was a hit with Lisa & Steve & I polished off a good amount of the Rittenhouse 100 proof ‘bottled in bond’ Rye, which was excellent…Rajiv had made some delicious soup, and his little niece (?) had a nice time trying everything before he had to leave….

Needless to say, a fun time was had by all, and people were almost too stuffed to make a dent in the delicious biriyani… Lisa demonstrated her red-wine-cleaning-off-the-carpet technique and had lots of good notes to swap with Lynne on many subjects, including jewishness…!

Woke late and groggy the next cloudy day and headed off to the Del Dios Highlands walk.. It was beautful as usual, and the unrelenting steady steep slope had us huffing and puffing to the top. We spoke to our dear friend Ken near the top, eating into his time to check out the ladies at his yoga class. After a good look at the reservoir we headed back, marvelling at how mountain bikers could actually make it up *and* down the same slope we were having trouble walking…

Back to the apt, feeling lazy, had a quick nap and downloaded some movies for D to watch. While I plodded thru my Spanish homework D watched Parasite and announced it was very good…

So… we shall see what the next anniversary brings… Thanks if you managed to read this far! Leave a message…!

Prez Day Wkend 0220

Feb 16, 2020Mar 4, 2020

On the 13th, before Valentines day, we were very happy to see Julie & Kyle who were passing thru to see their son Christian at UCSD LaJolla and then to family party in Riverside… They were treated to some homemade smoked salmon and marmalade – to which they made appropriate positive comments!

So, fast forward to Sun 16th, after Karins ‘4.0 Upgrade’ party – see previous post – and while D treated a patient, I headed up to Balboa Park snapping pics on a crystal blue morning to the SD Mycological Society annual Mushroom event, listening to Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (what an imagination he has!)…

I tasted a couple of the mushroom dishes, and watched a movie trailer along the lines of “How to Change your Mind” by Michael Pollan, and when D joined we took a good look at the various mushrooms, related paraphernalia, salves, tinctures, fridge magnets, t-shirts and paintings of fungis!

Then we made our way to Loma Portal and Stone Brewings ‘Love is Brewing’ wedding event…where D told them we were ‘getting mrried on the 29th’… then advised a young couple on their wedding plans while I sampled the various wedding related food and beer… Then off to the central library to a great concert by the very talented Amber Liao where I actually didnt nod-off… but dear wife did…

After, we shot off towards Gliderport, parked by the Salk and walked down to Blacks beach as the sun burned thru some afternoon cloud… I’m sure its an optical illusion or my imagination, but it feels like more sand has eroded each time i visit 🙁 The beach was beautiful as always, with more than the usual fat old naked guys playing around, so we had a good stroll before heading back up to watch a beautiful sunset, talk to some local USD students, a couple visiting from DC and a tall goth looking woman with blue hair…

Blacks Beach 02022020

Feb 2, 2020Mar 4, 2020

On this palindromic date, headed to Black‘s Beach for the lovely view above the beach in the brilliant sunshine, then walked down to the beach, which was stunning as always, packed with surfers and only one naked guy…

Then back to the apt, and en route, decided to make a cheesy jalapeno dip with special ingredient evaporated milk to tide us over. D prepped her sausage rolls and two apple pies – one with honey crisp apples and one with pink ladies – to take to Steve & Lisa’s for the Superbowl that they’d kindly invited us to… Great time there with Greg & Celine and Lisa’s amazing spread… Shame about the result, but good company, a video call from our Scarsdale friends gathered at Joel’s and great food made it a fun day…

Mission beach & sunset

Jan 22, 2020Jan 23, 2020

Decided to check out Mission Beach today and walk along the beach. The surfers were all out and the waves looked pretty good. The giant rocks along the walkway stretched out into the ocean, and walking along them was fun.

There were some clouds, which made the scene look pretty. Walked along the beach and then back down past the big impressive looking beach houses, and caught the sunset which looked very pretty with a double layer of clouds on the horizon. Also got some nice pictures of a guy silhouetted against the setting sun.

Sunset guy – do you see him? Check out the pics…

The sky after sunset was not as impressive, But still pretty, silhouetted against the palm trees

Then checked out the California native plant society talk at El Prado where they talked about the replantation of the mission beach area and ongoing ecological work.

A quick visit to the basic bar to see the “no batteries needed” exhibition was filled with some nerds doing finger skateboard tricks!