Mission San Luis Rey

The first three photos are in the gardens of the Self Realization Fellowship in Encinitas. Don’t worry, we didn’t have to join in order to see the gardens. The rest are at the historic mission in Oceanside. Really, really cool.

Early Spring

I debated whether or not those of you still in the icy throes of winter would appreciate this, or whether it would upset you too much. This is our first nasturtium of the season–a volunteer growth left over from last year’s(?) crop, which suddenly started taking over our planter (and our plant trash bin) a few weeks ago. I also tried to snap a photo of the leaf buds opening on our little fig tree, but they didn’t turn out. I’ll try again another time. Take heart, those of you still in winter, spring is coming to you, too (just in another month or so).

January 20, 2009

After watching the inauguration this morning, it feels a bit like I’ve taken a rubber band off my head that’s been there for the last eight years. How strange it will be to have a president that doesn’t make me cringe and turn away whenever I see him on the television or hear him on the radio.

We’ve just returned from a quick trip to Oregon to make up for missing Christmas on account of the weather. We had three full beautiful days in Oregon, and half of another beautiful day yesterday before we came back. Except for the first day, which was foggy, it was clear and cold and lovely for our entire trip. We spent some time clearing storm damage to the trees and walking around taking photographs. I also scanned a few images from the family photo archives. The first one is a photo of my grandmother and her brother, the other two are some random photos of me around two years of age.

Yup, that’s a teddy bear and a chicken, too. I like this photo because they look like lost urchins in some kind of migrant worker shantytown.

Here I am concentrating very hard on a truck. I still get that look sometimes.

This one didn’t scan or clean up too well, so I got a bit creative with the editing. I like it because I appear to be just accidentally flopping through the edge of the photo, looking somewhat tragic and harried.

Hey Baby, Come Here Often?

I took a loooong walk downtown today and took some pictures at the Maritime Museum, which has a bunch of tall ships and other historic ships/boats at anchor right along the harbor. I’m not a huge ship nut, but I think they’re very cool. This is the figurehead of the Star of India. I took a bunch of photos, but only liked a few, which I posted to my Flickr account. It was a lovely walk down through Balboa Park, then through downtown to the harbor. I really like living in a place where a long walk on January 3rd is possible without arctic-level layerage and the threat of frostbite. Been there, done that, not doin’ it again.

Strangers on a Train

Everyone should take a ride on a train.  As gas and airline ticket prices continue to rise, a whole bunch more folks are probably going to have to.  My wife and I recently made the journey from San Diego, California to Salem, Oregon by train for the first time to save some money on airfare and to experience another mode of travel from our conventional car and plane trips.  It was an eye-opening experience in more ways than one.  

A trip by train is like taking a walk through your neighborhood only through the back alleys.  Instead of the slick, presentable fronts of things, you see the back sides, the hidden parts, the garbage cans and back yards and all the places that are supposed to kept away from the public gaze.  While it can be a bit depressing at times, it is also stimulating and exciting to see the world from an entirely different angle. As you flash past, you catch glimpses and snippets of life; poignant vignettes that seem almost too choreographed or staged to be real.

Things we saw and jotted down include: a group of orange-vest-clad road construction workers standing in a circle doing morning stretches and calisthenics; an abandoned orange grove, complete with run-down

tarpaper shacks; a solitary black umbrella, opened and upended in an empty parking lot; rows of abandoned(?) migrant workers’ clapboard cabins; old moss-covered highway bridges spanning steep gorges side-by-side with slick new giant freeway bridges; a driftwood lean-to on a beach; the cluttered back lot of a pottery manufactory, with stacks of pots that defied both imagination and gravity, and all of it framed by the window of the train and filtered through the gauzy film on the window.  Couple all that with the fact that mild sleep deprivation seems to be built-in to the experience (at least if you travel in coach), and the experience can be exceedingly surreal.

And, of course, our fellow passengers provided no lack of entertainment.  There was the black-leather-and-metal-studs-clad young woman who managed to bring a dog on board, and the older gentleman in a white t-shirt, which had been laundered nearly to the point of transparency, and whom we were fortunate enough to have lunch with (try eating your tuna sandwich while staring across the table at unavoidably-apparent man bosoms).  There was also a growling beast-child somewhere near the rear of our car, who provided an endless source of entertainment by uttering her ghastly noises at just the right moment.  And then there were the people who sat just behind us for the last leg of the trip, who I might seriously have considered murdering if I’d had just a little less sleep. No jury in the world would have convicted me, I’m sure of it.  Enough said.

As we talked about our trip, my wife and I decided that, although we genuinely did enjoy much of it, we will probably not make this specific trip again, if we can help it.  I expect we will both be riding trains again, but our experience taught us that long-distance rail travel has a long way to go in this country before a lot of people will consider it seriously as an alternative to driving or flying.  As it stands now, the system seems not only underfunded and understaffed, but also suffers from a lack of organization and user-friendliness.  If more people are going to take to the rails, I think the industry is going to need larger infusions of federal support (like in the airline industry), and also a vast expansion of infrastructure–from the trains and rails themselves, to the stations and ticketing systems.  Although we passed through no security checkpoints, were allowed ample carry-ons, and would not have been charged for checked bags–making the trip easier in some ways than flying–we were also four hours late to our destination, arrived on the verge of total exhaustion from lack of sleep, and shelled out the same amount for a sub-par dinner in the dining car as we would have for a good meal in a reasonably-priced restaurant.  As much as we enjoyed our experience, it was also painfully evident that the industry is going to have to change dramatically before people consider train travel as a serious alternative to planes and cars for long-distance travel.  In the process, however, I wonder if something elemental in the nature of a railway journey may be lost.

NOTE: I’m exceedingly pleased with the way the picture at the top of the post turned out.  The shot was mostly accidental.  I don’t even remember what I was trying to take a picture of, but the power poles framed by the window ahead of me looked neat, so I kept the picture.  I’m usually not much one for adding digital effects to pictures, but the sepia coloration really seemed to compliment the feel of the image.