California quick review

[dmaze]

I spent most of a week visiting my parents in, erm, frigid San Diego. Where "frigid" means "it's between Christmas and New Year's, so the roses are blooming and people are surfing by the fishing pier".

One day trip was to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a couple of hours east of my parents. It didn't quite fit my internal vision of "desert", mostly because I didn't expect there to be quite so many plants there. We took a couple of quick hikes five miles off a dirt road from the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849. It was so cold. (Well, maybe it was a little breezy.)

One day I went to visit one of my coworkers, who had moved to San Diego. (Note to self: never tell parents that people in your group are moving from "all the way across the country" to "the city your parents are".) Fish tacos were had, work gossip was caught up on, surfers were watched, it was hoped that more of the city didn't collapse into the ocean. I also borrowed a digital SLR and played with it a bit; my general feel was that it was a bit more flexible and responsive than the camera I normally have, but it quite makes up for it in bulk.

We also headed for the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park. I've been there once or twice before, but I don't think I was quite so engrossed before. The larger HO scale layout captured most of our attention; it turns out that their goal in life is to reproduce the SP/ATSF Tehachapi Pass route circa 1952 as close as possible. Compare, for example, the picture at left with satellite imagery of the same location. Working, correct, approach-lit signals somehow called to me as well. We wound up staying about 45 minutes after closing watching a train crawl up the 2.2% grade and talking to the people running it (who make me look like I have only a passing interest in trains).