Little beach at La Jolla Cove

Part of a little beach at La Jolla Cove is seen here. This is a popular beach, and is not very crowded usually. It's also very small: there's not much of it that is not seen in the photo. You can see the sea caves here. This is also a good place to go snorkeling (to see many fish including the Garibaldi) and to see crabs and other creatures in the tidal pools, which are mostly flooded in this photo and to the right. The picture is from a year ago, but we came back in September and spent quite a bit of time here.

The Nazi Boutique

I did a double-take when I saw this sign at a shopping place at La Jolla Cove in California a year ago. I eventally saw the actual entrance and sign for the place: it was really the Mazi Boutique, and I think it was some sort of art gallery.

Has anyone seen any real bad business signs during their travels, vandalized or otherwise?

Lifeguard Box

Back to some randomly chosen photos and comments. This attractive copper lifeguard box is found at the shore in La Jolla, California. I think there is a phone or something inside it. This is one where I recommend clicking to see the large picture for the cool metallic detail. Surf's up!

Hawksbill Sea Turtle

(Another Texas postscriptum)

One more of the sea turtle (the last remaining good one photo other than the video footage). The Hawksbill is a critically endangered sea turtle. "Hawksbill turtles have a wide range, found predominantly in tropical reefs of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans" - from Wikipedia. In Texas, they are said to be "occasional" visitors on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Shell length can be up to 36 inches. I think this juvenile's shell was more than 1/3 of this length. The Kemp's Ridley sea turtle is another one found in Texas at the Padre Island National Seashore. There was said to be one of these at one of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex's other aquariums. It's supposed to be illegal to disturb them in the wild.

Warm Showers

(a Texas postscriptum)

(cue "Pina Colada" song for sole reason of "getting caught in the rain" lyric) I was warned of hail right after I went to East Texas. I guess I view dramatic weather with less than the fear I should give it, so I was actually curious to see the first hailstorm I'd seen in ages. Maybe that was dumb: I have no idea how nasty Texas hailstorms can be. I still have no idea. I also have no idea what it's like to drive on hail.

There was no hail, but for a bit when I was outside, I was caught in the rain. The rain was warm, which I'd not experienced for a few months, so it wasn't as unpleasant as it could be. Warm rain showers. After that, it was a cloudburst. The kind that shuts off electric traffic signals. No fun there.

I figured I'd add this item because of another blog where some guy's always leaving comments involving warm showers. Hailstorm wisdom and anecdotes are always welcome, even the ones of the "When I was a kid, we once had hailstones the size of volleyballs" kind. I remember hailstones the size of buckeyes or chestnuts. More about buckeyes later.

No sunset photo

part 6:
Sorry, no sunset photo this time. I'll have to take it on faith that the sun shines in Texas. I never saw it, and I do remain doubtful.

Dallas Skyline

part 7:
(cue theme song from Dallas TV show). This photo actually was taken before the aquarium photos, so it is out of order. So be it. The building with the round thing on it toward the right is lit up at night, I believe, making it look even more like a microphone. It's called the Reunion Tower. I've been told that it's kind of scary deep in Dallas, so I didn't want to linger. It was a little cold, and the sky was rather dreary. Overall, however, it was a nice day. This concludes the series of photos. There are some left out, such as some blurry fish pictures (one or two of which might show up later) and one of the Grassy Knoll of "JFK assassination" fame. I have no photos at all from my second day in "the Metroplex".

Sea Turtle

part 5:
This is the lone resident Hawksbill sea turtle at the Aquarium at Fair Park. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this one was about a foot-and-a-half long. I do not know the sex of this one. I hope I remember this correctly: Male sea turtles need good flippers for mating maneuvers, and female sea turtles need good flippers for digging nests for their eggs. This one had a damaged front flipper and a damaged rear flipper, so I guess it's pretty good that it is in the zoo rather than in the wild. One of the reasons described to me for damaged flippers is that seagulls can peck at juvenile sea turtles.

If you click on the picture, you will see some pretty good detail in the much larger photo. Sorry about the flash glare on the left!

His/her tank was in a corner, and he/she seemed fairly happy and active. Just next to the tank was a shark tank at feeding time, and I think there were only two of us in the crowd who looked at the turtle.

This is my lone experience with any sea turtle (and I'm not sure I've ever been near the natural habitat of sea turtles) , so I don't have much to add in the way of past experiences. There is another photo, a side view, below. Just a couple more photos left in this "travelogue" series.

Texas State Motto

part 4:
I figured since my recent entries in the blog were about Texas, I'd change the description to the Texas state motto, regardless of what it was. I looked it up and the Texas state motto turned out to be "Friendship". Just one word, a state motto I'd not heard of before, and I've seen worse state mottos. This one seems to fit, as I met friends and friendly people in both of the main places where I spent my time in Texas. This even included a gas station attendant. Friendly people who were able to put up with my disrupted hearing.

Texas seems to have has a good soul, not like some of the dour places I've been to or those places where there seems to be something ugly brewing just below the surface. There's even a certain favorite city of mine where I hear every once in a while that there is something evil brewing there always.

I tried to find a motto for Dallas specifically, but all I could find was this one: I WANT WHAT I WANT AND I WANT IT YESTERDAY.

Comments are welcome as always. Perhaps something about how friendly some places are or aren't, or about state or city mottos.

Fair Park Aquarium

part 3:
This is the entrance sign for the Dallas Aquarium building at Fair Park. It's not the largest aquarium in the "Metroplex", and it wasn't full of trendy modern chrome and it didn't have a restaurant, but I considered it to be well attended and well stocked. The $4 price was a fair deal, considering aquariums 3 times as large costing at least 3 times more. At my friend's suggestion, I figured it would be a good idea to see a sea turtle, and the Aquarium at Fair Park had one.

Fair Park in Dallas has several attractions. Several other cities have been enhanced by the presence of "leftover" fairgrounds which I have seen in varying degrees in my travels. San Diego features Balboa Park, which was once the Panama-California Exposition (1910-1916). It contains the world reknowned San Diego Zoo. Chicago has museums on the former grounds of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. To find out more about the Columbian Exposition, read "The Devil in the White City". I strongly recommend this book. Fair Park is also the home of the Texas State Fair. It is the only unaltered pre-1950s World's Fair site in the nation.

Shopping center parking lots

part 2:
A couple of nondescript restaurants in a nondescript strip shopping center development. I still have not eaten at a Quiznos. I was scheduled to eat at this one upon "de-planing", but I received an unexpected huge breakfast on the plane just before the plane landed and decided not to skew what was already an unusual dining schedule for the day.

Next to this Quiznos is a regular restaurant; a nice hospitable place, and I assumed it stays open quite late. Therefore, there's no reason that people who eat there can't stay inside and have coffee or something at a table rather than continue conversations afterwards in the very cold parking lot right in front of the restaurant after their dinner. Especially someone warned us not to stay out there because it was not a safe area.

But no. I stood there talking to my friend, with my back to a busy commercial strip that offered several additonal late-night restaurant/coffee options as well. And we really did start to freeze. Looking back, I think I spent 6 or 7 hours of one day at this nondescript strip shopping center development that I will likely never see again (inside two restaurants and out in the parking lot). But time spent with friends is time well spent, even if it is not in the best places.

A visit with the Romulans

part 1:
And so the journey begins. As with many such journeys, a stop off at Romulus to see what the Romulans are doing happens early on. The birds-of-prey are run by companies like Northwest, American Airlines, and Continental. I'm talking, of course, about the Detroit Metro Airport, which really is located in Romulus.

In this photo, a Romulan walks past a Quiznos in the food court area. Notice that the Romulan is blurred: I think maybe he was in the middle of engaging a personal cloaking device at the time the photo was taken. Now, I have no idea if he was a real Romulan or not: the tips of his ears were hidden by the baseball cap.

I did make sure to drop by the Quiznos to inspect their menu. Even though the Quiznos was not open. I really had never been to one before, but was scheduled to go to one later that day, and wanted to see what they served, and maybe see if there were any coupons sitting there or something.

Not all was closed: a place next to it was selling big ol regular sloppy pizza slices. For breakfast.