Dan and Jaye's cruising blog: Kumatage (reflections on the water)

We'd wanted to visit James and Ellen in California but just couldn't find tickets at a rational price. I was bemoaning this to some online girlfriends including one named RoseAnn when - synchronicity is wonderful - up pops a sidebar advertising low airline fares! So we jumped on them, and - extra special super duper synchronicity - had to change planes in Denver, where the RoseAnn lives. And, since we had a 2-hour layover in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, she was going to be able to come out to the airport to meet us. This trip was coming together nicely! Coming into Denver I was hit by homesickness and realized not the New York I was born in, but Colorado is home, where I met Dan and came of age - my thoughts were of the mountains and plains and sunshine - and wondered if we could buy some land near Erie (Colorado) and dig a giant lake and fill it and move Cinderella there? That way I could have both my life afloat and my Rocky Mountain high? Sunshine and open space, I ne...

Along a rather desolate section of road are these steel sculptures. Eagles, horses, saber-tooth tigers. No attribution, no signage, nothing. Just random pieces of art, fitting wonderfully into the landscape. Steel horse: They are roughly life-size: Ellen took this close-up of the saber-tooth tiger's head:

They had told us they had really gotten into fourwheeling and camping in the desert, so on the first full day we all got in the jeep and went to a place with the unwieldly name of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and the adjacent Ocotillo Wells area. The latter is the only one where you're allowed to go off-road and I'm almost certain I reviewed the EIS for it when I was driving that LMD (large mahogany desk) as a Washington bureaucrat. The reality was even more desolate than the documents conveyed. A desert road: Wouldja believe, a road sign? The intersection of Crossover Trail and Tarantula Wash: How you find an oasis - the literally-named Una Palma ("One Palm"): It wasn't all quite that dry: The Malpais (literal translation, "Bad Lands"): Ellen got this picture of me taking the above picture: A chollo cactus: When we were kids, my brother and I used to play a game, trying to take photos that looked like they were taken on another planet, "My Sum...

James & Ellen had told us that the thing they loved most of all about their home is that although they lived in the mountains, if they went one direction, they were an hour from the ocean; or if they went the other direction, they were an hour from the desert. So as to sample all 3 environments, this day we went for a hike close to their home. We hiked a short section of the Pacific Crest Trail, that runs from Canada to Mexico. After our exertions, we went into the little town of Julian (about 6 miles from their place) to replenish ourselves. The area is known for its apple orchards, so what better than to eat local - apple pie and vanilla ice cream? The beginning of the trail: Ellen contemplating the view: What she's looking at: The main (a.k.a., only one of two) street through the old mining town of Julian: Apple pie and vanilla ice cream: Good to the very very last drop:

Not long after we returned from our Bahamas cruise we got this email from our friends James & Ellen (the ones we'd traveled with): Hi guys, I hear you've been back at Port A for a couple of weeks now, after what sounds like an adventure filled trip north. Just think of the memories.... What are you up to for the summer? Your facebook page suggests you'll be heading to Colorado in September. Any chance you'll be making an extension to Southern California for a visit? We have a couple of trips planned, but we'll be here during September. The house we're renting is a) gorgeous and b) has an actual guestroom and a full bath just across the hall. I'm attaching some pictures of the place. Ellen and I have been doing our respective things here. She's riding pretty regularly, and I've been doing a lot of work with the camera. We've also done some neato walks in the mountains, which is where we live, and we managed to get to the desert for some campin...