Bill's Blog

March in Vista

Vista and the San Diego area is not full of excitement, but it does have its attractions. One of the best attractions is Balboa Park. We actually drove the 35 miles into San Diego twice to visit the park. The first time was to see all the various cultural exhibits, which include gardens, museums, a grand old organ and dozens of artist galleries. We were lucky enough to catch a rehearsal for the Spreckels organ outdoor theater. We visited several of the gardens and the horticultural display. We walked through an art museum. And we visited dozen of little artist stores and galleries. The same day we came for that visit we went to Old Town San Diego. It is a state park in the center of San Diego, where the city began and San Diegans say California began. There are old buildings, like an early bank that is a museum owned and run by Wells Fargo - but the only bank teller there was an ATM. Both inside and outside the park, there are dozens of good Mexican restaurants and bars. There are also an overwhelming number of vendors geared to selling the tourist everything from real antiques to mementos and all kinds of curios and junk.

We returned to Balboa Park two weeks later to visit the San Diego Zoo. I am not a big lover of zoos, but here we were. It is a very large zoo with every kind of animal. I shot a number of photos and posted them for your viewing. While I do not usually like zoos, I recently saw this movie We Bought a Zoo that I really enjoyed. It was such a great family, feel-good movie. It made me think that I would like to visit the zoo that the movie is based on. Unfortunately that zoo, The Dartmoor Zoo, is located in Devon, England.

One weekend we rode with my cousins, Judy and Mary, to Victorville. We went to visit my aunt Tiny. Tiny is the last of my mother’s siblings. She has been recovering from a stroke for the past eight months. We were happy to see that she is getting better. Although still impaired, her speech was much improved. It was a nice overnight and a good long visit with Mary and Judy and my cousin Steve, who lives in Victorville with Aunt Tiny.

We do enjoy walking. We did not walk as much as we did last year in Texas. We walked some in our Vista neighborhood, which was always a pleasure. The citrus trees completed their annual cycle as all the fruit ripened and was harvested in March. One of our favorite places to walk was the beach. We walked the beaches in La Jolla, Oceanside and Carlsbad. Carlsbad was our favorite place to hike. On one of our last days in San Diego County, we hiked the beach in Carlsbad and once again had some wonderful fish-and-chips at the Harbor Fish Cafe.

Saturday, the last day of March, we headed north. There will be more on that in a few weeks.

A Few Photos from the San Diego Zoo
           

Posted by bill at April 3, 2012 12:38 PM