Revisit to Tijuana River Estuary, La Jolla and Hanging out...April 4, 5

  Both of these mornings, we took our lovely morning walks, usually a mile and a half to two miles.

Morning walk - on the bay side

Foggy morning walk on bay side with terns and gulls

On the 4th, we drove back down to the Tijuana River Estuary National Preserve.
   First, we stopped into a Pizza/Car Wash which Mark saw recommended on Yelp for having terrific NY style pizza. And, the car was filthy, too. Mark had two slices of pizza which he said were terrific and I had a very nicely done salad. And, the Prius got washed for the first time in a long time.

Happy to be clean

Then we went to the Wildlife Refuge. We took the trail with the bridge to see if we could get a photo of the elusive and rare Light-footed Clapper Rail which we saw last week, but...nothing was in sight. Plus, there was a very grungy and disturbed-looking homeless guy on the bridge which unsettled us.

So, we left and drove back to Imperial Beach and walked a LONG way on the beach to see if we could see birds looking back at the wetlands of the Estuary. We did see birds, but they were far away. We did manage to see a squirrel and phoebe by the parking area.

After that, quite tired from the long beach walk (at least a mile and a half), we went back to another trail to see if we could photograph some western meadlowlarks or killdeer. Mark got a shot of the meadowlark, but it was into the sun so the lovely yellow is not visible.

Western Meadowlark

      From there, we drove up Coronado Island which is a lovely drive with the ocean on the left and the bay on the right. We saw lots of U.S. Navy ships, as well as huge marinas. Then we took the impressive Coronado Bridge home.
   After dinner, we went to the beach to watch the sun set over the Pacific.

Mission Beach Oceanfront walk as sun is setting

Bird and the setting sun

Surfer and the setting sun

On the fifth, we had a rather lazy day until mid-afternoon when we roused ourselves and visited the La Jolla cliffs and walked along. Then, a nice dinner sitting on stools outside the unprepossessing Oscars Mexican Fish Restaurant where Mark had delicious fish tacos and I had ceviche and some bites of his tacos.

La Jolla Cliffs and flowers

Western Gulls and flowers along La Jolla

Some of the multitude of seals on the La Jolla Rocks - very smelly!