Category Archives: Travel, Hiking, Adventure!

Meine Wanderungen (My Wandering in Germany)

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Before there were the Angels 2.0, there was the brilliant original version. As I’ve often said, I wasn’t a helicopter mom, I was a drone mom, hovering ever so near…

During his junior year at university, my son signed up for a three-month program in Germany to perfect his language skills.

We discussed it and agreed the better idea would be to take the full year abroad to completely immerse himself in the language and culture. (And that’s totally NOT what a drone mom would do, by the way…)

He stayed in a dorm and went to the UCSD program partner at University of Goettingen.

I visited him for about a week in February of that year. We spent a lot of time walking and and took a couple train rides to the Harz region, including Goslar, a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany,  known for its medieval old town and half-timbered houses. We took the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen, Germany’s famous narrow-gauge steam railway. (That’s another story.)

I brought back some of what that area is known for, a bewitching elixer called Harzgeist. It’s similar to Jagermeister, but more herby and spicy and incredibly delicious. I wish I had some now!

One day, my son said it would be fun to take a hike to visit a nearby castle. He assured me that it was about four hours round-trip, and I believed him because we could see the castle off in the distance.

Somehow we ended up walking through what looked to be a dense forest of mature pine trees. Were we lost? I’m still not sure. When we finally found our way back to the road, I looked up and saw, off in the distance, a sky full of ominous looking clouds.

“Hey, those look like snow clouds to me. How far are we from the castle?”

I asked the question because we had been walking non stop for a couple hours and we seemed to be no closer to the castle then when we first started out.

“It’s not far, let’s keep going.”

“Are you sure?”

With a sense of unease and foreboding, I had no choice but to follow his lead. Not only did I not know where I was, I couldn’t speak German at all, and my son was fluent.

A few minutes later, I insisted we stop and eat the lunch I had packed. I spotted a bench and we sat down.

I looked up and said, “I told you so” as the first giant snowflakes came down. It didn’t take long before the wind picked up and the fluffy snowflakes turned from a gentle dusting to a full on, blinding blizzard.

In just a few minutes, we were covered in snow. The bench was covered in snow, inches of the white stuff. I refused to walk any further to this non-existent mirage of a castle, and we headed back to Goettingen. We could barely see the road and I hesitatingly trusted my son that he knew where we were going.

I took a picture of us so we’d never forget, and every once in a while I’ll remind him of the time he should have listened to me when I told him there was an approaching storm.

By the way, that castle (can’t remember the name) was actually more than TWENTY MILES away, and there’s no way in the world we could have day hiked there. Later, my son laughingly told me he biked there and it was awesome…uh, thanks a LOT, Angel Boy!

Word of the Day: Nemophilist

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This is such a great word!

Nemophilist: One who is fond of forest or forest scenery; a haunter of the woods.

Photo by veeterzy on Pexels.com

Oh yes, I’d love to haunt some woods right about now, with the stars above and the full moon to guide a late night hike…

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
George Gordon Byron

(George Gordon was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the greatest of English poets. Wiki)

Death Valley is HOT

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Photo by Athena on Pexels.com

Right now, visitors are flocking to Death Valley National Park to experience the forecasted EXTREME heat.

Death Valley is projected to set a verified world record for the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded, with Furnace Creek expected to reach 131 degrees with a low temperature at night of 101 degrees.

I’ve been to Death Valley a few times. It’s an otherworldly and mysterious experience. It’s a whole mind/body connection, the kind of heat that permeates down to a soulful, cellular level. Along with the magnificent silence, there’s really nothing to compare to desert heat.

Ten thousand years ago, Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, was once a hundred-mile long lake. It’s now a vast expanse of salty ground.

When you visit Death Vally, make sure you stop at Artists Palette, a technicolor, kaleidoscopic display of multicolored rock in that makes you feel you’re at an art exhibit.

Of course, as with the rest of our country, there were Indigenous People here before us.

The Timbisha Shoshone Indians lived there for centuries before the first white man entered the valley. They hunted and followed seasonal migrations to harvest pinyon pine nuts and mesquite beans. To them, the land provided everything they needed and many areas were, and are, considered to be sacred places.

I always thank the first people when I camp or hike, no matter where I am.

The shamanic ground markings of Death Valley tend to be found in the more remote parts of this already remote region – probably the reason why any trace of them survives at all. They are ritual and magical features left by long-ago shamans, probably of the ancestral Pima and Shoshone peoples, and they are fragile, so much so that their precise locations are not advertised.

They take various forms – ritual pathways, shrines, vision quest beds, scraped ground markings, strange sinuous lines, and weird patterns of rocks.

Vision quest beds are remote, subtly-marked locations where an Indian brave or shaman would go to spend a solitary vigil seeking a vision – a personal spiritual gift. He would go without food or sleep for perhaps three or four days and nights until the vision came. If it came at all, it would most commonly be in the form of what we would call an auditory hallucination: he would hear a chant or song.

Ritual pathways are probably the rarest of the shamanic features. a loose group of boulders.

The most enigmatic of all the shamanic relics in the valley are markings etched into the hard, sunbaked ground (‘intaglios’) or laid out with small rocks on the surface of the ground (‘petroforms’). Such features are collectively known as ‘geoglyphs’. Both types in Death Valley mainly show meandering, abstract patterns, but a few seem to depict mythical creatures. (Curated from https://www.ancient-origins.net)

If you make it to Death Valley, no matter what season, take more water than you think you’ll need to stay well hydrated!

The Secrets That You Keep

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I’m not talking about that song by the The Romantics, but a secret spot I discovered while out walking yesterday.

I can’t believe I’ve lived here for decades and never knew about this little beachy secret. One other person was there with their dogs and we vowed not to disclose this classified location…

Pretty cool, huh?

Looking to the east…

And to the west…

I MIGHT be persuaded to share the coordinates of this idyllic site, but you’d have to also be sworn to secrecy.

Can I trust you?

Miles To Go…

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From the deepest, darkest part of the ocean to where I feel more at home, following a path on terra firma…

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening — Robert Frost
Artist Micell A. via Pinterest

The Titan | Ocean’s Tragic Magic

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“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.” – Kahlil Gibran

My thoughts are about as insignificant as a drop in the ocean, but I’ve memorialized my observations as a way to try and wrap my brain around the tragedy that unfolded the last few days about the Titan submersible.

I’ve lived near the ocean most of my life and while I love it, I’m afraid of it at the same time.

I CAN swim but it’s not my most favorite thing to do; in fact, my chest gets tight and I can start to hyperventilate simply thinking about putting my head under water — even though I know I have done it many times.

The Angel Kids aren’t like me — they’re half dolphin — both of them, and swim and jump in the waves and dive and try to surf and paddleboard with no fear of the power of the ocean.

When I first learned about the concerns regarding the loss of communication with this tiny little submersible while it attempted to reach the wreck of the Titanic, the idea of being crouched into a tight space, freezing cold, in total darkness, with limited oxygen, miles away from help — was a recipe to ignite some of my worst fears.

Lost and alone, in the dark, unable to breathe, under the sea.

I don’t like to take the Bart tunnel from San Francisco to Oakland and can’t even think of an incentive that could motivate me to endure a two-hour ride on the Chunnel from London to Paris.

Yesterday, the United States Coast Guard said that an ROV found the tail cone of the Titan 1,600 ft from the Titanic, and the ROV then found additional debris consistent with the “catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”

The debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel,” said Rear Admiral John Mauger.

Officials said that the location of the debris field matched “the location of last communication” of the submersible. The time of the implosion has not yet been determined.

From the Rear Admiral, “I offer my deepest condolences to the family. I hope this discovery provides some solace during this difficult time.” 

OceanGate Expeditions, the company that operated the Titan, released a statement on Thursday saying that they believe all five passengers on the submersible had been “lost.”

Presumed deceased are Paul-Henry Nargeolet, Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, and his son, Sulaiman Dawood.

Also from OceanGate, “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” the statement said . “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”

What I find utterly fascinating and darkly eerie is the connection to the wreck of the Titanic.

From NPR: “The OceanGate executive who was piloting the submersible on its fateful Sunday dive is married to the descendent of a couple who died in the very shipwreck his expedition aimed to see.

OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush is married to Wendy Rush, the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus, who choose to remain onboard the sinking Titanic together so that others could escape to safety in their place.

They were the real-life inspiration behind the heartbreaking scene in James Cameron’s movie in which an elderly couple embraces in bed as water rushes into their room.”

There’s been a disgusting amount of unkind and vicious commentary on social media about the fact that these men were millionaires and billionaires.

In my opinion, it doesn’t matter how entitled they were or how much money they had; this is a tragic, horrible way to die.

From Julias Kim via Twitter: “There isn’t one person who is hating on billionaires right now that wouldn’t take a billion dollars if it was handed to them tax free…Beware. It’s a slippery slope when we start devaluing lives based on how much money people have.”

Yet…there’s this:

As every news report led with the OceanGate submersible, how many international efforts coalesced to rescue hundreds of migrants from the ocean off Greece?

It seems as if that catastrophe garnered little to no attention.

I feel terrible for the migrants who drowned in the waters outside Greece AND for the people who died aboard the Titan.

And yes, it’s possible to feel compassion for both.

Moonstone Beach | Sea Glass Treasures

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Since it’s just about time to honor June’s Full Moon, it seems like the perfect opportunity to chat about Moonstone Beach, another sea glass location I need to visit. It’s in Cambria on California’s Central Coast.

It’s said that at Moonstone Beach beach you can find moonstone agates plus jade, jaspers, and other semi-precious stones.

Here’s a photo of some of my beach glass collection. Red is the third most rare type of sea glass, and I only have a couple pieces of that color.

Did you know? Orange is the most rare sea glass color. Turquoise is the second most rare color and the rarest type of blue sea glass. Red is the third most rare sea glass color and yellow is the fourth. I guess white and green and brown are more common to find because I have a lot of those colors, probably because most bottles were crafted in those colors.

None of the beaches around me have sea glass OR many seashells, although we have an abundant and endless supply of ROCKS.

| sanctuary |

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“Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”- Rumi

Vermillion Cliffs Secret Cathedral: Photo by Enchanted Seashells

Spring Cleaning

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My phone is too full of photos so I’ve done a complete Marie Kondo: delete, delete, delete. These are some great ones I thought I’d share before they’re gone forever…

You can’t see them, but I DID. Eight, yes EIGHT orca whales! Leaping and breaching, one right after the other; this experience was beyond magnificent. They were close to the boats that you CAN see, and yes, I was totally freaking out. It was my first sighting. Magical doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling because for me, it was as meaningful as the day I saw wolves in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Joy filled all the spaces of my heart, but the moment was also tinged with sadness because I know there are still some killer whales in captivity and that is so, so very wrong.

Sand or gravel barge with push tug? I’m not sure.

Another big boat…

Snow on the Olympic Mountains!

Now the photos are gone, but in my heart and mind, they will live forever. Time to replace them with new memories.

Fun at the Flower Fields 🌺 #LiveColorfullyFlowerFields

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I remember when rows upon rows of a colorful flowering ranunculus tapestry was only a quirky, delightful curiosity we’d point at as we drove north along the freeway. Back then it was an annual locals-only kind of attraction and now The Flower Fields enchants visitors from all over the world.

I can’t believe that it took me this long to visit The Flower Fields in all its glory, but it’s a definite recommended destination. It was a truly enjoyable day and best of all, it’s simply impossible to take a bad photo there!

The Flower Fields are located off the freeway at Palomar Airport Road in Carlsbad. In addition to forty acres of beautiful ranunculus in peak bloom, there are tractor rides, wine tastings, food, yoga classes, a Mother’s Day picnic, and day-long educational and fun activities for children of all ages.

And a butterfly garden!

HISTORY:
The Flower Fields today are a direct result of nearly eighty-five years of floral cultivation that began with Luther Gage, an early settler and horticulturist who settled here in the early 1920s. Mr. Gage brought ranunculus seeds to the area and began growing them in his fields next to Frank Frazee’s small vegetable farm in South Oceanside. In 1933 Frank Frazee also started growing ranunculus and introduced his son Edwin to the art of seeding, cultivating, and irrigating this beautiful flower. 

This is what it used to look like — the fields of flowers grew close to the freeway:

1970s. Photo credit: Bob Gardner

INFO:
Open daily from 9:00am-6:00pm until Mother’s Day (Sunday,  May 14th, 2023)
Ongoing Specials (Starting March 6th)
Mondays – With the purchase of one adult or one senior/military, you receive one child’s ticket free (ages 3-10)|
Tuesdays & Wednesdays – Between 1:00pm-4:00pm, receive $2 off adults, seniors/military and children’s tickets.
Buy tickets online at theflowerfields.com

(Excluding the vintage photo, all photo credit to Enchanted Seashells.com)
@the_flower_fields