More pictures from the weekend

So a little while ago I shared this from our hike at Torrey Pines. I want to post it again to provide a contrast.

Even if I took this photo to show then entire San Diego coastline it would essentially look like this. Nothing on the horizon.

OK, now lets see some pictures from my walk along the Huntington Beach boardwalk yesterday.

This looks pretty nice. It was a typically hazy so cal day, but other than that, a charming little pier, right?

What’s that? Oh, right. An offshore oil rig. Pretty dang close to shore at that. My camera is nothing much as cannot zoom all that well. I have this vague memory of discussion about these rigs. But I don’t know that I had ever really seen them. When we lived in the OC in the 70s we were not big beach goers and I had moved to San Diego before I became attached to the shore. This…would piss me off to no end let me tell you! And this was just the closest one. There were four visible from where I stood. U-G-L-Y.

But, it gets worse. Here is a picture of what are probably some very expensive houses facing the shore along Pacific Coast Highway just up from the pier:

Now a picture of what is on the corner not showing up there – in other words – on the corner across the street from that house on the corner:

Yep, more oil drillers. There is a full block of those things just across the beach and PCH. Behind the block of drillers are more very very nice looking, newer, probably terribly expensive homes. They get to look out on the drillers, then off in the distance, the ocean with the oil rigs. Wow. I remember those drillers from growing up in the OC. Normally you see them in an industrial/commerical area. In fact, further inland, more near the ball fields, I did see one all by itself on a corner lot. It’s a very funny thing to turn a corner and see that. Gas station, rubios, condos, oil driller. OK.

All in all, it just made me even more appreciative of San Diego.