TRAVEL: SAND IN SAN DIEGO AT THE DESERT AND BEACH APRIL 2011

My friend Beth hustled back to California to start a new job with the National Wildlife Federation, relocating back to her home outside Yosemite, just in time for an invitation to her long-time friend John's wedding celebration in San Diego.  Coming from Yellowstone and her home in Gardiner, Montana, Beth was essentially driving the American West from Canada to Mexico in a week.  She needed help with that, so she recruited me to assist with the California portion of her road trip.  I am, after all, the Queen of Road Trips and I am always happy to blow off every obligation for a trip in the car to places unknown (and known).  So I booked us into a motel north of San Diego in Encinitas two blocks from the beach and we jumped in the car Kerouac-Style for an eight hour trip south to sun and sand and fish tacos.

After a mostly uneventful drive south (with the exception of a maddening crawl across LA during rush hour where I thought we may petrify), we checked in to the Days Inn Encinitas and headed for Juanita's Taco Shop.  Included on most people's list of the where to find the best fish tacos in San Diego, Juanita's status was well-deserved.  Excellent fish tacos with just the right trimmings (though lettuce is never a substitute for cabbage in the realm of taco creation), we both ordered one too many but ate them anyway.  We consumed too many tacos while tippling Moet & Chandon and viewing the royal wedding in a low-brow/high-brow effort to celebrate Beth's return to California.  Though we were blocks from the beach, I persuaded Beth to take a drive into the desert east of San Diego the next day before evening wedding festivities.  Driving an hour or so we crossed several low mountain ranges to enter the Borrego Valley, home of Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

If you know me, you know how much I love the desert.  If you don't know me, you don't know how much I love the dry crunch under my feet, the spiky and scaly flora and fauna, the alien climate and the alien sightings, the supercool modern architecture, the sheer scale of nighttime sky with stars and the daytime sky with sun-blasted heat.  There's also the dark poet appeal of the wasteland: the desert should always be experienced with a bottle of whiskey, well-worn boots, aviator sunglasses and a sweaty cowboy hat.  Preferably in a muscle car from the 60s or 70s.  Of course we were in a Subaru wearing shorts and sandals, listening to the GPS after a stop at the Starbucks in Encinitas, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of my favorite landscape.  And how lucky were we?  Besides catching the tail-end of the spring wildflower bloom, we were lucky enough to see desert bighorn sheep - a rare occurence in the wilderness of California.

After a short loop through the park, a stop at the visitor center with it's endangered oxymoronic desert pupfish pond, cruising through the desert town of Borrego Springs (where I could easily have my bottle of whiskey next to a motel pool), we sighted the Turkey Inn in Ramona on the way back toward the Pacific.  Another thing I love: turkeys.  Love to eat them, drink them, sight them in the wild and ponder the fact that Benjamin Franklin thought it should be the national bird and I tend to agree.  Turkeys are cool.  Kitschy roadside Americana also tops my list of loves, but I digress.

The wedding celebration for John and Jenny was hosted at the Naked Cafe in Solana Beach, some five miles south of Encinitas.  All the beach towns north of San Diego are clean and beautiful and the Naked Cafe faced the Pacific across the street from Fletcher Cove Beach Park.  The restaurant doesn't serve dinner, so the party was private.  Not only were the food and service swell, but the party was filled with lovely people.  John and Jenny were extremely gracious about my party crashing and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them along with their family and friends.

John, Beth and Michelle at the Naked Cafe

Beth shows off her blingSpending about a minute in Encinitas during the entire stay, we were nevertheless impressed with the town and our proximity to Moonlight State Beach.  The quintessential SoCal beach, Moonlight was crowded with surfers and families, concession rentals, kelp strands and swanky cliffside homes overlooking the ocean.  Next to fish tacos, San Diego is best known for surfing, and Encinitas is home to Hansen Surfboards.  We checked out the surf shop and the beach before heading back to the Sierra Nevada via the 5, the 99 and the Central Valley.

Between the beach and the mountains of California lies the Central Valley, home to the largest agricultural operation in the country, providing 8% of America's agricultural output on only 1% of it's farmland.  Not scenic when compared with California's coast and range, a trip through the Central Valley can educate about California's culinary delights.  A road trip must-see on the culinary tour is the Bravo Farms Cheese Factory ("A Taste of the Valley!") south of Fresno in Traver.  Local cheeses, olive oils, raisins, dates and other California delights await in yet another example of kitschy roadside Americana.  The raw milk Western Sage Cheddar is a true palate pleasure.  We loaded up on California bounty and hit the road home.

Junket Ratings:

Days Inn Encinitas: Junk-O-Rama

Juanita's Fish Tacos: Junk in the Trunk!

Anza Borrego Desert State Park: Junk in the Trunk!

The Naked Cafe: Junk-O-Rama

Hansen's Surf Shop: Junk-O-Rama

Moonlight State Beach: Junk-O-Rama

Bravo Farms Cheese Factory: Junk-O-Rama

Update on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 8:50AM by Michelle Hansen

Apparently the "Surfing Madonna" of Encinitas pictured above was creating quite a stir for the citizens, according to an article in the LA Times.  The artist is a mystery and the artwork is tile mosaic - not paint like I thought originally.  We need more anonymous artwork in this country!

TRAVEL: SAN DIEGO AND LOS ANGELES FEBRUARY 2010

Cabrillo National Monument at Point LomaHeading to San Diego for a business conference in February, I dreamt of warm ocean breezes and fish tacos. Mmmmm fish tacos. Anyway, though the high desert of southern Utah where I live has sunny winters, we had just experienced that spate of storms from the Pacific that drenched California and then soaked us too. A week of cold, rainy weather in the desert is sacrilege. We even endured the Vegas to Barstow to LA drive in the rain. However, my mother-in-law treated me to Shabu Shabu dinner in Rolling Hills on Saturday night which made up for the sad, gray day. Next morning I drove the 405 – the highway I hate the most – to San Diego in the sun. I picked up my friend Steve from the Town & Country Resort and we headed for Cabrillo National Monument before the conference opening reception that evening. Now Steve is somewhat sheltered as he hails from the Great Smoky Mountains, so there was lot of babbling about getting his toes in the ocean. And he even wore bad sandals to facilitate this fetish. I'm vaguely obsessed with my GPS car navigation unit, so I snorted derisively at Steve's 'directions' and Daniel (the British guy who narrates my GPS unit) guided us to Point Loma. Located at the top of the point, Cabrillo makes up for lack of square acreage with access to the Pacific. Stunned by the views through the picture windows of the visitor center onto San Diego harbor, I said to Steve, “How'd you like to work here everyday?”

The timing of our visit coincided with the annual Whale Watching Weekend, though we were thoroughly unsuccessful in our whale-spotting efforts. Wind velocity plays a role in the ability to spot whales, and since Point Loma was the windiest place on the earth that afternoon, we were stymied. Steve tried to salvage the trip by suggesting we speak like pirates for the duration of our visit, but he wasn't any good at it, so we soon lost interest. And then he insisted we visit the military history exhibit (yawn!) to learn about the the Big Gun stationed at the point during WWII that could shoot artillery 28 miles over the ocean. I totally thought he was making that up, so I trailed along to the exhibit and learned the truth – the big gun was real. We saved the best for last by visiting the tide pools, and though we didn't see many critters – chitons, snails and kelp mostly – the eroding seashore was spectacular.

 During the conference week I managed to stuff myself with seafood galore at two restaurants and one rockin' taco shop. King's Fish House serves oysters from the Baja, and Brigantine is a local chain of restaurants operating in San Diego for 30 years. El Zarape in University Center (no website!) serves any manner of sea creature in a taco, and their lobster tacos made my week.

Seafood at Brigantine

Back in sunny Los Angeles, I reunited with Fleabag who spent the week in the care of Bestemor (Norwegian for grandmother) Wenche (my mother-in-law).  I love me some southern California and spending time in San Diego and LA on the same trip was just right.  Much as I love the swanky part of LA (Palos Verdes peninsula) that my in-laws inhabit, after five years of marriage to a native, I realize that I have never been to any other parts of the city - no Santa Monica Pier, no Griffith Observatory, no Venice Beach, no Beverly Hills, no Kogi BBQ truck, and no Getty Center.  Thankfully Wenche is on a mission to remedy my dearth of LA experience. Traveling to the Getty Center on Friday via the hated 405 (ever notice how Californians refer to their highways as "the 405" or "the 110"?  You can always identify someone from California by this peculiar trait), Wenche and I spent a lovely half day perusing the collections in this amazing complex of modern architecture. 

My postcard from the Getty CenterWe viewed masterworks by David, Seurat, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Rubens, Brueghel (Elder and Younger), Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Titian - all the big dogs are here.  I was particularly happy to see Titian's "The Penitent Magdalene" because I have Titian-colored hair after all, and I am always fascinated by paintings of Mary Magdalene.  Several dining options are available, though poor signage helped us miss the actual restaurant, so we sat in the courtyard sun with sandwich, salad and sipped a glass of wine from the food cart. An interesting exhibit on medieval illuminated manuscripts (look it up!) easily trumped an exhibit on the sketching of Renoir and students - kind of a yawner for me.  We couldn't resist the gardens and the gift shop before departing.

Junket Ratings

Cabrillo National Monument: Junk-O-Rama

Town & Country Resort: Jar Jar Junks

King's Fish House: Junk-O-Rama

Brigantine: Junk-O-Rama

El Zarape: Junk in the Trunk!

Getty Center: Junk in the Trunk!