Journal Sketch for the Centennial of Naval Aviation

I'm taking an online sketching and watercolor class. The theme is to do "journal" sketching--small vignettes of the world around you. I did one for the Centennial:



I'm always pleased when one of my drawings is actually recognizable as the object it is supposed to be. : )

-- Posted from my iPad!

Centennial of Naval Aviation

On Feb 12th (sorry about the delay), Fred and I visited the Centennial of Naval Aviation Open House at North Island, San Diego, CA.




It was a mob scene. An estimated 70000 people attended. Traffic was stopped dead going over the Coronado Bridge. At least they had a good view of the flyover.




We managed to get in and parked in a relatively short time by heading south of Coronado and then approaching via the Silver Strand instead of trying to cross the bridge. Soon we were parked and visiting the exhibits.




The second largest helicopter in the world, after a Russian copter. The Osprey is supposed to replace this.



We went on board an amphibious assault ship, the Peleliu. The view of San Diego from the ship's deck.




The view of the carrier USS Stennis from the deck of the Peleliu. The Navy top brass were viewing the procedings from the deck of the Stennis.

We had a long warm day of walking and photography. It was fascinating to see all the planes from many different eras of Naval aviation. Many Navy people were there with their families, showing them the planes and ships they work or worked on.

There are more pics from the day on my Picassa album.  Click on it to see the pictures full size and with captions.:


We ended the day at a great "Coffee Shop" in Coronado. I was thinking it was a Starbucks kind of place. But it was more a 50s era restaurant. Think Hot Shoppe (for those who know what that is) meets a diner. It even had a juke box with 45 rpm records (again, for those of you who know what those are) and an old fashioned cash register!
-- Posted from my iPad!

a San Diego Sunrise, Famosa Slough & a German restaurant

This past Friday started very well:




It was supposed to be a gorgeous day, so Fred and I decided to visit a couple of places we'd long wanted to visit but hadn't yet, and one we had.

The first was Famosa Slough. This is one of the birding hotspots in San Diego, and though we'd driven by it many times on the way to Point Loma, we'd never quite figured out how to visit it. Famosa Slough is a 30 acre wetlands owned by the city of San Diego. Note, that's I-8 in the background of the photo. An urban wetlands indeed!


It turns out to be quite easy to get there. There is a trail that goes from one end to the other, more or less, though some of it is along a road, and you have to cross a very busy street to get to the northern part of the Slough. We followed the directions in 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: San Diego

When we go again (and we will), we'll park on the street between the two sections of the Slough; the birding was best in the middle.

Unfortunately, the parking lot was closed due to a special project (but there was plenty of street parking). Fortunately, the project was restoration of parts of the wetland that was silted up and overgrown by non-native plants. The crew was largely comprised of the California Conservation Corps, an organization started in 1976 by then-and-now Governor Jerry Brown as a work program for young people.



We stopped and watched for a bit and chatted with David Kimball, the San Diego Bird Festival guru. He and Jim Peugh, respectively the Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Friends of Famosa Slough, were there to check on the work and also get their boots dirty helping out.

The full accounting of the birding that day will be on my birding blog. It proved to be a great place to bird, as advertised, and a very pleasant oasis in the midst of a busy town.




Here's the far northern end of the Slough:


Fred in front of a cactus and bougainvillea patch. There's been enough rain so that things are in bloom.






We had worked up quite an appetite, so we went to our second stop of the day, the Kaiserhof German restaurant, where we enjoyed a hearty German meal (sauerbraten for me and lamb shank for Fred) that more than made up for the calories we had worked off. It was just barely warm enough to eat outside (with the help of a space heater). Good food, good service. The Kaiserhof is closed on Mondays, usually, but will be open on Valentine's Day. When I asked about people proposing at the restaurant, our waiter said "No, Germans aren't very romantic." (Write the Kaiserhof, not me.)

We decided to put off our planned third stop, to the Ocean Beach pier to look for loons, for another day and take a nap instead.

In San Diego and not a minute too soon!

We had a pleasant flight out to San Diego from Baltimore on Southwest Airlines. Our rowmate was a young mother with a 13 month old boy named Adam. He really was quite good. By far not the worst rowmate we've had. (Did I ever tell you about the woman who was concerned that the change to daylight savings time would cause the earth to wobble on its axis?)

I won't say much about the weather we found when we arrived in San Diego, because I know you don't want to hear it. But a picture is worth a thousand words, they say...




Above, waiting for the rental car shuttle. Below, after picking up the car, we went off to lunch at the Prado in Balboa Park.



The Prado has wonderful fish tacos, I wish I'd taken a picture...but here's a picture of the flan we had for dessert.














And, the view from the condo...


-- Posted from my iPad!