Oh? That
tidbit was announced on the local Orange County TV news at the end of January. Who knew?
My young granddaughters did, “Oh the rattlesnakes cross the Santa Monica
Mountains hiking trails all the time, grandma.”
Remind me to stay off the mountain trails. Apparently the normal rattlesnake season runs
from April through October… Add to that
bears in the backyards in Pasadena and mountain lions routinely crossing the
101 and you have an altogether different picture of paradise.
But paradise it has been this winter. We enjoyed the
warm southern California weather for two months while our neighbors have been
enduring one of the worst winters on record.
I felt really guilty about that, at least until the rattlesnake warning.
All good things come to an end and we have been back
in the frozen tundra for a week. I can
take a joke with the best of them but when are they going to roll up the snow
and cart is away? Yesterday it reached the 50s for the first time since early
December. Much of the snow cover melted
but not to fear, 4 to 8 inches are predicted for tonight! I cannot complain because it was an unbelievably
awful winter in the Midwest and we missed much of it.
On to more pleasant memories, our California
vacation was wonderful. We were able to
spend a great deal of time with the granddaughters who are a miracle. Weekly dinners, occasional sleepovers and
special trips remind me just how lucky we are.
The girls rope me into reading to them, although I expect that they read
far better than I. The latest series I
found was the Dear Know-It-All books about a junior high journalist and her
friends. The situations and solutions presented
are real, relevant, and rational. I
would recommend the series for young girls nine to twelve. I may need to load some of the earlier books
onto my Nexus 7 because they are not all in print now.
What of our California adventure this year? We spent most of our time in Santa Monica
again but were able to get down to Orange County for a couple of days. Some of my favorite SoCal restaurants are the
Sherman Gardens and Library Restaurant (Corona del Mar), Auld Dubliner
(Tustin), Thyme Café and the Urth Cafe (Santa Monica), and C & O Cucina
(Venice). We also visited the Observatory in Griffith Park which is a great
place to take yourself or your kids because the displays are very fine and the
docents knowledgeable. Their sky show is
OK, I’ve seen better. The Observatory is free except for the sky show. We also
went to see Cirque de Soleil’s Totem—very
enjoyable. Most of our time was spent at
the beach, usually reading on a park bench and watching the sail boats.
I fulfilled my
long held desire to visit the Central Coast and was not disappointed. After a nice lunch at the wonderful Mexican restaurant, Cielito, in Santa Barbara we drove
north on scenic highways 1 and 101 to San Luis Obispo, a small city about three and a half hours from Santa Monica. The area we visited, from Santa Maria to San Simeon, has much to recommend. In San Luis Obispo we visited the historical part of town near the small downtown area, a variety of shops, the Mission, and their Carnegie Library Muesum.
The restaurants in SLO (as they like to be called) are very nice. If you like beef a trip to Tahoe Joe’s is in
order; for Italian try the Upper Crust Trattoria which is in a strip mall, but the food
and décor are first rate. Lunch at the
Apple Farm Restaurant will delight you with good home cooking and a visit to nearby Morro
Bay requires a stop at Rose’s Landing for seafood chowder as well as a view of the
harbor seals as they swim by.
Morrow Bay was relatively quiet in February, but I
expect it is much busier in the summer.
The Central Coast State Park Museum in Morro Bay is really worth the
stop. The interactive displays are educational for adults and children and be
sure to see the minke whale skeleton on the very breezy balcony. The Park’s golf course looked challenging; the
boat rental tempting. There are other
state parks nearby as well as a large salt marsh. However the really nice part of the SLO area
is the people who are just like your neighbors and friends back home. They are eager to share a recipe, offer
directions or suggestions, or just chat with you. I hope we can return to this area and check
out nearby towns because it is a great place (read, SANER than LA or Southern California). I wouldn’t mind living
there either…
After a week home, the memories begin to fade. The unpacking is finished; loads of laundry
done; maps and brochures stored away for next year. I voted in the primary today. (Early voting
is very popular in our household.) We
attended one of the lectures at the Institute for Continued Learning at
Roosevelt University and have another scheduled for this Friday. The Spring semester begins soon. Plans for Easter begin to emerge. One thing for certain, there will be no
rattlesnakes at the egg hunt!
