The weather guessers do a pretty good job most of the time in San Diego. I have to wonder how hard it could be – if you forecast clear skies and warm temperatures, you’d be right more often than not. Wednesday they had it right as we had beautiful weather. The skies were mostly clear and the temperature topped out at 73 degrees here at Mission Bay.

Donna and I went to the Ocean Beach Recreation Center in the morning to play pickleball. There was a crowd there – we had more than 20 people show up – only 12 can play at a time so we had long waiting periods between games. It took an hour and a half to get four games in. That was too much waiting around for me – we left after the fourth game.

Donna had a whole chicken marinating in a Peruvian chicken marinade. I spatchcocked it before I put it on the Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill. I started it breast side down at 350 degrees for 35 minutes – it was a small four-pound chicken. Then I flipped it over and set the temperature control to high – 450 degrees to finish it and crisp the skin.

Whole chicken hot off the Traeger

Donna served it with roasted Brussel sprouts and garlic smashed potatoes.

Roasted chicken, Brussel sprouts and smashed potatoes

Just before I put the chicken on the grill I walked to the west end of the RV park to catch the sunset. I’ll never get tired of watching the sunset over the bay.

Sunset on the bay

Thursday we were in for another gorgeous day. Clear, sunny skies and the afternoon high reached 83 degrees! I played pickleball at the Pacific Beach Recreation Center while Donna worked on an article that was due on Friday. There were only 12-14 people there so we had very little break time between games on the three courts.

I played for about two hours. In my last game, I was getting tired and starting to make too many mistakes. At one point, the ball was lobbed over my head. I turned to run to the back of the court to return it when my feet got tangled together and I went down hard. I landed on my right shoulder and hip and I’m feeling it today. I’m usually good at rolling with a fall to minimize the impact, but I was tired and maybe I’m not quite as quick as I once was.

In the afternoon, I broke out our Porter-Cable air compressor and plugged it in at our site. Once the reservoir was filled to 150psi, I disconnected it and drove in Sini’s car to the outer lot where our trailer is. The trailer had been sitting there for two and half months and I knew the tires would need to be pumped up to the proper pressure. It’s not unusual for tires to lose pressure over time. Smaller tires lose pressure more quickly due to the small volume of air.

I found the tires to be low by about seven psi. The air hose on my compressor leaks slightly when the hose bends in a certain direction. By the time I got to the trailer, the air compressor dropped from 150 psi to 125 psi. Pumping up the first tire dropped the pressure to about 70 psi. Electricity isn’t available in the outer lot so I had to return to the park to plug the compressor in and fill it again. It took four trips to fill all four tires. I’ll check the tires again before we leave here on January 15th, but I think we’ll be good to go.

The weather guessers said rain would move into the area today. We woke up to the sound of raindrops on the roof of the coach. They get the rain forecast right most of the time too. I imagine it’s pretty easy to see what’s heading this way off the coast. Sometimes weather anomalies occur like when the jet stream dips south or moisture moves up from the Sea of Cortez – but these are pretty easy to detect also.

The forecast calls for rain through Saturday night. We’ll ring in a wet New Year. It’s also supposed to be windy on New Year’s Eve. I hope the New Year’s revelers take care on the road – heavy rain and wind could make it treacherous.

Southern California will close out the year with a wet December. We are well over the average rainfall for the month here in San Diego. I read this morning that the water level of Lake Elsinore is rising for the first time since 2011. This is a good thing.

We don’t have any grand plans for New Year’s Eve. We’ll probably stay in. Donna just brought home some lobster tails and other goodies. Have a safe and happy new year!

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