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Escape from the Big Game

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The View from My Brother’s Back Yard

There is always a big game on TV, so I usually make my escape from the drone of the sports announcers by heading to my brother’s back yard with a book. Fortunately, the book I was reading was a humdinger: Edward John Trelawny’s Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author.

Unlike me, Dan likes to relax by watching football, basketball, and baseball games on the weekend. Unlike our late father, he is not a dyed-in-the-wool fan of any particular team: He enjoys the game even when the local boys lose, as the Los Angeles Rams did on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.

And, as I was with him all weekend, I had to entertain myself part of the day. This last weekend, the mercury in the early afternoons was in the low 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius). By the late afternoon, however, it started to cool down; so I was exposed to a broad spectrum of televised sports. My favorite was the game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots in a white-out blizzard. All the yard indicators and hatch marks were covered with snow, forcing the stadium maintenance personnel to melt the snow at key points.

Football in the Snow

As always, it was fun to get together with my brother and sister-in-law. We watched several movies on TV, including Bubba Ho-Tep (2003). This was a film all three of us liked twenty years ago. In the intervening years, however, we seem to have changed and now regard the film with some disfavor. The other film we saw was Takeshi Kitano’s Broken Rage (2024), which started great but descended into randomness.

To make up for the sports and bad movies, the food was great, There are some wonderful Mexican restaurants in the Coachella Valley, and my brother’s cooking is superb or better.

A Weekend in the Desert

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My Brother Dan at the Whitewater Preserve

This weekend, I will be visiting my brother Dan in the Coachella Valley. As Martine is still smarting from her two sweltering years at Twentynine Palms in the nearby Yucca Valley, she will not be coming with me. It is also probably the last time I will be visiting him at his Palm Desert home: He and his wife Lori are planning on moving to Santa Rosa in Northern California later this year. And I am unlikely to visit the desert in summer.

Consequently, the next time I will be posting to this blog will probably be on Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully, Dan will introduce me to some of the local sights.

The above picture is the last one I took with my old Canon PowerShot A1400. Not two minutes after I took this picture, I tripped on one of the rocks bordering the path (shown above) and crushed the lens of my camera. Fortunately, the memory card containing my pictures was still intact; and I was able to upload them to my system without any problems.

At some point this weekend, I hope to talk Dan into going to one of the Valley’s tamale restaurant. I was disconsolate when I learned that my last scheduled visit to the desert in mid-December (canceled due to illness) occurred during the annual Indio Tamale Festival.

In any case, Dan and I are both foodies. I expect we will have some great meals, both at restaurants and in his dining room. (Dan is a wizard of a chef.)

Visiting the Equator

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The Yellow Painted Line Is Supposedly the Equator

In November 2016—a time of evil omen for the United States—my brother Dan and I visited Ecuador. One of our destinations was latitude zero, the line of the equator. The Ecuadorians built a big park with museums. a planetarium, and restaurants at a place they called La Ciudad Mitad del Mundo—“Middle of the World City.” The line of the equator was as it was defined by scientists in the 18th century.

The only problem was that the actual equator line is some 250 meters to the north of Middle of the World City. But this was not determined until GPS was invented.

Dan and I didn’t much care that the Middle of the World City was slightly misplaced. It was a nice park, and the real equator line didn’t have as big a budget. So it goes.

Dan Paris with the Equator Monument in the Background

It’s always a tricky business to identify the location of the poles, the tropics, as well as the equator. Did you know, for instance, that because the earth is not a perfect sphere, if one were to identify the tallest mountain on the planet based not on its height from sea level, but from an imaginary point at the center of the earth, the tallest mountain would not be Everest but Ecuador’s own Mount Chimborazo? Don’t believe me? Check out this website from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

An Upcoming Road Trip?

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Saguaro Cacti Near Tucson

Martine has generally not been interested in travel. Lately, however, she mentioned the possibility of two Southwest road trips: One up U.S. 395 and other to Tucson, Arizona. Years ago, Martine had fond memories of a visit to an aunt who lived in Tucson.

I, myself, have never been to Tucson or even Phoenix. My knowledge of Arizona is mostly the area north of I-40 along the Kingman-Williams-Flagstaff-Winslow axis.

Today, I took my car in for its 39,000-mile service so that if we went to Tucson in March or early April, I would not be forced to make any last-minute decisions. Since I am also due to visit my brother in Palm Desert in two weeks, I will try to talk Martine into coming with me. It seems that the Coachella Valley is on the AAA preferred route to Tucson, and it would be killing two birds with one stone.

I will write more about the upcoming trip after I do a bit more research.

Desert Interlude

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Southern California’s Coachella Valley

I will not be posting to this website for a few days as I will be in the desert visiting my brother Dan. On Sunday morning, I will be doing a tour of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, “The Camp David of the West,” where many world leaders convened. Then, on Monday, because Dan will probably be at work, I will be on my own. I haven’t decided where I will go, but it will invariably be a photogenic place which will result in future blogs.

The Sun King

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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!

Tres Días en Baja

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The Port of Ensenada, Mexico

I will not be posting again until Friday, when I return from three days in Ensenada, Baja California. Early tomorrow, I will be driving down to the San Ysidro border crossing and meeting my brother there. (He will be coming down from Palm Desert in the Coachella Valley.) At that point, I will hand over the wheel to Dan, who will drive us in my car down to Ensenada, which is something like an hour’s drive south of the border.

Although Ensenada is a major cruise port, we will not have to fight our way past boat people until 8 AM Thursday, when the USS Navigator of the Seas will begin disgorging 3,100 passengers right around the tiome we will be heading back to the border.

Why are we going to Ensenada? Why, for the fish tacos, of course. The city has a reputation for the best taco carts in Mexico, especially where seafood is concerned. When I return home, I expect to have developed gills to aid in my breathing.

Hot! Hot!! Hot!!!

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They Weren’t Whistling Dixie

I returned yesterday from the Coachella Valley after four days of excess 100° Fahrenheit (38° Celsius) temperatures. When summer temperatures arrive in the lower desert, it is time to seek air-conditioned comfort. No walkies, no hikes, no outdoor activities of any sort: It is simply time to seek air-conditioned comfort and hunker down. Even the steering wheel of my Subaru Forester was hot to the touch.

Knowing full well what was in store for me, I had a god time nonetheless. My brother’s house in Palm Desert is comfortable, and I enjoyed reading and talking with him and with my sister-in-law Lori. Yesterday, before setting out for Los Angeles, I had breakfast with Dan and my niece Hilary, who had just arrived by plane from Seattle. After an hour of pleasant chatter, I hit the road with only a single rest stop in Rowland Heights.

The Los Angeles temperature was a full 40° Fahrenheit (22° Celsius) cooler than the Coachella Valley. I found I needed a jacket when I unloaded the luggage from my car.

The net result: I didn’t really go anywhere which I could feature in my blog posts. Sometimes, it just happens that way. Fortunately, the hot weather did not stop me from enjoying myself.

Off to Hide Out in the Desert

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The Cactus Garden at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage

I will not be posting any blogs this weekend as I will be out of town visiting my brother in the Coachella Valley. My next post will likely be on Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Unfortunately, the temperature is expected to be in excess of 100° Fahrenheit (37° Celsius) for the four days I will be there, but I will not likely be doing a lot of outdoor exercise, unless it involves a cooling dip in the pool. More than likely, I will be watching some of the NBA playoff games, especially the ones in which the Lakers are playing.

I will also be reading Robert M. Utley’s The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890. That will be in addition to eating some of my brother’s excellent cooking, watching films with him and my sister-in-law, and talking up a storm.