#91 / 2009 Tour 4 Spring: San Diego, Presidio Park

PRESIDIO PARK, SAN DIEGO, CA

#91

Our urban campsite is hosted by Holly and her new husband Tony, recently immigrated from Cuba. Tony makes up big pitchers full of orange juice and grapefruit juice. We can get about two dozen grapefruit for just a few dollars at Pancho Villas.

Holly's house was great for urban camping. Not only could we be3 independent of the household and do our laundry outside in the open air, we also enjoyed her back patio which had two big tables great for reading and writing. Giant banan palms, ( I think that's what she called them) which she planted ten years ago now tower over the backyard like giant palapas in Mexico. 

There are big fat Mexican pots bursting with fuiscia and red flowers all over the back porch and around the yard. The back area is all bricked and spacious. The house is a real frelection of Holly. She is such a unique and talented person, exceptionally educated, and so even. I guess that's the way to say it, calm and serene.

She's gracious, and yet so down to earth. We immediately bonded over her laundry facilities. She is the only person I know besides myself who does all her laundry by hand. She had this great big deep double-tub sink installed on her back porch. I got out the Mexican soap Fabuloso, which I love, and went to town. I got all my bed linens washed and properly repaired from where I set them on fire.

It so happened on the Sunday we arrived there was a reception being held in Del Mar for Holly and Tony, belatedly celebrating their wedding last August. So we got the full treatment - a top of the line introduction to California, a freeway ride to the swank side of town - and Holly drove. Great!!!

On Tuesday she and Tony took us out to the San Diego Pier. Mind you this is all Joe and I ever thought we would get to see. Thank God I never had to drive there. I would never have managed without having a nervous breakdown. We had to take a turn, I think on Newport, to get to the pier. That is information I didn't have and I would have been beside myself had I driven in there on my own.

We strolled by all the little shops on Newport then down to the beach. Holly said the water is always cold, even in summer, so she has been disappointed that she can't swim out there as she had imagined when she moved from Albuquerque. We walked all the way out to the fishing pier and had lobster tacos at the historic little food hut on the boardwalk. By then Holly was in pain, she had fallen on her knee earlier in the day when she and Tony were jogging. Her knee began to look like a balloon.

As we walked back down the pier Tony tried to carry her on his back, then Joe and Tony tried to make an arm sling ala Boy Scout method, but both failed. By the time she got to the end of the pier she had to lie down in the grass. Within two minutes three squad cars and a motorcycle cop showed up and inundated us, lights flashing. Holly had to convince them she was simply in pain and not overdosed. Finally Tony showed up with the car and we headed back to the house.

Wednesday we went to Presidio Park on the bus. The panaramic view from the park is spectacular as well as the many flowers and trees. I learned from the park brochures that the Kumeyaay people were here as well following the San Deigo River. The Kumeyaay Indians depended on its moderate winter weather and arrived in the area seasonally to escape the colder regions to the East.

Since those days, after a few failed dikes and canals, the river has been tamed. Today the river begins its way to the ocean from the east of Presidio Park, high in the mountains, then twists and turns through the foothills restrained by flood control channels developed about fifty years ago and dissects Mission Valley before it eventually empties into San Diego Bay.

The beautiful Serra Museum in the park, like so many others I have mentioned, is closed to the public now until further notice. California is having a time with its budget shortfall.

The featured plant in the park is Bougainvillea, you see it everywhere. According to historical notes there is a connection between the first woman to sail around the world and these bougainvillean, and a hidden identity.

in 1766 the French boat "Le Boudeuse," with 200 men on board, set sail around the world. A certain botanist was on board named Philibert Commercon with his young male assistant.Sometime early in the voyage the assitant was "unmasked" as a woman, thus becoming the first woman to circumvent the glove. We have his name but not hers.

Of the many discoveries, both geographically and botanically, attributed to this voyage, was the discovery of the bougainvillea plants while the "Le Boudeuse" was moored near San Paolo, Brazil. It was named after the admiral of the ship - Louis Antoine Bougainville. It flourished in Southern Europe and during the 1930s was disseminated throughout the world, and thusly found its way to Southern California.

There are also "Cherokee Roses" the state flower of Georgia and originally a native of China. These roses are associated with the Trail of Tears. According to the legend as the seven tribes of Cherokees were relocated by the US government to Oklahoma in the 1830s, they found these roses growing abundantly on their path wherever a mother's tear would drop.