Category Archives: California

Last Dance in San Diego

Our last week in San Diego was filled with the usual activities and then some. I hit the pickleball courts and happy hours at Offshore Tavern and Grill and Dan Diego’s. In addition to getting some writing done, Donna got in some cycling and also attended a beach workout sponsored by San Diego Magazine.

In my last post, I described the dead end I hit trying to change out Sini’s kitchen faucet. After discussing the issue with my friends Mark and Paul – both have earned their living as plumbers their entire adult lifetimes – they came to the same conclusion. I would have to cut the frozen brass nut off of the old faucet with a sawzall reciprocating saw to remove it. I had two problems with this. First – I don’t have a sawzall. Second, I would most likely damage Sini’s sink if I used a sawzall on the faucet nut. I hated to do it, but I had to tell Sini I wouldn’t be able to complete the job.

On Friday night, Donna, Sini and I went to Offshore Tavern and Grill. We were joined by Sini’s friends, Larry and Cindy, who were visiting from Washington. We ordered dinner from the happy hour menu – Sini and Donna went for the poke plate while Larry and Cindy had carne asada tacos. I went for the seared yellowfin tuna – delicious.

Seared yellowfin tuna

We left Offshore around 7pm and headed over to Tio Leo’s – a Mexican restaurant and bar a few miles south of Offshore. We met up with our friends, Carole Sue and Mona, there. It was my night out with the girls.

Carole Sue, Donna, Sini, Mona and me

The Siers Brothers Band was playing at Tio Leo’s. This was the second time we saw this band – we saw them at the end of April at the Beachcomber. This time they had another member – a singer fronting the band – he did a smooth rendition of the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling. They were as good as before – we really enjoyed their performance and I even hit the dance floor with Donna for a couple of songs.

Siers Brothers Band

Steve Siers

Steve Siers and his brother Mark play guitar in the band. They trade off lead and rhythm parts. It was interesting to see their different approach and style of playing. Mark tended to be true to the original recordings and played the lead parts pretty much note for note. Steve was a little more free-form and put his own twist on the solos. It was really evident when they covered Tom Petty’s Last Dance with Mary Jane. Mark also plays hot slide guitar and really cooked on the Allman Brothers One Way Out.

On Saturday, the kitchen faucet saga came to a close. Sini’s current faucet works fine – no leaks or problems – she just wanted to upgrade it. Since I couldn’t get the job done, she decided to wait on replacing it rather than hiring a plumber to do it. Meanwhile, Donna really liked the faucet Sini bought so she decided to buy it from Sini so I could install it in our coach.

I replaced our faucet two years ago but Donna wasn’t entirely happy with the one I put in. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but it was too low and she didn’t like the way the sprayer functioned. The faucet Sini bought was a Delta high-rise pull-down kitchen and bar faucet. I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to remove our faucet since it was only two years old and not corroded.

Our “old” kitchen faucet

Of course I had to deal with a cramped work space, but there was more room than I had in Sini’s cabinet.

Cramped workspace

As I suspected, the threads on the hold down nut weren’t corroded at all and removal was easy.

Clean threads and easy removal

Installing the new faucet was straight forward and I had the job done in less than an hour.

New high-rise pull-down faucet

Donna is happy with her new faucet. She likes the way the sprayer works and the high-rise design gives her more room in the sink. A happy ending to the faucet story. Sini will probably have her faucet changed when she returns here in the fall – she’s spending the summer up in Washington and her coach will be in storage.

The weather has been a mixed bag this week. We had a few showers at the beginning of the week. The pattern has been cloudy mornings with sunshine in the afternoon. The temperature has reached the upper 60s everyday. Today may be a little cooler.

I have a few things to accomplish today. We’re pulling out of here tomorrow so I’ll need to pack the trailer, check tire pressures and put away the tire covers and windshield cover. Tomorrow we’ll drive 90 miles up to Hemet where we’ll check in at Golden Village Palms RV Resort. I got a great rate on a 70′ pull-through site there with our Passport America discount – under $30/night.

 

I Know When I’m Beat

Last weekend’s weather was more like Seattle than San Diego. Saturday morning was cool and cloudy with a mist in the air and a few light rain showers. On the first weekend in May, the Ho’alaule’a festival is held here at De Anza cove on Mission Bay in San Diego. Ho’alaule’a is a Hawaiian cultural festival with free entertainment, boutique vendors and traditional islander workshops.

Donna, Sini and I walked over to the park to check out the festival and also get lunch from the food vendors there. We dodged a few showers and watched some of the performers.

Small stage with musicians and dancers

Large stage with many performers including youngsters dancing

We browsed through the vendor tents and bought lunch at a Guamanian barbeque. We found a concrete picnic table under cover to dine without fear of getting wet.

Sini wanted to change the faucet in her kitchen sink. I had tackled this task in our coach a few years ago and posted about it here. I told Sini I would change out her faucet for her. She ordered a bar type Delta faucet – it’s a high looping faucet. Her current faucet is a Moen.

Moen kitchen faucet

Removing the Moen from our coach was a major pain. While I was visiting with the Bay Park guys at Offshore Tavern and Grill, I mentioned how hard a time I had removing a Moen faucet. One of the guys, Paul, is a plumber. He told me a Moen is a piece of cake if you have the right tool. The thing is, you get the right tool in the box a new Moen faucet comes in – you can’t go to the hardware store and buy one. I told him that was the problem, we weren’t replacing the Moen with a new Moen, we were using a Delta faucet. He said he would loan me the tool and it would be an easy job!

Moen faucet tool

I could see how this tool would make a faucet change easier – it would fit over the hollow stud that held our old faucet in place. Around 1:30pm, I walked over to Sini’s coach to get started. I would be working in a confined space – her sink sits over a small cabinet. The cabinet door opening was barely wide enough for me to get my shoulders through.

Confined work space

As soon as I got under there, I knew I was in trouble. Her Moen faucet is an older model – it isn’t fastened with the small diameter hollow stud. It has a large conduit that houses the water supply lines. This conduit is threaded and has a large brass nut on it to hold the faucet in place. The nut was 1-7/16″ and it’s between the double sink basins.

I tried various pliers and wrenches and couldn’t get a good enough grip on the nut. After an hour and half of struggling, I called my friend, Mark Fredin. Mark has a plumbing business. I told him what I was up against. He said he had a tool that might work. I drove to his place in Clairemont and picked up a couple of tools.

He loaned me a big basin wrench and also some plumbing sockets called tub sockets. They aren’t set up for use with a ratchet, they’re made to slip over a pipe and be turned with a bar or wrench.

Basin wrench

Tub sockets

I thought I was good to go. I was able to get the basin wrench on the nut but couldn’t get enough leverage to break the nut loose. I tried the socket. I got it in place and was able to put a large channel lock plier over the end. I put everything I had into it. I felt the nut move ever so slightly. It turned out that I had moved the entire faucet base escutcheon – the nut was frozen in place. Over the years, it had developed enough corrosion to lock it in place.

Around 4:30pm, I threw in the towel. I hate to admit defeat, but I was done in. All the time I was under the sink with my upper body in the cabinet, I had my left lat (latissimus dorsi) lying across the toe kick of the cabinet. This square edged wood trim was tenderizing the muscle. After reconnecting the water supply lines and walking home, I realized how sore I was. I think it will take heat to get the nut off or maybe it’ll have to be cut off. Cutting risks damaging the sink though and I’m not sure if I’m up to the task.

At 6pm, we walked down to Dave and Shannon’s site for a sunset happy hour. It wasn’t raining but it was windy with a chill in the air. We sat at their picnic table and had snacks. I brought a bottle of Chimay Grand Reserve Belgian Trappist ale. John and Becky were there when Donna, Sini and I arrived. We braved the weather for about an hour before we decided it would be better to relocate to John and Becky’s coach and continue visiting indoors. They have a Newmar Ventana with a roomy floor plan.

Shannon, Dave, Sini, Donna, John and Becky

On Sunday, I woke up sore and bruised on my left side. I watched the Moto GP race from Barcelona, Spain and didn’t accomplish much. I spent the rest of the day reading a book. It was raining all day, so there wasn’t much else to do anyway.

Monday I passed on playing pickleball as I felt like I needed to rest my shoulders. On Monday evening, Mona and Vanessa came by to visit with Donna and Sini. They planned to take a sunset kayak ride on the cove. Mona brought sushi and they sat at our picnic table to snack and visit.

It was cool out – the high on Monday was only 66 degrees – 10 degrees warmer than Sunday was. They ended up having such a good time visiting they were still at the table at sunset – so much for the kayaking.

Donna, Mona, Vanessa and Sini

I’m running late this morning, but I plan to head over to the Pacific Beach Recreation Center for pickleball. It’s cloudy and the forecast calls for another cool day with the temperature in the low 60s.

Is Three Enough?

I made my usual stop at Dan Diego’s Thursday for a cold one with the Bay Park guys. When I was leaving through the alley in back, I saw a medium size bird with a bright red tail land on a utility cable over the alley. It was an African grey parrot! I stopped to shoot a photo but I only got one back lit shot before it flew away.

African grey parrot

African grey parrots are native to equatorial Africa – and they’re grey in color with red tails. They are popular as pets because they have an uncanny ability to mimic human speech. This bird must have been an escapee or released from captivity.

There are a few neighborhoods in San Diego that have flocks of parrots – mostly conures. These birds are also medium size and are mostly green – some have red heads. They’re native to Mexico and Central America. No one knows for sure how they got here, but they’ve been around for decades. Some say they’ve seen wild parrots here since the 1960s.

Donna and Sini went grocery shopping Thursday morning. I arrived back at the coach from the rec center just after they got back. They told me about a fifth-wheel trailer that pulled in ahead of them and they said it looked like it had wood siding – like a wood cabin.

After dinner, we took a walk through the park and found it. It was actually aluminum siding that had been air brushed to look like wood. The person that painted it was definitely an artist – the visual effect was unbelievable. We talked briefly with the owner and asked if I could take pictures.

Air brushed fifth-wheel

The painter put his initials here

MagikShop is the name of the place that painted it

On another subject, I think I have a collector bug. At one time, I collected watches. When Donna bought me a pair of cowboy boots last summer, I soon ended up with three pairs. A couple of months ago, while we were at ViewPoint RV and Golf Resort in Arizona, I decided to buy a folding pocket knife with a locking blade. We were receiving a lot of packages and I had to cut the boxes into smaller pieces to put them in a recycle bin. I was tired of retrieving a box cutter from the trailer every time I had to do it.

A folding pocket knife seemed like the answer. I did a little research online. I didn’t want anything too fancy, just a reasonably priced knife from a reputable company that would hold a decent edge. Pocket knives come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Further, it’s important to know and understand the materials they’re made from. The blade steel type is important as it determines how sharp the edge can be, how easy it is to sharpen the knife and how well it will hold an edge. The other consideration is the material used for the scales – the gripping surface on the handle of the knife.

I looked around a little and found a Spyderco Tenacious on Amazon that fit my wants. It was reasonably priced around $40. The blade steel was 8Cr13MoV – a Chinese steel that sharpens easily and has decent edge retention. The scales were G10 – a synthetic material that’s durable and provides good grip. I ordered it and put it to good use in the following months.

Then I started reading more about knife steel and the Spyderco range of pocket folders. I wanted something a little lighter with better edge retention that would fit in my pocket. I found another folding pocket knife with a locking blade called a Spyderco Delica 4. This one cost twice as much as the first knife I bought due to the quality of the materials. The blade is made from VG-10 steel. This is a Japanese steel formulated for knife blades. The scales are fiberglass reinforced nylon (FRN) for lightness. It’s very light and disappears when clipped in my pocket.

That led me to another one – a Spyderco Chaparral. This is the most expensive of the three and has a blade made from CTS-XHP steel. This steel was developed and is made by an American company – Carpenter Technology Corporation. Many high end knife makers consider CTS-XHP to be the best blade steel currently available. The scales on this knife are carbon fiber. It’s ultra lightweight and thin. The build quality is obvious.

Top to bottom Spyderco Tenacious, Delica 4 and Chaparral

A knife collection doesn’t take much space. But, where does it stop? What’s the point of having a drawer full of pocket knives? I can only use one at a time and I really don’t need a lot of specialty knives. I don’t know – all I needed was something convenient to cut cardboard but now I have three.

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo – a Mexican holiday commemorating the battle of Puebla in 1862 during the Mexican-Franco war. It also happens to be the anniversary of our marriage. Donna and I were married on the fifth day of May in 2006. We always go out to a nice restaurant for dinner on our anniversary.

While we were getting ready to go out, I saw another unusual sight. Someone had put out two small bowls in a vacant RV site. One had some kind of food in it and the other had water. A pair of mallards were dining and drinking there. They seemed very tame.

Mallards dining and drinking

The weather was much cooler. We decided to take an Uber ride to the Cafe Bella Italia in Pacific Beach where I had dinner reservations. As we were in front of the RV park, our Uber driver cancelled and Donna received a message telling her to order another ride. Right about then, Sini drove into the park. She pulled over and got her dog, Ziggy, out of the car and told us to take her car and forget about Uber. Thanks, Sini!

Today we expect a high temperature of 63 degrees – matching yesterday’s high. There’s a 50% chance of rain showers today. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for a 90% chance of rain and a high of only 61 degrees.

 

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

 

 

We’re On for RAGBRAI

Donna returned from her speaking engagement in Gillette, Wyoming late Tuesday night. While she was away she received an email notification that her entry in the Des Moines Register Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) was accepted. As the name implies, this is an annual event that’s taken place since 1973. The routes vary and this year’s route goes from west to east across northern Iowa.

The bike ride takes place July 23rd to July 29th. There are seven overnight stops – the first day begins in Orange City and ends with an overnight stop in Spencer. The total mileage of the ride is 411 miles, ending in Lansing, Iowa on the banks of the Mississippi River. Each day’s stage will be 50 to 73 miles. Most of us think of Iowa as flat land – it’s really rolling plains and this year’s bike route has plenty of climbs – the total climb is 13,078 feet. Of course Donna won’t gain 13,000+ feet in elevation – the rolling terrain means it’s mostly short climbs followed by a descent.

Our plan is to make our way to Iowa after our granddaughter’s high school graduation in June. We’ll meet up with our friend’s, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess) and a few other RV couples that make up the team. Our plan is for me to caravan with the other RVs to the overnight stop towns while Donna rides.

Last weekend, before Donna rode her bike to Cabrillo National Monument, I outfitted it with lights. She doesn’t ride after dark, but these lights help make her more visible to cars. I bought a set of Blitzu Gator 390 rechargable LED lights. These lights can be set up to vary the brightness and also have a setting to flash on and off. I set up her headlight and tail light to flash. We’ve seen a lot of bicyclists in the area with blinking lights and they definitely stand out.

When Donna and I first met, it was through a bicycle club. We would go on the Saturday morning club ride – along with about 100 other people – and ride together. Usually the riders would break up into smaller groups with similar pace and abilities. We often rode 40 or 50 miles. Nowadays, I’m feeling the effects of the toll my body has taken over the years. I’ve had three shoulder surgeries, a neck dissection and a fractured C7 vertebrae along with a steel plate in my right collarbone. Riding 50 miles a day is no longer in the cards for me. I get neck cramps and sore shoulders.

It’s been a while since I’ve been out on my carbon fiber Orbea road bike. When I ride I usually keep it down to an hour or so on my Specialized Crave mountain bike. Maybe I should consider selling my road bike.

Last night Donna made a new dish. It was a Korean Beef dish made with grass fed ground beef that our friend Sara Graff gave us a while back. Served over rice with steamed broccoli, it was delicious!

Korean beef

The temperatures have been in the mid to upper 70s this week. Today will be partly cloudy and cooler – around 70 degrees. The weekend forecast calls for clouds and cooler weather with a chance of rain on Sunday. I’m going to the rec center for pickleball this morning. Donna is busy at her laptop working on project that’s due tomorrow.

 

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

 

Beachcomber Bar

Sunday was another beach weather day as the temperature reached 84 degrees with clear blue skies. So, that’s what we did – we went to the beach. A little after 2pm, Donna and I went to Sini’s site and all three of us piled into her car for a short drive to Dana Landing. We met Gary Stemple at the Freedom Boat Club ( I posted about the club here).

This time, instead of a wake boarding boat, we took out a center console fishing boat with a 250 horsepower Suzuki outboard motor. Another friend from my school days, Rosemary Neff, joined us and we cruised the bay.

Donna and Sini – Gary at the helm, Rosemary partially hidden

We headed over to Mariner’s Point and picked up another passenger, Lance. Lance is a friend that grew up with Gary’s son. From there, Gary piloted the boat across Quivera Basin and out past the jetty to the Pacific Ocean. We took it easy and just puttered around.

Along the way we saw an impressive boat – a 60 Sunreef Power Meow. It’s a dual engine catamaran design with a length of 60 feet and a beam of more than 27 feet. It has a range of 3,000 nautical miles!

Sunreef Power Meow

Catamaran hull design

We cruised back across Mariner’s Basin and beached the boat near the Bayside Walk at San Gabriel Place. We set the anchor in the sandy beach and disembarked. It was a short walk to the Beachcomber Bar on Mission Boulevard. We snagged the last remaining table and ordered a round of drinks and talked while we waited for the Stiers Brothers band to set up.

While they were setting up, I talked to one of the guitar players – there are two guitarists – they’re brothers and both play excellent rhythm and lead guitar. I asked him if it was the same band that played in the area in the ’70s. He said it was more like the ’80s. Then he said unless you mean playing at backyard parties and keggers – we did that in ’70s and moved on to clubs and bars in the ’80s. Yep, that was what I meant and they were still at it.

Stiers Bros

They played a wide variety of music – you can imagine the repertoire they’ve acquired over the years. They still attract a younger crowd – the bar was full of people of all ages.

A younger crowd

Donna and me enjoying the music

Just before the music started, I asked Gary if he had checked the tide tables. He hadn’t. I looked it up on my smartphone. The tide was receding and low tide would be at 6:50pm. It was a little after 4pm. Gary and I went back to the beach and the boat was stuck in the sand. We were able to reset the anchor and push the boat into a little deeper water. I think if we had left it where it was, by the time we left the Beachcomber it would’ve been high and dry and difficult if not impossible to get it off of the beach.

A couple of interesting shirts at the Beachcomber

We left around 6:30pm after the band’s long first set. We had to get the boat gassed up and back to the boat club by 7:30pm. It was a good time on the bay and the band at the Beachcomber was great.

Today Donna is flying to Gillette, Wyoming where she’ll be the keynote speaker at a women’s expo tomorrow. She should be back home late tomorrow night. The forecast calls for clear, sunny skies but cooler weather with the high in the low 70s. I don’t think Donna will enjoy 70 degrees and sunny skies in Gillette. Apparently, they had a foot of snowfall just a few days ago!

 

 

April Beach Weather

I started the weekend in the usual manner – happy hour at Offshore Tavern and Grill. As I was about to leave on the Spyder, a garage door across the alley from me opened and a guy wheeled an old motorcycle out. I pulled into the alley and shot a photo and spoke to him briefly. The bike was a 1952 Triumph Thunderbird in excellent condition. He told me he bought it 50 years ago. The 65-year-old bike looked to be in original condition right down to the canvas saddlebags.

1952 Triumph Thunderbird 650

The weekend brought beach weather. Donna went for a bike ride Saturday morning with our friend, Johanna. They rode out to the Cabrillo National Monument at the end of Point Loma. The round trip was 26 miles.  I took my Specialized Crave mountain bike for a ride to the beach. I saw another interesting vehicle while I was out. I don’t know the story behind it – it was a Cadillac limo with shark fins on top and  teeth and gills painted on the front.

Shark Cadillac limo

The waterfront at Pacific Beach was nearly as crowded as it would be on a summer afternoon. The foot traffic on the boardwalk made bicycling difficult. I shot a couple of photos and headed back along Mission Bay. The bay was also busy but the Bayside Walk path had fewer people and was a nice ride.

Pacific Beach looking northwest toward Crystal Pier

Pacific Beach looking south by the lifeguard tower at the foot of Thomas Street

When I returned, I watched the Formula One qualifying from Sochi, Russia. Later Sini joined us and we had cocktail hour outside.

Sini and Donna enjoying Moscow Mules and snacks

Donna was up early this morning. Her sister, Sheila, picked her up at 7am and they went to Torrey Pines to hike and run on the trails there. I watched the Formula One race while she was out.

The temperature reached 80 degrees Saturday afternoon. Today we’re expecting upper 70s. Our plan is to meet Gary Stemple at the Freedom Boat Club this afternoon and take a boat out on the bay. In the late afternoon, we’ll take the boat to Mariner’s Basin and anchor, then wade ashore to the Beachcomber where the Siers Brothers Band is playing.

California Gas

I’ve become less prolific when it comes to posting to this blog. It isn’t a matter of laziness – well, maybe that’s part of it – it’s because we’ve settled into a routine here in San Diego. It gets monotonous to post about daily activities without variety. Over the last four years, we’ve spent three or four months a year here at Mission Bay RV Resort. The big news this week is Donna’s back! She came home Tuesday night from her visit with her parents in Vermont.

One of the things I’ve noticed when we’re in California is the difference in the gasoline here. Not only is it more expensive than the rest of the country, it’s also a different formulation. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has its own regulations for gasoline formulation. I’ve noticed an increase of fuel consumption of about 15% when we’re in California. This was true with the 300cc four-stroke engine in our Kymco scooter and also holds true with the 998cc four-stroke engine in our Can-Am Spyder.

The CARB regulations are supposed to reduce air pollution. It seems counter-intuitive to me to think burning more fuel reduces pollution. If every vehicle in the state burns 15% more gasoline due to the formulation, that’s a lot of extra fuel being burned. I understand how oxygenate additives can result in more complete combustion thus reducing the amount of unburned hydrocarbon in the exhaust. But I have to wonder about the additional resources required, the additional refining steps for one market only – while the rest of the country utilizes fuel made to federal standards – plus the need for transportation of 15% more fuel and so on. What’s the real overall impact?

About 10 days ago, I made reservations for us to return here in October. I wanted a site for two months. Karen in the office couldn’t find a site I wanted that would be open for two months. I refused to take a couple of the sites available – one would put our bedroom window next to the entrance to rest rooms and another had a large tree that I knew would block satellite TV reception and also results in a large quantity of bird droppings. I settled on site 112 for five weeks then a move to site 117 for the remainder of our stay.

I received an e-mail confirmation for site 112, but I didn’t get one for site 117. The next day I stopped by the office to see if the reservation was made. Karen told me she was having a problem getting the reservation into the system but would continue to work on it. I still didn’t have a confirmation so yesterday I inquired at the office and found out that she had done a lot of work to make site 112 available for us for the entire two-month stay. Yay – no move required. I got the confirmation e-mail in the afternoon.

We usually stay here in the fall and leave in mid-January. We stayed here in May a couple of years ago to attend my daughter’s graduation from Cal-Western School of Law. On Wednesday evening, I shot a photo of the sunset reflected on clouds. As I watched the sunset from the western end of Mission Bay RV Resort, I noticed how far north the sun was compared to the sunset shots I took in the winter months.

The first photo below was taken on December 20th. Notice how the sun is nearly directly over the boat dock at the Campland Marina. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Sunset in December – see the boat dock

The sunset on Wednesday evening, March 26th was far to the north – the boat dock isn’t visible as it’s out of the frame on the left.

Sunset April 26th

The occupancy here at the Mission Bay RV Resort is about as low as we’ve ever seen it. During the Easter week, the park was nearly full. Now about two-thirds of the sites are vacant. Donna met one of our neighbors yesterday. There are two women here in a small Fleetwood Flair – a class A motorhome less than 30 feet long. They have a pet pig onboard! It’s a large potbellied pig.

Zoey the RV Pig

She’s called Zoey the RV Pig and you can find her on Instagram.

Last night Donna made roasted garlic and lemon chicken thighs and served it with sauteed peppers, asparagus, zucchini and onions. Sini joined us for dinner. No frozen pot pies for this guy while Donna’s cooking!

Roasted garlic and lemon chicken and sauteed veggies

I played pickleball four days this week. Donna joined me on Wednesday. Today I’ll pass on the pickleball and run a few errands this morning. The temperatures have been a little cooler this week and humidity unusually high. The forecast calls for low 70s today and the humidity will be near 60%. Tomorrow’s forecast says we’ll see the upper 70s with humidity at a more normal level for the area – less than 40%.

 

Boat Club

We had a fun day on the bay Sunday. My friend from my high school days, Gary Stemple, invited me to go boating. He also said I could bring someone along, so I invited Sini to join us. Sini and I left Mission Bay RV Resort around 12:30pm and drove her car to the Dana Landing Marina which is centrally located on Mission Bay.

We went to the Freedom Boat Club where Gary has a membership. Freedom Boat Club is a boat sharing concept. To join, you pay a one-time membership fee and then pay monthly dues. They have a number of boats – fishing boats, ski boats, pleasure craft, etc. Members have unlimited access to their home fleet of boats – just reserve a boat and go. They have over a hundred locations in  24 states and British Columbia.

Gary and his friend Kirk, who is also a member of the boat club, met us there along with another friend, Howard. We took a boat designed for wake boarding and wake surfing out. Gary and Kirk are both experienced at wake surfing. The boat was an inboard design with a specially shaped hull and ballast tanks to enhance the wake it makes. There were two tanks, one on the starboard side and one on the port side.

Surfers use either a conventional stance with their left foot forward or what’s called a goofy foot stance with the right foot forward. Conventional surfers prefer to ride the wake on the left side of the boat. To enhance the left side wake, Kirk filled the left ballast tank with water as we cruised out on the bay. A pump filled the tank with bay water. This made the boat list to the left and created a wave-like wake on the left side. He also had us shift our positions in the boat to get the wake shape right.

The speed of the boat is a critical factor and the driver has to be precise with the speed. Kirk piloted the boat while Gary surfed and Gary drove while Kirk surfed. They set their speed to the tenth of a mile per hour – we usually ran around 10.5 to 10.9 mph.

Gary went first and started with the board on the fan tail of the boat. As we got up to speed, he put his weight to the rear of the board and slid off into the wake holding a short ski rope.

Gary getting started

Once the wake developed its shape, Gary shifted his weight on the board until he found the sweet spot, riding the wake and putting slack in the rope. Then he tossed the rope to me at the back of the boat and surfed the wake.

Surfing the wake

The water on the bay between Fiesta Island and Ski Island was choppy from all of the watercraft in the area. Gary was working hard to stay up on the board. After a while, we decided to move to another spot. We went to the area called Sail Bay and the water was smoother there. However, there were many sailboats, some participating in a race and we had to stay clear of them. The sailboats had the right of way.

Sailboats on the bay

They had an easier time wake surfing there and had some good rides. Sini and I passed on the opportunity to try out wake surfing – maybe if it was warmer and the water smoother we would give it a go. As it was, I was sure I would be cold and barely able to stay up on the board.

Kirk getting a good ride

Around 3:30pm, we quit wake surfing and took a leisurely cruise back to the marina. Boating is always a good time even if we’re just cruising the bay.

Sea World viewed from the water

Sini enjoying the sun and the boat ride

When I arrived back at home, I realized I was hungry. I ordered a pizza from Woodstock’s Pizza in Pacific Beach and it was delivered about half an hour later. I had an early dinner. I paired the pizza with an IPA from Stone that’s brewed with crushed tangerines and a touch of pineapple. It was tasty.

Stone Tangerine Express IPA

Yesterday’s high temperature only reached 71 degrees. The forecast calls for the upper 60s today. I’ll head over to the Ocean Beach Recreation Center and get some exercise on the pickleball courts.

Cadman Park Gang

I took a break from pickleball on Friday and took care of a few domestic chores. First of all, I dumped and flushed our holding tanks. I usually do this once a week when we’re on full hook-ups. Then I took care of house cleaning. Donna often says that when you live in 300 square feet of space, everywhere is a high traffic area. High traffic areas require frequent cleaning. I also cleaned out the shower drain and had the place ship-shape by noon.

My next task was adjusting the parking brake on the Spyder. As the brake pads wear and the parking brake cable stretches, it goes out of adjustment. With too much slack in the cable, it becomes difficult to get the brake to release once it’s applied. The procedure calls for tightening the adjusters until the brake applies, then backing off the adjustment lock nut four and a half turns. Sounds precise but it’s really only a guideline. It’s more of a trial and error process until you get it right.

Friday afternoon was warm – the temperature reached 84 degrees. Around 3pm, I rode the Spyder to CVS in Pacific Beach to pick up a couple of items. Although CVS is only a few miles from Mission Bay RV Resort, it was a tough ride. Traffic was backed up on Mission Bay Drive and barely moving. Grand Avenue wasn’t much better. It took me about 20 minutes to get to CVS. I planned to go to Offshore Tavern and Grill around 4pm for a cold one with the guys. I could see that getting out of Pacific Beach on Grand Avenue or Garnet Avenue would be slow going.

I took an alternate route that was much longer mileage-wise but ultimately I think it was quicker. I rode south on Ingraham Street to Sea World Drive, then hit Morena Boulevard and continued onward to Offshore Tavern and Grill. With Donna away visiting her parents in Vermont, I decided to take advantage of the happy hour pricing and ordered a poke plate for dinner. Poke (po-KEY) is cubes of sushi grade ahi tuna over chopped cabbage with green onions and Asian dressing. Fried wonton chips and avocado complete the dish. It’s delicious.

Poke plate

Saturday was another warm day with the temperature reaching the mid-80s. As I was getting ready to head over to Cadman Park for a get-together with old friends from my school days, Ozark was taking her usual mid-day nap on her bed attached to the living room window. With abundant sunshine, she needed to shield her eyes while she slept. She does this when it’s bright outside.

Ozark shielding her eyes while she naps

We had about a dozen people show up at Cadman Park. Someone was grilling burgers and we had snacks out. We stood around and talked over a couple of beers.

Some of the gang at Cadman Park

There were some people I haven’t seen in a few years and there were some I haven’t seen in decades – Mike McMahon, J D Mincey and John Drake. A little after 3pm, we moved the venue to the patio at Offshore Tavern and Grill and a few more people showed up. It was a fun time.

Party on at Offshore

I left before 5pm and came home to watch the Moto GP qualifying and Moto America races from Austin, Texas.

Today we have cooler weather. We may see 70 degrees, but it won’t be any warmer than that. I’m meeting up with Gary Stemple and a few friends at Dana Point around 1pm to go out on his boat for some wake boarding. Sounds like it’ll be another fun afternoon.

 

 

 

Indoor Pickleball

Donna took an Uber ride to the airport early Tuesday morning. She flew to Albany to spend a week with her parents in Bennington, Vermont. I’ve been going to the recreation centers in Ocean Beach (OB) and Pacific Beach (PB) to play pickleball. They play pickleball in OB on Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting at 10am. At the PB rec center they have pickleball on Tuesday and Thursday – again starting at 10am.

I love the game – if you want to learn more about pickleball you can find all of the rules at USAPA.org. Their website also has listings of places to play. While we were at ViewPoint RV and Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona, I played three days a week in a round robin series for players that are 3.0 level and higher. Most of the players in the matches were 3.5 to 4.0 players. Pickleball has a rating system that sets criteria for skill levels ranging from 1.0 – beginner to 5.0 – expert.

Playing with and against higher level players really improved my game. My tactics and shot selection improved and team strategy developed. We played on outdoor courts. Here in San Diego, I play on indoor courts at the recreation centers.

As my skills have improved, I see a bigger difference in the outdoor game versus the indoor game. Outdoors you play with a ball designed for outdoor use. It has smaller holes than an indoor ball to minimize the effect of wind. It’s made of a harder material to cope with a paved court surface and it bounces higher than an indoor ball. Maybe it’s just a matter of the players’ skill I was playing with in Arizona, but it seems to me that the outdoor game is played with more finesse.

The usual strategy is to hit the serve deep, the returning player hits a deep return and immediately moves forward. The first two hits must bounce before they can be returned – then the ball can be struck in the air before it bounces as long as the player hitting the ball is at least seven feet back from the net. So, the best third shot is usually a drop shot that hits the opposing court less than seven feet past the net. What often follows is a “dink” game where each team hits the ball softly trying to keep it low and within seven feet of the net. Sooner or later someone makes a mistake and hits the ball too high or hard and the opponent pounces on the mistake.

Here in San Diego playing on indoor courts I find the game is played differently. The indoor balls have larger holes in them and are softer. They can be hit much harder without flying out of control. There’s also no wind to to adjust for. Most games feature very little dinking, it’s more of a slam fest. I’ve had to adjust my style of play, but I have to say I prefer the finesse of the outdoor game to the slam and jam style played here.

When I went to the PB rec center on Tuesday morning, I noticed a difference. It was brighter inside. They had sanded and refinished the flooring – the new finish was much lighter than the color of the previous finish. The old darker flooring contributed to the poor lighting making it difficult to see the ball – especially on the court on the north end of the floor. The new floor color reflects much more light – this is good and bad. The additional light makes it easier to see the ball when it’s in flight or coming off your opponent’s paddle – this is good. However, sometimes you can lose sight of the ball when it bounces or passes low over glare spots on the shiny floor.

New lighter, shiny floor – notice the glare spots

At the end of the game, it’s the same for everyone – the glare is hard for both sides. Outdoors you have to contend with the sun and wind and sometimes it’s worse on one side of the court.

Other than playing two and half hours of pickleball daily, I haven’t done anything too exciting this week. Tuesday morning, I was checking our batteries. For some reason our chassis batteries don’t receive a maintenance charge from the Echo Charger intermittently. I haven’t been able to pinpoint the cause – it happens every now and then. I put a trickle charger on the two 12-volt chassis batteries when the Echo Charger isn’t keeping them fully charged.

After I hooked up the trickle charger, I straightened up and did it again – bang. I hit my head on the bedroom slide out. Donna keeps saying I need to put foam protector over the sharp slide edge. I tried using a foam tube that’s made for pipe insulation, but I couldn’t keep it in place when the wind picked up. I need to figure out a way. I don’t want to tape it on, the adhesive wouldn’t be good for the paint.

Bang – I did it again

The weather has been beautiful – high temperatures around 70 with partly cloudy skies. The humidity over the past couple of days has been higher than usual. It’s gotten up to 60 or 70 percent. After months of dry desert climate with humidity levels around 15 percent, this feels extremely humid to me.