A mellow ride, fish tacos, new Marines, a reading and Dog Beach

We are now fully encamped in the Admiral Baker Campground in San Diego for the next 12 days. It’s actually a small campground co-located with the Navy golf course just north of the city. While the golf course is pretty flat, there are big hills all around us. After enjoying a pleasant night’s sleep and a quick breakfast, Suzanne said, “Let’s go for a bike ride. There’s a park just a couple of miles away. We can drive there in the car and bike from the visitor’s center.” I made a slight error in assuming that she had selected what we call “A Mellow Ride”.  That is one that is easy, flat, scenic, not challenging, not rocky, and altogether appropriate to my sedate, mature manner. We unloaded our bikes, rode down a steep hill to a river crossing and looked up at the trails Suzanne had picked out. I ask you, does that look flat? Fortunately, before we went too far uphill, we met David, a local rider who showed us some beautiful, mellow trails more appropriate to our skill level.  

After our ride (and much-needed showers), we headed for one of my favorite restaurants - Rubio’s, where fish tacos were “invented” in 1983. Suzanne had the grilled ono (Hawaiian for wahoo) and I had lightly battered pollock. (Fishermen’s Fact: the wahoo is one of the most prized food fish, has razor-sharp teeth like a barracuda and is one of the fastest fish in the sea - it can swim at speeds up to 60 miles per hour; compared to the wahoo, my Alaskan pollock is relatively boring, but tasty.) The salsas you see below are picante (very spicy), mild, tomatillo and chipotle. Rubio’s is a San Diego institution; their food is all fresh, made to order and delicious. 

One of the highlights of any service member’s life is graduation from basic training, affectionately known as boot camp. We attended our daughter Susan’s boot camp graduation at Parris Island, South Carolina, 12 years ago, and remember it like it was yesterday. Today we visited the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) here in San Diego; it was the day before graduation for a hundred or so new Marines who were proudly escorting their families and girlfriends around the base. It was exciting to see these young men (women Marine recruits are all trained at Parris Island), all in top physical condition after 13 weeks of training, who had volunteered to serve their country. As we were leaving MCRD, I noticed a sign for the Marine recruiters’ School; commanded by ... are you ready for this? Major STUDLEY, USMC. What a great, appropriate name for a Major of Marines... OOH-RAH!   

Suzanne is happy that we now have good cell phone and Wi-Fi service. Today she was able to give a highly evidential phone reading to someone back in Florida. She is whittling down her waiting list one by one.

Our campground is about 10 miles from the ocean, and we felt obliged to drive out to see the sun set over the Pacific. It’s been 12 years since Suzanne was stationed in Washington State; that’s the last time we saw the Pacific, and it was good to see it again. We parked at Dog Beach, which made Rudy and Gretchen feel very special. Thousands of dog smells to check out! They were happy to be able to sightsee San Diego with us and walked until they were tired and ready for bed.