It’s All About Being Flexible

No, I am not talking about being a contortionist, but rather about being flexible in what we do. In December, we had planned to go cycling in the San Diego area with our cycling buddy, Ed. A couple of days before we were to depart, the wild fires that plagued parts of coastal southern California grew massively, fed by dry hot inland winds blowing towards the coast. When new fires developed just outside San Diego we decided to re-schedule. Fast forward to January, and we flexed that coastal trip into a visit with our friends, Rick and Jan from North Vancouver, who were staying in Oceanside for a couple of weeks. Rain was in the forecast, so we decided a couple of days off the bikes and on foot would be good for us.

We left on a Monday and it started to rain just as we were approaching the coast. We checked into our hotel and walked through a gentle rain shower to Rick and Jan’s place. 

Just as we settled in to enjoy their fire pit at the beach, the rain really picked up. Another change of plans and we were off to enjoy dinner out together. 

With Rick and Jan at their fire pit

It rained heavily through the night, with the storm taking out a power substation leaving our hotel and about 1500 buildings without power for a few hours Tuesday morning. 

Storm coming in, Monday evening 

Tuesday morning, we met Rick and Jan at the train station to head to San Diego. It rained enroute, but most of the day we only had intermittent showers while we walked all around Old Town. It poured while we were in for lunch, then again later in the afternoon when we popped into a brew pub for a beverage. Again, no rain while we walked back to the station, steady rain on the train back to Oceanside, and pouring rain once more through the night. We were pretty impressed that despite getting 3 inches of rain while at the coast, it’s coming and going really had no significant impact on our trip. 

Bird of Paradise blossoms in San Diego

Wednesday morning, however, the news was full of stories about the storm’s impact on some communities.  We looked outside to see that the parking lot across from our hotel was flooded. Terrible mudslides hit San Bernadino and Montecito where the December wild fires, the largest in California’s history, had burned off the vegetation and baked the ground. When these heavy rains fell, the run-off was dramatic, leading to the damaging, and fatal, mudslides. We were relieved that we only had to deal with a temporary power outage! 

Rough water Wednesday morning after the storm

Western Gull on guard duty, Oceanside pier

This passed Sunday, we were invited to join some friends to watch polo at the Eldorado Polo Club. This meant that our usual long Sunday bike ride had to be flexed into a shorter, faster ride so we could get to polo on time. It pays to know people as our hosts knew someone who had a corporate tent that wasn’t booked, so they let Mike and MJ have use of it. We felt like the rich and famous as we comfortably watched the matches from under the shade on an afternoon when the temperature reached over 80F (over 26C).  Oh, and it goes without saying that there was lots of good food to enjoy. 

As long as the ball is inside the red barrier,
it remains in play. The horses can come over the barrier (blue rider #2), so there is about a 10 yard buffer zone
between the barrier and the spectators.

So where’s the flexibility here? Well, a polo field is 300 yards by 160 yards, with an area equivalent to approximately 9 US sized football fields. A couple of weeks ago, we were cycling by and noticed that a massive field lacrosse tournament was being held on the polo fields. I don’t know how many games they had going at once, but there seemed to be lacrosse players as far as the eye could see, with many of the polo fields each converted into multiple lacrosse fields.

Lacrosse tournament. 

Our house, here, has two bedrooms, no den. What is a poor nerd like me to do without a place to have a desk to “work” at? I mean, really, my dad brought home a school desk for me to work at (puzzles, plasticine, colouring, etc.) before I even started school! I was frustrated to have my desk here crammed between the bed and the window in the second bedroom. This was practically making me apoplectic! I tried out all sorts of different room configurations, made little scale drawings with sofa beds, day beds, no beds. Nothing seemed to be the solution I was looking for. Finally, when my sister was here last year, we searched the internet until we found the perfect solution: a Murphy bed that is desk by day, and bed by night. The great news was, that there is a Murphy bed store in the area that can build this model! I was one excited and delighted nerd!!

It was too late in the season to have the piece ordered, built, and installed before we left, so I arranged to have it ready for installation in late November.  Much to my wallet’s relief, the mattress from our existing guest bed fit in the Murphy bed; it was almost too thick, but it fits just fine and makes for a very comfortable bed. 

 It took the boys almost 4 hours to do the installation.

I now have  a study here! I am the happiest nerd I know!!! Just like at home, I share my study with the dogs as that is where they have their beds and stay at night or when we are out. I have my space, the dogs have their space, and Sandy is more than happy to have us out of her space!

The desk stays parallel to the floor through the transition from desk to bed, which takes less than 30 seconds.

Even Rockie has been working on her flexibility. Why wander all the way down the hall to her bed when she can find another space to make herself perfectly comfortable?

So there you have it. Kate and Sandy, and the dogs, working on their flexibility in retirement. I just don’t know why the city works department couldn’t show some flexibility when they were doing a major drainage project that turned part of the road into a rather impressive trench.

Really?!?!?

Winter Hibernation

I have to confess, although we have escaped the rather brutal cold spells that have been visiting most of Canada and the eastern half of the USA, we still seem to have gone into winter hibernation mode. How interesting, that despite the sun, and warmer than usual temperatures in southern California (we are still in shorts every day), the primitive parts of our brains still know it is winter and make one just want to hunker down and conserve energy. Although the days are about two hours longer here than at home, that additional daylight is due to early sunrises; the sun sets early, currently making it dark right around 5PM. That makes for some loonnnnggg evenings, that usually find us in full relax mode watching TV, not our usual activity. Sandy enjoys history of the great wars, and I have discovered the Olympics channel. I don’t want to have to fess up to how much time I have spent watching World Cup competitions in cyclocross, cross-country skiing, biathlon, and speed skating. And don’t even think of disturbing me once the Winter Olympics start in February!!

We hope you had a great Christmas and New Year’s season. We miss spending that time with our families, but are able to share it with wonderful friends we have made here. The season started off with the annual golf cart parade. We won the prize last year when we put lights on ourselves and our bikes and cycled the parade route. Since we now have a golf cart, we decorated it instead. No prize for us this year, but apparently our effort last year inspired the organizers to create a special prize for decoration that was “outside the box.” 

Our entry in the golf cart parade

Our neighbours and good friends, Ron and Joanne, have been volunteering at a local community support charity, the Galilee Center. Just before Christmas, the organization was gifted with 450 bicycles to be given to needy families. There was one catch, they needed help getting them all assembled, so we spent a day helping out. There were bikes of all sizes, and of course each type had to be put together differently.

Working on one of the many bikes we put together

This was a good workout for our old brains! Note the assembly and use instructions for the trikes we put together.

We never did find the spare part mentioned in #2. Hope no one ate it!

The bikes were donated by a retired physician, who has made his fortune as an author. He had an alcoholic father who kept promising to get him a bike, all he ever wanted, but a bike never arrived. He has always felt that every child should be able to have a bike. When he found out that there were only enough bikes for each family to receive one, he and his son wrote out cheques for over $20,000 to make sure every kid gets a bike next year. I think we will be spending more then one day at an assembly table next year!

A few of the bikes

We were out for a ride the day the bikes were given away and saw two trucks go by that were taking some of those bikes to some, no doubt, soon to be very happy kids. That sure brought smiles to our faces!!

Even more bikes.

Christmas day, we went out for our annual Christmas Morning Because We Can bike ride. It was a beautiful sunny day, but with no snow on the mountains, it was really hard to believe it was Christmas.

Ready to ride with Christmas carols playing through the
red wireless speaker on my handle bars

Christmas Day in our neighborhood

While walking the dogs, I finally come across some snowflakes!

After the holiday season, we had some left over eggnog. With a bit of research, I was able to find a recipe for eggnog cupcakes. Needing someone to share them with, we decided to have some friends over for Games and Dessert Night.  After a rousing game of cards, I served up the cupcakes. They were a hit but I did receive feedback that I should have put more icing on them (must have been the rum talking!). If you like cake, eggnog, and rum, you might be interested in the recipe. Let me know and I will send it to you.

Eggnog cupcakes.

This year, we joined our community hiking club and have enjoyed some wonderful desert scenery in some spectacular nearby locations we had not previously explored. Our first hike was in the Painted Canyon, which is aptly named as the rock formations are an amazing variety of different colours including shades of blue, pink, green, black, and beige.

In the Painted Canyon.
Hard to believe the the guy behind us is 83 years old!

The second hike we did with the group was one of the many trails in Indian Canyons. This day, we went through a natural palm oasis before heading out into the desert and lots of hill work.

Kate taking a photo of Sandy as we start the hike

Of course, we have been spending lots of time out on our bikes, and have managed to cycle over 1800km since we arrived in early November. As always, we enjoy trying to figure out what vegetable it growing in the various produce fields we ride by. The other day, cauliflower was being harvested with some of the “rejects” being probably at least a foot in diameter. Usually, the rejects and what gets missed are picked later by volunteers and donated to the local food bank. This year, we have been watching some okra fields. A few weeks ago, they had beautiful yellow blossoms, and now the pods must be getting close to being ready to pick, but so far, we haven’t seen how that is done. I imagine they are picked by hand, and it may not be as back breaking work to harvest them as many of the other crops appears to be.

Need some okra for your gumbo?

That’s it for now. We trust that the New Year is treating you well so far. May 2018 be happy, healthy, and safe for you and those you care about!