Book club goes to the beach!

I just got back from a five-day trip to the beach in Oceanside, CA, with my book club. It was sunny, warm but still cooler than Tucson, and wonderful! 

We originally planned to go to Flagstaff, but the forest fires and resulting smoke and ash all over town made us switch to the beach. It was a six-hour drive mostly on I-8 plus stops for lunch and gas, so not bad at all.

We rented a four-bedroom condo that was right on the beach. Here's the view from our ground-floor patio. It was incredibly relaxing to hear the waves and feel the ocean breeze all day and to have a respite from the sizzling heat in Tucson.

In the morning after breakfast and again after lunch we walked almost a mile to the pier and sometimes beyond. Here we are just leaving ...

... getting closer ...

... and now we're up on the pier looking down at the beach scene. 

There were surf lessons, people fishing, dogs being walked, cars cruising with music blasting, Navy recruits doing some harsh training exercises, kids on the playground, adults doing yoga. It was a busy summer week!

Here some of us are up on the pier.

I called us the big hat ladies.

What could be better for little kids than a playground right on the beach!

Every evening, people lined the pier and the shore watching the sun sink down into the ocean.

The sunsets were beautiful!

We also saw interesting plants on our walks.

Every evening we walked another mile and back along Mission Avenue to eat at one of the numerous open-air restaurants in town. The first night was at Odie's Pizza, near the mural. Then it was the Mission Avenue Bar, the Biergarten, and the Flying Pig (my favorite, where I got shrimp and grits).

Here we are at the Flying Pig toasting to our last night in Oceanside.

I loved the inside of the Flying Pig. And Sandy loved her mussels and homemade linguine!

After we left the Flying Pig on our last night, we wandered through a street fair that was packed with people eating all kinds of ethnic foods.

My mission was to find chocolate cake, which I did, but we also shared some baklava. I forgot to get a picture of my cake, but it was amazing!

I had some excellent sweet potato fries another night. 

We were surprised by how many Oceanside restaurants featured Cajun dishes. And when we stopped in Yuma for lunch at a gastropub we discovered it also had a Cajun-New Orleans theme!

Besides going to the beach and eating, we played Mahjong. And of course I visited my mom, who was only 20 minutes away. Here she is with Sandy, Beth and me. She's doing really well. In fact, the only time we drove anywhere was to visit her. Otherwise we walked many miles every day.

Every evening after we got back to the condo from dinner, Kristina led us in a special toast. Since I can't drink alcohol my shot was, sadly, water.

It was a great trip with great friends and great memories!!!

Have a colorful day

Hike #39, on Mt. Lemmon!

I finally got in another hike this week, but I had to go up the mountain to 9,000 feet to escape the 108 temperature down below in Tucson. The views were breathtaking! Those red flowers are penstemon.

 

I was invited by a friend to join the Sun City Hikers Club for their outing, and I'm very grateful. There were seven of them and all were super welcoming and friendly. It was my 39th hike on my way to 70 before my 71st birthday.

There were a lot of wildflowers.

Going from the desert up to the top of Mt. Lemmon takes you from the Sonoran Desert to alpine forests. The steep drive with breath-taking lookouts takes you through these bio zones:

1. Sonoran Desert, 2,500-4,000 feet

2. Desert grassland, 4,000-5,000 feet

3. Oak woodland/chaparral, 5,000-6,000 feet

4. Pine-oak forest, 6,000-7,000 feet

5. Ponderosa pine forest, 7,000-8,000 feet

6. Mixed conifer and Canadian zone, 8,000 to the peak at 9,157 feet

It was in the 70s and sunny for our hike, which was slightly heart pounding (at least for me) because of the elevation. But we only went a little over two miles, on the Meadow Loop near the top of the mountain.

Afterward we had a picnic lunch in a very pleasant shady area -- but I forgot to get a picture! Then it was down, down, down the mountain into the inferno that's Tucson in the summer. 

Have a colorful day

Artfully built from the desert

DeGrazia (1909-1982) hauling desert wood

I went back to one of my favorite Tucson spots a few days ago, DeGrazia's Gallery In the Sun, which I've blogged about numerous times. I'm entranced by the artistic adobe buildings he constructed by hand with the help of local Indians back in the 1950s out of desert materials. There are hundreds of his art works on display in the main gallery, but I keep going back to wander through the other little buildings, which I usually have to myself.

He's best known for his images of Native American children from the Southwest and other Western scenes. You may recognize his style. But like I said, I go for the buildings.

This is his small chapel, and there are also his small home where he lived with his wife, a little gallery where visiting artists now exhibit and the main gallery.

The buff colored softly rounded adobe blends in with the desert because it's made from the desert. He bought 10 acres of land in the Santa Catalina foothills in 1949 for his compound and used natural materials from the surrounding land to construct it.

The views of the desert framed from inside the buildings are like works of art themselves, and they're always what capture my attention first.

Here you can see part of a mural that he painted in the chapel. I love how the ocotillo spines (I think that's what they are) forming the door filter the light and create striking shadows on the floor.

Inside DeGrazia's old home

After I take in the intimate views of nature, I look at the walls. Here's how he describes them:

"A wall out of mud is beautiful and satisfying, but a wall of mud and straw is a union of materials that are in complete harmony and produce an esthetic feeling, long to be remembered. To me this is the great Southwest. The mud wall is masculine -- physically strong and durable. The straw is feminine -- delicate as a thread. Its color is sun and gold. Some of the walls in my new Gallery In the Sun are like this.

"On other Gallery walls I use plaster with rough gravel ... This produces a severe texture. Then, while the plaster is still wet, I paint it with at least three colors, sometimes as many as six. Colors are used to achieve the counterpart of the structure, to soften the walls. The result is  that they come alive. They sing and exude beauty."

 

A design imbedded in a wall

Then my eyes move up to the ceilings, which he describes:

"On my Gallery ceilings I have used resawn lumber, with teeth to grab. I used all pastel colors to paint them with; and a dry brush with very little color on it. You feel the color rather than see it. Lightly applied, like a breath of air it produces a delicately colored atmosphere that's there yet you know it's there only by feeling it."

The floors are magnificent! The one above is made from cross sections of cholla cacti.

His description of his floors:

"On some of the Gallery floors I use mud; on others jumping cholla cactus. The cholla, cut about four inches long by an Indian, is sanded and sealed with wax. The tops of some of the cholla I dye in color. Then I bed them in cement. The finished floor produces a feeling of walking in a strange magic place. You see it; you feel it in your feet -- texture on your toes, so to speak. A magic rug."

More desert gifts decorate the buildings, like the brittle dead plant hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier and a skull on an outdoor wall brushed with gold.

A cactus boot, from a decayed saguaro cactus, hangs like another piece of art. When a bird excavates a hole in a live saguaro for a nest, the cactus forms a protective callous around the hole. After the softer cactus decays, the calloused "boot" remains (shaped like a boot).

The outdoor areas are also works of art, but that's a whole other story! I wish our contemporary buildings were constructed with such artistry and attention to surrounding land.

Have a colorful day.