On Thursday morning, Martine and I are scheduled to visit the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona. In the process, we will attempt not to blow up Mar-a-Lago or any other den of tyrants.
All of my childhood and more than two decades of my adult life were lived in the shadow of mutually assured destruction. Fortunately, we managed to avoid it, though with the present crop of world leaders, I think we will be in the soup once again. Why is it that thinks turn to shit at least once every generation or so?
In any case, I will not be posting for approximately a week. So hasta la vista for now.
One of Several Hangars at the Palm Springs Air Museum
The Coachella Valley is a prime location for an aircraft museum if for no other reason than many former military and civilian pilots retired there. As a result, the museum is unusually well staffed and equipped with planes and flying paraphernalia.
Last Monday, I visited the museum for the third time. I was happy to see that they had a new temporary hangar for a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, which holds three records for speed at Mach-3 and above. Developed by Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works in Burbank, California, the SR-71 proved so useful that it was brought out of retirement twice.
SR-71 at the Palm Springs Air Museum
Of all the tourist sights in the Valley, I think the best two for children are the Living Desert in Palm Desert and the Palm Springs Air Museum. Never have I seen children so attentive as they viewed the exhibits. And, speaking as an adult, I found myself pretty attentive too.
Afterwards, my brother and i ate a great Mexican lunch at the San Miguel Taqueria on Ramon near Thousand Palms.
The Sunnylands Estate where Walter and Leonore Annenberg lived and entertained political and entertainment figures from around the world is one of the most interesting sights in the Coachella Valley. When I took the house tour last Sunday, I saw a beautiful example of 1960s modern architecture in the form of a single-story house that seemed to go on forever.
One strange note is that the walls were covered with reproductions of famous paintings. The originals belonged to the Annenbergs, but they were gifted in 1991 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
During the lifetime of the Annenbergs, Sunnylands was frequently the site of meetings with world leaders, including both President Bushes, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II, Richard Nixon, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Xi Jinping of China. In 1976, Frank and Barbara Sinatra were married there.
The Rose Garden at Sunnylands
Not only the house but the grounds at Sunnylands are worth seeing. Access is free to all, and there are tens of thousands of trees and cacti, a rose garden, and numerous other landscape features. Check out the video of the grounds at the Sunnylands website.
Some billionaires when they die leave behind treasures that could be enjoyed by future generations. Some actually manage to make the world a slightly better place. Such was publishing magnate Walter Annenberg (1908-2002). From 1969 to 1974, he also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. His palatial 800+ acre estate at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage served as the western version of Camp David, where world leaders met and discussed global issues.
Most billionaires, I’m sad to say, are merely a waste of skin. I am not interested in naming names, because you know who I mean.
Last Sunday, I took the tour of the Sunnylands estate and was impressed by the beauty of the house and grounds.
View from the Lower Terrace of the Sunnylands House
Now the Coachella Valley is a fairly populated place. You would never guess that from Sunnylands. There are wonderful views of Mount San Jacinto and the other mountains around Palm Springs—but the estate is so situated that one can’t tell that there are any houses or business districts in any direction. Where one would expect to find them, one is confronted by trees that give the estate a sense of splendid isolation, even though it is readily accessible from busy Bob Hope Drive.
I had visited the grounds of the estate twice before and strolled the lovely cactus gardens. The house tour, on the other hand, but be reserved and costs a pretty penny. But it is definitely worth it.
Unfortunately, it is not permitted to photograph the interiors, but I will try to find some previously published photos that I can show you in a later post.
Jean-Loup Bitterlin of El Rey Sol with My Brother Dan
One final word about our trip to Ensenada, by way of a coda. We were amazed to find on Lopez Mateos a high quality French restaurant, that despite the fact that Ensenada has no shortage of good food. We were staying around the corner at the hotel affiliated with the Restaurant El Rey Sol, namely the Posada el Rey Sol. (The name refers to Louis XIV, France’s Le Roi Soleil, or Sun King.)
Dan and I were spending our last night in Baja, and we were all glorious tacoed out; so we decided to try for a nice French meal. It was a whole lot better than nice; in fact, it was outstanding. We started out with an appetizer of beef carpaccio, which was accompanied by an amuse-bouche that resembled a French bruschetta with cheese and a delightfully creamy sopa de verduras (vegetable soup).
As his main course, Dan ordered the Chicken Cordon Bleu, and I had the Linguine Neptuno (with assorted super-fresh mariscos). With it, Dan tried a glass of Guadalupe Valley Nebbiolo red wine, while, ever the proletarian, I had a Dos Equis (XX) beer.
A Plaque Outside the Restaurant Honoring Its 50th Anniversary
A meal like this in the United States would run at least a couple hundred dollars. We wound up paying around $70.00 in pesos. The sad thing is that the equivalent meal in the States would not necessarily be as tasty or fresh as what we had.
All I can say after the best meal I’ve had in several years, Vive la France—en Mexique!
Last Thursday, Dan and I left Ensenada just as the cruise ship Navigator of the Seas was just disgorging the thousands of bandy-legged passengers who shortly would be wandering the streets in search of one of them there cervezis. It was as if we had Ensenada to ourselves, and just when it would become crowded with noisome boat people, we were out of there.
The drive back to Tijuana was uneventful. The wait at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to the United States took about ninety minutes, which was nowhere as long as the three- and four-hour waits of which I had heard—but those were probably on weekends. Still, it was no fun waiting with multiple lines of cars idling in line while kamikaze vendors tried desperately to make a sale. The only sale they made from us was one sawbuck to use a tiny bathroom that had no lighting. I didn’t know whether I was urinating in a toilet, a bucket, or my shoes.
One of the items for sale at the border were plaster statues of Donald Trump and outgoing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. I guess there hadn’t been sufficient time for plaster statues of Kamala Harris or Claudia Sheinbaum, the new Mexican President, to be cast.
I dropped my brother off at the lot where his truck was parked for his drive back to the Coachella Valley and hopped onto I-805 for the four-hour ride back to my apartment in West Los Angeles.
There aren’t really too many tourist sights near Ensenada, unless you feel you must include Hussong’s Cantina on the list. Neither Dan nor I wanted to visit that particular institution, however, so we drove south to the Punta Banda Peninsula 17 miles (27 km) south of Ensenada.
According to Wikipedia:
La Bufadora is often considered a marine geyser, however, it does not have a thermal source or cause, as geysers do. In this case, the spout of sea water is the result of air, trapped in a sea cave, exploding upwards. Air is forced into the cave by wave action and is released when the water recedes, ejecting water up to 100 ft. [30.5 meters] above sea level. This interaction not only creates the spout, but a thunderous noise as well.
The interval between eruptions is fairly constant, and matches the dominant swell, confirming that the activity at La Bufadora is determined by surface ocean waves. Between 2005 and 2011 the recurrence between eruptions was between 13 and 17 seconds.
La Bufadora is one of the largest blowholes in the world.
Normally, on a busy day, visitors must run the gauntlet from the parking lot to the blowhole, bypassing a slew of souvenir stands, food vendors, highly suspicious pharmacies, and bars. But, as we were there on a day when there were no cruise ships in the Port of Ensenada, most of the businesses were closed. On the day after, I am sure the place was hopping.
La Bufadora Between Upswells
In a word, La Bufadora was an interesting place. I did get tired of telling importunate vendors on the way to the blowhole, however, that I was a cheap bastard and wasn’t interested in souvenirs.
It is generally referred to as the Mercado Negro, the Black Market. Not because its contents are smuggled in illegally, but because the market used to be on the dingy side. In yesterday’s post, I mistakenly referred to it by the name Mercado de Pescados. Actually, it is more properly called the Mercado de Mariscos.
I love visiting Latin American seafood markets. Perhaps the most impressive I have ever seen is the one in Puerto Montt, Chile—mainly because so much of what was on display was totally unknown and strange to me. That was not the case in Ensenada.
As my brother and I wandered down the aisles looking at the seafood on offer, one enterprising young salesman suggested I buy one of the large fish and have one of the local restaurants prepare it for me. I had this picture of myself hauling a smelly and dripping 10 pound (4.5 kg) salmon from one restaurant to another begging they would take it off my hands and filet and cook it for us. Nice try, kid!
Given all the seafood stands and restaurants in Ensenada, I was surprised that the mercado de mariscos was so small, but then Ensenada is flanked by a number of small fishing villages which probably also supply it. Some of these villages, like Puerto Nuevo and Popotla, have developed reputations of their own for seafood.
The city of Ensenada is full of fascinating street carts and little hole-in-the-wall restaurants specializing in fish and shrimp tacos and other seafood dishes. The first one we went to, Lily’s Tacos, is right by the Mercado de Pescados (aka the Mercado Negro). It was visited by Anthony Bourdain on a show in his “Parts Unknown” TV series. In fact, there is a picture of Bourdain on the wall behind my brother’s hat.
I had two fish tacos and a Corona. As is the custom, we were given the warm corn tortilla with a plain piece of lightly breaded fish. In front of us were various salsas, crema, pickled onions, chiles en escabeche, shredded cabbage, salt, and other condiments that we spooned onto the fish tacos. We were in hog heaven.
Guero’s, Another Fish Taco Vendor
Whereas Lily’s Tacos had a few tables for customers, many of the taco stands were for standees only, such as Guero’s and Fenix. I tended to prefer sit-down places, as I had to take medications with my meals, including a shot of insulin.
Dan and I actually did go to Ensenada mainly to eat fish tacos, and we were not disappointed in our quest. Fish tacos in the U.S, usually are too heavily breaded, made with frozen fish old enough to vote, and minus the rich condiments that made an Ensenada fish taco a culinary treat. Yes, I mean you, Rubio’s Fish Tacos. May you shrivel up out of shame!
Mexico has a rich tradition of street grunting. Don’t feel like a heavy meal? Just get a taco or a quesadilla or chicharrones or carnitas or a tostada. It won’t set you back too much; and it can be an amazing treat. Of course, you have to be able to judge which carts are good and which are unsanitary traps. One easy method: Check out the number and type of customers waiting in line.
Fortunately, all the places we tried in Ensenada were strictly A-1.
Yesterday afternoon I returned from Ensenada, where I spent a couple of days with my brother Dan. Unfortunately, the long drive left me with a bit of a sore throat, which I fought by sucking Ricola lozenges. It made me think that I have to scale down some of my travel ambitions, as I am no longer as young as I used to be. But that doesn’t mean that I am falling out of love with travel: It just means I have to do everything more slowly, in stages.
I met my brother in front of one of the San Ysidro parking lots by the border crossing. He drove down I-15 from the Coachella Valley, while I took the I-405, the I-5, and the I-805. Because of heavy traffic and several accidents on the highway, it took me four hours to reach the border.
At that point, Dan took the wheel to cross the border and take the scenic 1-D Quota Road past Rosarito Beach to Ensenada. I was relieved to be just a passenger for that final leg of the trip, as driving in Mexico could be a challenge.
Fortunately, the weather on Tuesday and Wednesday was perfect: breezy and in the low 70s Fahrenheit (21 to 26° Celsius). For some reason there weren’t many American tourists in town, so it felt as if we had the whole place to ourselves. We were surprised to see that a lot of the businesses were closed, until we realized that most of the Yanqui invaders came from cruise ships like The Navigator of the Seas and various Carnival Cruise liners. In fact, only as we were leaving town yesterday morning did we see a liner loosing boat people on the streets of Ensenada.
For the next few days, I will describe in some detail about what we did, what we ate (hey, we went down there for fish tacos—and we were not disappointed), and what we saw.
Tarnmoor 
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