There are Ants in My Pants.... and Everywhere Else

Tuesday, May 31st – Tijuana River Regional Park, San Diego, California - Day 110

We woke up to ants all over the floor of our trailer. They were tiny little ants and they were moving in vey orderly lines all over the trailer floor. We cleaned the whole trailer of ants as thoroughly as we could. Gen prepared a concoction to kill them. The kids went off to play with their friends on the play structure.

Our first stop was the Cabrillo National Monument, next to downtown San Diego. The Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, in 1542, was the first European to set foot on the west coast of the USA and establish a colony. The visitor centre explored the impact on Indigenous populations and the extent of the Spanish efforts to explore the continent. The monument was on a cliff looking over downtown San Diego near the place where he first arrived.

We hiked up to the lighthouse to admire the views. You could walk up almost to the top of the tower and the rooms were as they were when the lighthouse keeper still lived there. On our way out, we saw an aircraft carrier coming into port. It may have been smaller than the full-sized carrier but it still had lots of jets on its deck. Very impressive.

The next spot was La Jolla’s children’s beach. An artificial breakwater was donated to the city by Ellen Browning Scripps to be used as a children’s beach. The seals loved the area for mating and defecating. There were two dozen seals sunning themselves on one side of the beach while we played around on the other side. There has been unsuccessful legal action to get the seals removed and signs advised us to share the beach and not to swim. There were plenty of people swimming. Large waves would break against rocks and water would surge into the cove. We played on the beach and I had a very nice lay down on the blanket.

We wanted a nice meal in San Diego. Gen had scoped out this beachside restaurant, Sea180, on Imperial Beach the night before. There was a date night special and reasonable children’s meal. We drove back to the beach from the day before. After a nice beach side sunset, we had a wonderful meal. Another late night back to the trailer but we had a good time. When we arrived, we saw a few remaining ants, but we thought we had been successful.

Comments

A Desert Forest

Saturday, May 28th – Joshua Tree National Park - North to Joshua Tree National Park - South, California– Day 107 Our campsite was a large open dirt area with some scrub around the outside. In the dark we had managed to park beside the pile of horse poo and shaving. Horses were allowed in this site. Gen stepped in the middle of a pile. The Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre was a five-minute drive away. The town of Joshua Tree was packed with college age millennials communing with nature. There was a market with kombucha, organic greens and a few small tortoises. It was all very pleasant but very busy. The laundromat was at the edge of the market, I charged the devices and did the laundry. Gen bought some produce from a guy loading a truck. I even snuck in to buy some watermelon kombucha. The drive into the park was ten minutes followed by a ten-minute line to show our pass. A quick stop to fill up our water bottles and we were into the park. The amazing thing abo

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 3

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91 Our day was shortening already, our next hike, the Grand View Overlook was closed due to a search and rescue operation. Apparently, falls and accidents happen quite a bit at National Parks; Gen looked up the top ten most dangerous parks and Canyonlands wasn’t there (it was number 12). We got a recommendation to hike the White Rim Overlook trail, a 0.9-mile easy hike. The kids were running out of energy. They made it most of the way and then decided to stop to climb a rock. Gen and I continued the short distance to the canyon edge to see the sights. Canyon after canyon after canyon was what we saw. We stopped to sit and marvel at the scenery as the shadows started to lengthen. On our drive back, we saw the sun set and we stopped at the visitor centre one more time to see the view from just across the road. I couldn’t get enough canyons; I was in love with the park and w

A Desert Forest - Part 4

We finally decided to move to our last destination before the sun set. The Arch Rock Nature trail was next. We reached the parking lot and saw the rocks in the distance, we were debating what we wanted to do. We just started moving and once we did, we found ourselves racing down the trail to the rocks. The kids wanted to play monster and once they started running, everyone else was running as well. We had another poo-mergency with no restroom in sight, the evidence is buried in the desert. There was more climbing on the rocks. We took pictures of the sun setting and took a quick look at the Arch rock before starting back to the car. Gen was behind the wheel, an hour later we were leaving the park’s south entrance. We stopped at the Ranger station to freshen up in the bathroom and fill our water bottles before heading to our campsite. Luckily, the site was the overflow campsite for the park so was minutes from the outside of the park. We

Simnett Travels

Search This Blog