Starling Travel

When Mike took so many pictures tide-pooling at Swami’s Beach in Encinitas, CA, I took the video camera for a walk for over 45 minutes. I have created a DVD of that walk and it’s available for purchase now.

I created this video for Starling Fitness so you could watch it while walking on a treadmill or riding an exercise bike, but it is also a relaxing vacation in a DVD that you can pop into your player whenever you’re feeling trapped at home.

If you’re dreaming of sandy beaches, this video has it for you!

This video is only a minute and a half, but it gives you an idea of what you will see.

The DVD is 49:13 minutes long. It is shipped via U.S. mail.

Cost: $5 (including shipping and handling in the U.S.)

Order Starling Fitness Walking Videos Here

Last month, Mike and I went to California. Our friends there took us to Old Town. It is a state historical park with antique buildings and shops. I was on a quest for the most beautiful Milagro cross, but I didn’t find it there. Instead, we had a relaxing lunch at El Fandango and listened to the music. Here is a snippet of that day in my life.

There are so many small places that are vying for tourist attention in the noisy tourist haven of Southern California. Sometimes the best time is spent quietly eating tortilla chips and listening to the band in an old building.

Where: Old Town State Historic Park: San Diego Avenue and Twiggs Street San Diego, CA Google Map

Official Websites:

• Old Town San Diego SHP

• El Fandango Restaurant

Lan Bui lives in Orange County, California. The four hour drive from the OC to Las Vegas, Nevada has been condensed into this short, one-minute film.

• Video of the Moment: Orange County to Las Vegas in 1 minute

I love the drive from California to Las Vegas. It’s a quick drive and there is Barstow to stop at along the way. If you are trapped at work, take the minute to download this video and enjoy it.

One of the highlights of our visit to the Swami’s Beach tide pools was seeing sea slugs in action. They are so well camouflaged, I must have looked at them for ten minutes before I knew they were there. Here is a short collage of video clips I took with my digital camera. It may look like seaweed moving in the current, but trust me, there’s a sea slug in there. At the end you can see him turn his mouth toward the camera and begin to eat a leaf of seaweed.

Previously:

• Swami’s Beach, CA: Tide Pool Watching

• How-To Guide For Tide Pools

• Starling Travel » Swami’s Beach, CA: Tide Pool Video

Every time we visit San Diego, we spend a day at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, a huge wildlife preserve 35 miles north of the Zoo. This park is like the opposite of a zoo—the animals are roaming through wide open spaces, while humans are confined to limited fenced areas.

Every year in spring they have thousands of butterflies in the Hidden Jungle, a large walk-through greenhouse. It’s certainly the most butterflies we’ve ever seen in one place—they even land on people. Here are a few of the many photos we took of these beautiful insects.

The annual Butterflies event ended May 7th. Be sure to catch it next year—it’s well worth waiting in line.

• Address: 15500 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido, CA
• Park Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m

I didn’t know tide pools were anything but interactive spots at Sea World and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You know… you go to the aquarium and the tide pool is the spot where they let you touch the starfish and sea cucumbers, right?

Wrong.

Our friends live in Cardiff By The Sea and they were eager to tell us about the joys of tide pools. They are spots on the ocean that hold water even at low tide. Sea creatures hide out in them until the tide comes back. You can actually go into the REAL world and see local sea life. What you see depends on where you are looking. We didn’t see any starfish, but we saw enough wildlife to truly understand the joy of watching the ocean.

We went to Swami’s Beach in Encinitas, California. Here’s the view from the top of the stairs.

When we got closer, these rocky areas were to the north of the staircase.

On the stairs, the city of Encinitas had posted this sign about the wildlife that we might be able to see.

Some of the wildlife isn’t lucky enough to find a tide pool. They become easy targets for birds.

Here are some good examples of tide pools. Look for areas that are like holes in the ground that hold water while the tide is low.

You can look over the side of ledges also.

There was a sort of shimmer to the water. I don’t know if it was some sort of polution or a local ore. It felt like the water was filled with gold.

This shore crab didn’t make it through low tide. He became a dinner for a bird before we left the beach.

We saw so many anemones. Some of them were exposed by the low tide and dried up quickly. These two were safely hidden in the tide pools.

There were many hermit crabs and other shellfish.

Mike was much better at spotting animals than I was. He found this octopus. His head was about two inches long, but if he had spread out his legs, he would have been about seven or eight inches long. He was very shy and hid under the rocky ledge when my shadow passed over the tide pool.

The most excellent find was the sea slugs. They were at least eight inches long and four inches in diameter. They moved slowly under the water, eating the seaweed surrounding and hiding them.

Our trip to the tide pools at Swami’s Beach was an enjoyable and relaxing couple of hours in a busy week. I can’t wait to go back to California to do this again.

For a how-to guide on tide pool watching, see this entry:

• Starling Travel » How-To Guide For Tide Pools

• Starling Travel » Swami’s Beach, CA: Video of a Sea Slug

• Starling Travel » Swami’s Beach, CA: Tide Pool Video

Swami’s Beach, Encinitas, California: Google Map (taken at high tide, so you can’t see the tide pools)

Beach Parking: 5am – 10pm
Beach Use: 4am – 2am
No dogs, alcohol, or glass allowed
Lifeguard Towers Open: 10am – 6pm during the Summer Season (late June to Labor Day)
For more information: 760-633-2740

Nine miles north of Barstow, California the signs on the side of the road point to Calico Ghost Town. Twenty miles north of Barstow, Mike started asking me if we could go to the ghost town.

“Why do you want to go there?” I asked him.

“You can take pictures of broken things.”

“It’s not going to be like a real ghost town.”

“How do you know?”

“Because real ghost towns don’t have billboards.”

“I still want to see it.”

So, we took the exit and drove out to the “ghost town.” Instead of abandoned buildings, Calico Ghost Town was more like Frontierland at Disneyland. The signs said it all:

“Enjoy the Music and Gunfights”

“Shops, Attractions, Food and Gifts”

“$6.00 Adult. $3 Youth. Children under 5 Free!”

Just to drive into the Calico Ghost Town, it would have cost us twelve bucks. We turned the car around and headed back to I-15. Disneyland and the real Frontierland was waiting for us.

Calico Ghost Town Google Map

Calico Ghost Town – Official Website

On the way from San Diego from Las Vegas, we passed lots of motorcycles. Groups of five to eight riders were making their way from California to Vegas. We stopped for gas in Barstow. While Mike gassed up the Beetle, I ran to the bathrooms located outside the store. There was a big sign on the men’s bathroom, “Out of Order.” The women’s bathroom was occupied.

I danced my little “I should have stopped in Victorville” dance while I waited for the women’s bathroom. When the door finally opened a burly biker walked out. He blushed a bright shade of red and jerked his head toward the sign on the men’s bathroom. He bashfully walked away and let me use the bathroom.

He left the toilet seat up.

The first time we drove to San Diego, we took a break in Barstow, California. We were tired and wanting to get to our hotel, but we were many miles away. We stopped at Barstow Station and ate at the Havana Hut inside. The Cuban empanadas were so delicious that we have stopped at Barstow Station every time we’ve driven through ever since.

This time, we took some pictures before we ate so you could enjoy the flaky pastries and beefy goodness with us.

Barstow Station is a tourist trap of the best kind. There are kitschy items to buy, many varieties of food to choose from and a spot to rest when you’re just sick of driving and wish you were in San Diego already.

Even though your gas tank doesn’t need a fill up in Barstow, take a few moments and eat a beef empanada at the Havana Hut in Barstow Station. You’ll thank me for it. I promise.

You are looking at Rhona Quarm and Gavin McDonald. Mike and I met them on our drive to Disneyland. We were gassing up the Beetle in Barstow, California and the two of them had parked their bikes nearby. I noticed their bikes and left Mike pumping gas and walked over to them to hear their story.

They are touring the world on their bicycles. They left their hometown, Perth, Scotland in May of 2005, which means they have been on the road for almost a year. They have bicycled with this flag of Scotland during the entire trip. The tear in the upper right hand corner is where they encountered a bull in India, but the flag has survived.

I asked them how it was to bicycle for that long and Gavin said the most profound thing:

“You can go a long way with bad legs and a good head.”

They are travelling from Perth, Scotland to Perth, Australia and finally ending their journey in Perth, Canada. They aren’t insane. They are living their dream to travel the world on bicycles and they are doing it for charity. You can find out more about their journey at their website.

• Perth2Perth.org – Rhona and Gavin cycle 18000 miles around the world

After talking to Rhona and Gavin, my little drive to Disneyland didn’t seem like such a big adventure anymore. Mike and I excitedly talked about the bike rides we could take around our hometown and the world seemed bigger and friendlier after we said goodbye to them.