Tecate December 28, 2018

I was at the Denver airport reading the departures board listing flights to many foreign and exotic places while waiting for my return flight to San Diego after visiting Boulder to see the Colorado Conservatory of Dance’s product of The Nutcracker when it hit me that I had not been out of the country all year. And that would just not do. But it was too late to try and put together an extended trip to a foreign land. So, the obvious option was a day trip to Mexico.

Living in San Diego, Mexico is usually an easy trip. We used to take surf trips to Baja on a regular basis – cross the border in the early morning, surf uncrowded waves at Baja Malibu or K 38, lunch on fresh lobster (complete with unlimited beans and rice and fresh handmade tortillas for around five bucks) at Puerto Nuevo and then back across the border and home by the early afternoon. Sometimes we would go down simply for lunch. I love Mexico, but in recent years it has become such a hassle crossing the border back into the US at San Ysidro with multi-hour waits, that I have fallen out of the habit of visiting.

Knowing about the lines at the border in Tijuana, I decided to give Tecate a try. Was really glad I did. The drive to the border was quite pretty once I got off the Interstate and onto the back roads, which wound through green hills past small farms and ranches. I parked on the US side of the border and walked across. Coming back into the US was seamless, only two or three people were in line ahead of me.

Tecate seemed like a real Mexican town, not a border town like Tijuana. In fact as far as I could tell, I was the only gringo in the restaurant where I stopped for lunch. Many Mexican towns, including Tecate, grow up around a zocalo or town square. My lunch restaurant was right at the edge of the square and afforded great people watching. There were families walking together enjoying the beautiful day, young couples obviously on dates and older men sitting on benches in the shade talking. A very peaceful and comforting setting. And with my trip being around Christmas, the zocalo was decorated to celebrate the season. 

It felt good to be in an unfamiliar environment and to practice my rudimentary Spanish. Am sure most everybody I encountered probably spoke better English than I spoke Spanish, but still I persisted in trying to speak Spanish to them, sometimes I think much to their amusement. Next year I will have to make a greater effort to spend time out of the US.

 

Tahoe & Carmel Valley October 31 – November 4, 2018

Not all short trips are created equally – this one started with a drive from Cardiff to Solana Beach, then a train ride to Old Town San Diego, trolley ride to the Middletown Station, walk across Pacific Highway to pick-up the bus to San Diego Airport, flight to San Jose, where I changed planes for a flight to Reno and finally a shuttle bus ride to Lake Tahoe.

Coming back was a little easier: drive from Tahoe to Carmel Valley, flight from Monterey to San Diego, bus to Santa Fe Train Station, train ride to Solana Beach, drive to Cardiff. In between all these modes of travel were a few days of hiking and relaxing at Lake Tahoe and hiking, visiting and great food and wine in Carmel Valley before flying out of my favorite airport.

Got a call from a good friend who was in Lake Tahoe for a few days who wondered if I wanted to come up. As I am almost always up for a trip out of town, I said “heck yes” and proceeded to try and figure out the travel arrangements. Sometimes travelling at the last minute is easy and other times it takes some effort and flexibility – this trip was the later. But with a bit of patience, it all came together and I was off.

Autumn in Lake Tahoe is a great time to visit. Summers are insanely busy with holiday merry makers as are winters with skiers. But in the autumn after temperatures drop but before the snow flies is a sweet spot when you can find a reasonably priced place to stay and get into restaurants without a reservation or long wait. Plus it is simply beautiful. There are many good hikes starting right in or on the outskirts of the town of South Lake Tahoe – walk five minutes from the edge of town and you are in full on wilderness. The trail we took wound up through the trees along the California and Nevada state border with many overlooks affording incredible views of the lake and surrounding hills, a small waterfall and plenty of peace and quiet. We started in California and finished in Nevada before walking back through town to California.

It had been many years since I had driven from Tahoe through Sacramento. When I was going to school in Davis, that drive was a semi-common occurrence. Sacramento and the surrounding environs have exploded with growth in the interim – the suburban sprawl stretches almost all the way to the Sierra Nevada Foothills. As the California state capitol, Sacramento has an historical older part of town and an interesting tourist area by the Sacramento River. I worked for a while in Sacramento and enjoyed walking around some of the old neighborhoods during my lunch breaks. There was not much nightlife then, but I understand that has changed now.

Once we got past the congestion around Sacramento and the edge of the east San Francisco Bay it was  a nice change to pull into sleepy Carmel Valley and the cozy comforts of Los Laureles Lodge. After an incredible dinner at the Corkscrew Café, it was early to bed to rest up for a quick hike in Garland Park in the morning before starting the planes, trains and automobiles trip back to Cardiff.

 

A New Favorite Airport

Not sure how many people have a favorite airport or even think much about airports, but I do. My old favorite was the Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) – it was my home airport, it is organized and clean and efficient and I could pick-up the MRT across the street from my apartment and ride it directly into the terminal. But Changi has been pushed aside by my new favorite: the Monterey Regional Airport (MRY).

Not only does MRY give you access to Monterey, Carmel by the Sea, Big Sur and the attractions of the Monterey Bay, but more importantly for me, it is over the hill from Carmel Valley Village (more about Carmel Valley later). In addition to the charms of the surrounding area are the charms of the airport itself. To begin with, it has only four gates that serve 40 flights per day and a very good restaurant that people actually go out of their way to eat at even when they are not travelling. But the best thing about the Monterey Regional Airport are the TSA agents.

I swear they must collect all the most polite and friendly agents from around the country and as a reward for their good character send them to Monterey. They are helpful and patient. They actually smile at the passengers and treat them like human beings. I even had one agent apologize to me for the long wait to get through the screening – there were five people in front of me and it took maybe three or four minutes from the time I got in line until I was putting my shoes back on.

A lot of people like to complain about the TSA – they may or may not be doing an important job – but if you want a good TSA experience and possibly a new favorite airport, head to the Monterey Regional Airport.

 

Julian Motorcycle Trip November 15 – 16, 2018

I started riding motorcycles when I was 12 or 13 years old. And have loved them ever since. As I was underage and did not have a license for riding on the street, I rode mostly in the dirt in wide open deserts. Although I did ride often enough on the street that I got stopped by the police when I was 14 and received a ticket for riding without a license.

At the time I started riding, Steve McQueen “The King of Cool” and his buddies were blasting around the Southern California deserts on modified Triumph Scramblers. I always wanted to be cool and to own a Triumph Scrambler. I am still not cool, but I do own a Triumph Scrambler.

Sometimes I feel an overpowering urge for no specific reason to hit the road and get out of town. So one autumn day at the end of apple season, I took my Triumph Scrambler for a ride up to the apple capital of the San Diego Mountains - Julian - for a piece of apple pie ala mode and a cup of coffee.

Julian is a quaint old mining town and an official California Historical Landmark that has reinvented itself as a tourist town centered on apple pie. There are some good restaurants, a couple of cute hotels (one of which I stayed in overnight), a few mountain tourist shops, a local blues festival and some good hiking trails outside of town. But the main attraction is the apple pie. Julian apple pies are available in the markets in San Diego. However, they just do not taste the same as a hot piece of pie with vanilla ice cream melting over it served with a hot cup of coffee in the funky Julian Café and Bakery at a table overlooking Main Street – delightful.

The ride up to Julian is almost as good as the pie. Starting out from coastal Cardiff-by-the Sea, the route winds though the tree lined streets and past the multi-million dollar homes of Rancho Santa Fe, then out past Lake Hodges along the Del Dios Highway before encountering the sprawl and congestion of Escondido. After navigating the Escondido traffic, you are rewarded with a ride through countryside in the San Pasqual Valley past the San Pasqual Battlefield and the San Diego Wild Animal Park before arriving in Ramona. Ramona is a unique town about as different from Cardiff as a town in the same county can be and may be worthy of a trip of its own sometime in the future.

Outside of Ramona the road starts heading up into the hills through Santa Ysabel and Wynola and finally past apple orchards and into Julian itself where the lure of apple pie is enough to cause even the most diehard desert rat to stop for a while before dropping down the Banner Grade on highway 78 into the Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

 

Park City March 7 – 11, 2018

One of the great things about travel is the people you meet. And not just for the diversity of experiences that brings; it can also help facilitate further travel. During one of my travels I encountered a tour group having some troubles in a foreign country that I was able to help them with. As a result, the tour manager introduced me to the tour operator who subsequently threw some tour manager gigs my way.

If you are organized, good with people and able to react quickly and think on your feet, working as a tour manager can be a fun way to have somebody else pay for your travel. It also is a good way to meet other people in the travel industry. And sometimes those connections pay-off. Such as with a discounted ski trip to Park City.

A tour operator I know had some people pull out of a group trip at the last minute; much too late to get refunds from the airlines, hotel or transport company. As a convenience to his clients, the tour operator contacted people he knew who are willing to travel at a moment’s notice (me!) to try and sell the trip to get some money for his clients. As a result, I got a very nice ski trip package for an even nicer price.

It had been many years since I had been in Park City in the winter. I have made a few trips in the summer to train at altitude for some bicycle races – there are many challenging and scenic bike rides in and around Park City. But that is a different story, this is about a ski trip.

The group I was travelling with was a ski club from a high tech company that organizes an employee ski trip each year. And even though I was not part of their company, they welcomed me into their group when we met to check-in at the Delta gate.

After a direct flight to Salt Lake City, the tour manager organized having our bags transferred from baggage claim to the waiting luxury bus that would take us the rest of the way up to Park City.  We made one quick stop at a state liquor store where the members of the group bought more liquor than I thought would be possible for that number of people to drink – I was wrong; they were a fun group and liked to party.

The Park City ski resort consists of three separate and distinct base area; Park City Canyon Village, Park City Mountain Village and Historic Park City. Away from the mountain is the town of Park City and down the valley a little is Kimball Junction.

We stayed at the Shadow Ridge Resort Hotel which has a both hotel rooms and condo units. I had a condo with a small kitchen. The hotel was located in the Park City Mountain Village within easy walking distance to the lifts.  Although there were some good restaurants in the Mountain Village and even more and better eating options in Historic Park City (which is a long walk in the winter, but an quick free bus ride from the Mountain Village), I cooked most of my meals in my room, as I was travelling on a budget. There are also additional and more economical eating options in Kimball Junction.

There had not been much new snow in the few weeks before we arrived, but the grooming crew at Park City did a good job of taking care of what they had. The views from the peaks, while spectacular, revealed how little snow there was in the surrounding area. There are many fun and challenging runs in Park City, and due to the sheer size of the resort, it would take a few days of dedicated effort to ski or board them all. I was boarding. I brought my snowboard because the weather forecast was for snow while we were in Park City and I was looking forward to some fresh powder (which never materialized). Cannot always predict the weather, all you can do is adapt and enjoy what you get. After I had my board re-waxed, it was a lot easier to appreciate what we had.

There are many positive aspects about both the Park City ski resort and the various base areas, but in my opinion, the one major negative is the other people on the mountain. Crowds are always a drawback, but this is more about the type of person rather than the sheer numbers. Different ski areas have different personalities and attract different types of people.

As skiing is a rather expensive pastime, most skiers are pretty affluent. But the skiers at Park City (compared to some other ski areas in the Salt Lake City area) seemed to want to flaunt it more and approached their days on the mountain with an arrogant and entitled attitude which made some runs unpleasant and even dangerous. But with a little bit of effort, it is possible to find some peaceful and quiet runs on which to relax and enjoy the beauty of nature and the thrill on hurling down a mountain covered with frozen water with a piece of hardwood sandwiched between some layers of fiberglass attached to your feet.

 

New Direction

Anybody following this blog may have noticed it has been a while since I posted any updates. I have recently quit my day job to focus on travel and writing, so it is time to rectify that.

Originally the intent was to recount my two year journey through Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Mexico, the United States, etc. with some current travel stories mixed in. Such methodology has been abandoned and I will now focus on new adventures with stories of past travels interspersed when they seem appropriate.

Hope you enjoy the new approach.

January 2007 – At the beginning of a three year adventure.

Although the rent on my apartment was paid up through Tuesday, I spent Monday night in a hotel in Singapore called the South-East Asia Hotel (getting a little flavor of the up-coming trip). Then early Tuesday morning, I hopped on the first train to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After two years of living in the sterile conformity of Singapore, I was more than ready for a little adventure. And I thought that beginning my journey by traveling through a Muslim country during the height of Bush’s holy war might be just that.

The train ride to Kuala Lumpur was indeed a bit of an adventure. Extremely heavy monsoons and bad floods during the previous few weeks had washed away houses, people, cows, villages and train track bridges. My train had to practically crawl over some bridges at 5 miles per hour (about 8 kilometers per hour) while guys with wooden shovels furiously packed dirt to prop up the trestles supporting the already rickety wooden bridges.

I paid an extra twelve Singaporean dollars to sit in the first class car and it was worth every bit of twelve dollars (actually $7.20 US) and not a penny more. Since people in first class should arrive at their destination sooner than those in the economy cars, the first class car was right behind the locomotive. And because the passengers from the first class and economy sections were not allowed to mix, I was stuck in that one car with only two other people, which meant that I got to breathe the sweet smell of cheap diesel for the entire eight plus hour trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.

I couldn’t wait to get off that train, breathe some fresh air and take a long walk on some unfamiliar streets. After stretching my legs that first night in KL, I found myself sitting in a little cafe on a backstreet drinking Chinese herbal tea, listening to some guy playing flamenco guitar while watching it rain like it rains only in the tropics and thinking that other than having no source of income, quitting my job and going walkabout was the right decision (at least so far).

Kuala Lumpur is an interesting place, like a mix of Singapore, Las Vegas and Tijuana, with a little history thrown in. I wandered around for a couple of days checking out some cool old buildings, historical sites and the national museum. And of course, I did a lot of eating - the food there is very good. The history of Malaysia is wrapped up with that of Indonesia and a bunch of European interlopers. And the food reflects those eclectic influences, with a little Indian thrown in just to make it even more interesting. Later on in my trip on the island of Sumatra, where I had gone for some uncrowded surf, I noticed also a great similarity between the languages of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Even though Singapore is a tropical island, it has no surf. Not that you would want to go in the ocean any way, as it is extremely polluted in that special third world way. So when I heard that there was a wave pool outside of KL, I didn’t hesitate to take the elevated train and a couple of buses on a two hour trip to the Selangor Resort to have a crack at an artificial wave, only to find out that the wave pool was open just one day a week and it wasn’t that day. I was feeling ready to move on and didn’t want to wait around three more days for it to open.

So, after another night in Kuala Lumpur, I caught the morning bus to Tanah Raya in the Cameron Highlands. I decided to splurge again and go on the first class bus, this time it cost me $1.20 US. After storing my bag in the luggage compartment of the metal flecked pink and yellow bus with velvet curtains on the windows, I was off to spend a few days in the mountains checking out some waterfalls, hiking in the forest/jungle and cooling off a bit. Actually, Kuala Lumpur was noticeably cooler than Singapore. But Tanah Raya was the first place in Asia – other than my office or the movie theater – that I ever wore a jacket for warmth.

I found myself lost one day while hiking through the cool hilly jungles when I happened upon a tea plantation where I stopped for a break on the patio of their British style tea house. I never did find the waterfall I was searching for that day, but sitting in the sun sipping tea while eating scones with clotted cream in this most unlikely place had just the effect that I needed. It had been only two weeks since I had quit my job and I couldn’t even remember what it was like to go to the office every day and solve other people's problems. I was finally starting to relax for the first time in donkey years, which is Chinese/Singaporean slang for a very long time.

Next stop, Penang and the Pearl of the Orient.