The San Luis River finally makes it to the sea.

The mouth of the San Luis River is in front of our condo in Oceanside....but in the last two months the river stopped about 50 yards before Ocean. Even though the river was higher than the Ocean, the ocean had built up the sandy beach in front of the mouth of the river, blocking it from flowing to the sea. In the last few weeks, southern California has had it's first rain since summer and finally this week the river carved its way through the sand to the Ocean. What looked like a wide river, now is a narrow fast moving stream as the river has carved a curvy narrow path to the ocean and emptied the large pool of water in front of the condo.

Visit to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley

Down the road from Santa Barbara, is Simi Valley, home of the Reagan Library. The library is a beautiful facility located at the top of a hill which overlooks several valleys and the Ocean. Reagan chose this site just before leaving office. Many saw the library when Reagan passed away. He is buried here. The library includes a section of the Berlin Wall, the history of Ron and Nancy Reagan, and the Airforce One that Reagan used during his term in Office. I highly recommend visiting this library. It is a very moving experience and a fitting tribute to this great President.

Visiting the home of "Psych" ................ (Santa Barbara)

We drove down scenic Highway 101 from San Jose, stopping in Santa Barbara. Marlene is a fan of the TV show "Psych" which is set in Santa Barbara, so she was anxious to see if she could recognize any landmarks seen in the show. Santa Barbara has a huge pier with parking and shopping at the end of the pier. We were surprised to see many oil platforms in the waters off the coast of Santa Barbara. We both thought that oil platforms in California were located much further offshore, out of site from land.

Visit to San Jose

We drove up to San Jose on Saturday to see Jacob, our grandson, and his cousin Eve perform in the final performance of Oliver in downtown San Jose. The play was fantastic. Jacob and Eve are both talented and I am sure we will see them in future plays. We also all ate dinner together at The Old Spaghetti Factory with Gloria's mom "Gloria" and sister Cindy.

We enjoyed seeing Jacob, Emily, Gloria, and Sean. Sean cooked breakfast for the family on Sunday morning. Sean has really taken to cooking now that he has a family to cook for. Too bad he didn't discover this talent when he lived at home.

A brief taste of real winter

Palm Springs is about 2 hours from Oceanside. We decided to drive over this week when the weather cooled down on the beach to the 50's. Palm Springs is inland in the desert, so we took off anticipating some warm weather. We decided to take the cable cars to the top of the mountain that overlooks Palm Springs. In approximately 10 minutes, the car transports you from 1000 ft to over 8000 ft. Due to the recent cold front and rain that moved through, the snowline was at 4000 feet and at the top there was plenty of snow and cold air. There are miles of trails at the top, but the high winds and cold temperatures convinced us that enjoying a nice lunch and panoramic view from the restaurant was right up our alley. The view was spectacular. The cable car travels up (and down) the highest sheer cliff in the US. It was an amazing ride with an amazing view. Enough winter for me. The beach is beckoning!

Whale and Dolphin watching at Dana Point

We found out Tuesday's are 1/2 price on Whale and Dolphin watching at Dana Point. A 2 hour boat ride for $14.50 per person is a super bargain, so we were off to Dana Point. The trip well worth it. We saw multiple pods of white sided dolphins. The dolphins started riding the bow, racing out in front, then returning to the the bow. It was really exciting. We also saw a blue whale, the largest mammal on earth. We will definitely do this again.