Archery at UCSD

Turns out UCSD has a free archery range where you can shoot arrows without fear of hitting the neighbor’s cat.

I took Kaiel there at lunch yesterday and we had a great time shooting arrows and even occasionally hitting what we were aiming for.

Tom Colley went with us at lunch and showed us the basics.

Pictures are here :

Archery

San Diego Christmas

Weather has been great this past week in San Diego. Super clear blue skies with light winds. Waves have been a bit on the small side but have been really clean.

Hilights of Christmas Eve were surfing some 1-2 ' waves out front, the petting zoo at the Calvary Chapel and the great dinner with family at Holly and Dave's house.

Petting zoo was interesting. The premise is you put 15 or so small farm animals in a little pen and let kids run around chasing, poking and prodding them. Nice experience for the kids but let's just say I am glad I wasn't brought into this world as a duck.

In search of snow

I light of the fact that it is almost February and Mary and I had not seen snow we decided to head to the local montians for the day. Our first stop was Pine valley where we found an incredible amount of snow 2 years ago.

Well Pine Valley didn't have any snow at all. 2 years ago (pic on left) we couldn't even drive up to the old cabin. Today we didn't have any trouble and didn't even have to lock the hubs.

We drove over to the gate at Deer Park Road to see if we could get through but of course the forest service had it locked.  Deer Park road will take you on a scenic back route that winds all the way up to Mount Laguna from Pine Valley. According to the lady at the forest service I spoke with they had just closed it in anticipation of the wet weather.  Bummer.

We spent a little time hiking around Pine Valley and then zipped up Sunrise Hwy. to find some snow.  On the way up we purchased our "Adventure Pass" which allows you to day park at any of the US National Parks. We decided to get the annual pass since it was only $30 and $5 for an extra pass. Can you say EBay?

We ended up parking at the Mount Laguna side of Deer Park Road, also locked, and hike into the Mount Laguna backcountry. There was around 2-3" of snow and the dogs had a blast.

 

After hiking for a couple hours we drove the LandCruiser back down the mountain and stopped for lunch at Major's Diner in Pine Valley. Decent diner type food and an ecletic mix of weekend bikers, tatooed locals and families. 

All in all we had a great time and Diesel and Sadie loved getting out to run around the wilderness. Sadie even brought back a souvenier which I will call the "Tick from Hell". It took Mary and I 30 minutes and three sets of tweezers to dislodge it from her paw.

 

You can view our photo slideshow of the day here.

 

Govenor backs the 241 toll road extension

In a complete flip-flop our Govenator now is urging the California Coastal Commission to approve the 241 toll road extension through the inland side of San Onofre State Park.  Opponents have argues that this will irreversably harm Trestles by changing the flow of San Mateo Creek, not to mention be a detriment to endangered wildlife.  If you want to help plan on attending the CCC meeting in Oceanside next month. Besides the obvious effect it will have on Trestles and the State Park do you San Diegans really want easier access to San Diego from the northern counties?

Summer is bad enough as it is with all the people coming down from LA/OC. Just say no !

http://www.surfrider.org/savetrestles/blog/

Big Wedesday

Looks like we are suppose to get hit with a pretty big swell tomorrow. They are calling for 8-10' with occasional 15' sets. Unfortunately this is coming from the West and will closeout the spots I like to surf. Still dealing with a pinched nerve in my neck anyway so looks like I will be resigned to taking pictures.  I will be down on our beach at Sea Bluff early since the 5' + high tide should make things pretty interesting. Stay tuned.....

Joshua Tree

We got up early Thursday to drive out to meet Mark Kinsey and his family in Escondido for a trip up to Joushua Tree. This was our first attempt at real rock climbing, unless you count the rock climbing gym as real.

According to Mark and Jeff (his friend we met out there) people come from all over the world to climb the rocks at Joshua Tree. To put it in a perspective that my surfer friend's would understand, Joshua Tree is to rock climbers as  the North Shore of Oahu is to surfers. 

We met some great people out there including this smaller Italian guy from Santa Cruz that we called "Monkey Man". He was free climbing pretty much everything. Nice guy and serious climber. Felt prettly lame trying to muscle my way up the rock while he effortlessly  traversed everything Joshua Tree could throw at him.... and this with no ropes or harness.

The incredible Monkey Man

After a 1/2 day of climbing we all headed over to the group camp site. The temperature was dropping pretty quick so we wanted to get set up at camp. We managed to get a great fire going which really made all the difference. A few of the campers (Kaiel) got a little too close to the fire and melted their shoes. Hard to blame them since the temp was in the mid 20s F.

The next morning it was COOOLD!. Made coffee and watched the water ice up as I poured it into the pot. We quicly started another fire to thaw everybody out and spent the morning bouldering on the rocks around the camp. Mark's friend Jeff and family had to take off so the Kinseys and Barans took an alternate route out of Joshua Tree. Luckily this route was off road and we got to do a little 4-wheeling. Most of the trail you could do in 2 wheel drive but  there were a couple technical sections that were a lot easier in low range.

We found this huge sand hill that the boys just had to slide down, while the parents watched and took pictures. After 2-3 hours we finally hit pavement, jumped on the freeway for the long drive back to San Diego. Great trip and now that we have done a little rock climbing we are anxious to do it again.

Thanks Mark and family !

Check out the photo album here.

Happy Thanksgiving

We drove up to Oceanside this morrning at 7AM so Kaiel and Mary could run in the Oceanside Turkey Trot 5K. The premise is basically that you push your body to its' max early in the day and then don't feel guilty about gorging on Turkey, Stuffig etc. later. When we got up there we met up with Tom, Sue, John Payne , Susan, Ameret, Keith and Sara. Everyone did great. Kaiel actually ran a 22:30 which won him a sushi dinner from Tom. Had he lost to Tom he would have been washing his truck. Thanks Tom!! I must note here that Tom was pushing baby Sienna in the stroller but still managed a decent time.

Later I tried to surf the 1-2' waves out front but this pinched nerve in my neck has basically made it impossible. I am hoping it does not last as long as the last time I went through this. Time to concentrate on running and swimming for a while. Suprisingly swimming doesn't bother my neck which is pretty weird. Surfing on the other hand is sheer agony..

Afterwards we all went over to Dave and Holly's for a great Thanksgiving feast. Had a pretty large crew. As always it is great to get the whole family together. Dave cooked the Turkey in a smoker and it came out fantastic. After dessert we said our goodbyes and headed home to pack for our Anza Borrego trip where we will eat more turkey.

 

 

 

 

Biggest swell of the year

Waves did come in as predicted. Seems most of the spots were too big an/or closed out.  Drove over to J_Street look out to watch the action at Swamis. LOTS of guys out surfing the 6-8' swell.
Occasionally a bigger one would come through leaving everyone scrambling to reach the outside. Saw one guy eat it on the first wave of the set and then take 3 or 4 on the head. Ouch!!...No fun.

Swell is suppose to hang around today and tomorrow and then start to drop for the weekend. Hoping the neck starts to feel better soon.. It is a drag to watch people surf knowing you can't do it.   You can view some of the pictures by clicking the image .

 

Orange County Trek

Kaiel's NSSA Jr. longboard heat was scheduled for 7:30 AM up in Newport Beach. Yuck. That means we had to leave our house in San Diego by 6AM. Hardly seemed fair considering it is a Saturday.

Surf was pretty small but it looked fun for shortboarding. Kaiel got a lot of waves but he is still going up against the 17 and 18 year olds so it was basically an "experience" heat.  

After his heat we stopped for a quick healthy breakfast at Denny's and then we hit up the Etnies Skatepark. The "Skull Bowl" still had a bit of ash covering it from the Santiago fire. Kaiel got tired of getting ash in his eyes and mouth after every run so he decided to sweep it up a bit. He dropped into the deep end of the Skull Bowl today for the first time. Dad still ops for dropping into the shallow end.

 

 

Incredible Sunset

The sunsets have been incredible. The winds are starting to die and the air is clearing just a little bit.

Unfortunately everything is still covered in about 1/2 inch of ash and soot which is all ending up in the ocean. It will take a while until things are back to normal in San Diego. UCSD has been closed for the week and Kaiel's high school has also closed down due to poor air quality.