I Went to San Diego and Ate Some Tacos

AND I got another national park passport stamp!

Although we're not planning any big New Zealand-style trips this year, we seem to be making up for it with a good variety of smaller US trips. Oh, well--who needs a retirement fund in this political climate, anyway? Might as well enjoy the pre-apocalypse while it lasts!

Anyway, this deep dive into San Diego and its environs is likely the only trip I'll get this year with all of my immediate family members accounted for (the detours I force them to take on the way to and from college drop-offs are also fun for me, but are, by necessity, brief little swindles away from the proper business of the day), so I enjoyed it even more for the novelty of having everyone I love together in the same place at the same time doing some sightseeing along with me.

Also Wilbear, because I didn't work that hard to earn him just to make him sit around the house for the rest of his life:

Wilbear wanted to see the Pacific Ocean and learn about Spain's genocide against the indigenous peoples of North and South America, so that's what we did!

Welcome to Cabrillo National Monument, everyone!

This was actually our first stop after the airport. Or rather, our first stop after paying for and picking up our rental car at the airport. I didn't realize that there was yet one more step in the process after getting settled in our rental, so I busily set up the car's Bluetooth to play my Going to California Spotify playlist and then MORTIFIED the children when my partner rolled down his window to do exit paperwork with a rental car guy and Katy Perry's "California Gurls" was blaring.

I personally thought it was quite festive!

Here's a conquistador ready to enslave and genocide, comfy in the knowledge that smallpox and syphilis are going to do 90% of his job for him:

And here's the path that Juan Cabrillo and his fellow genocidal maniacs took in their route up Baja California, the California coast, and all the way to Oregon:

Cabrillo National Monument is a little peninsula where supposedly Juan Cabrillo became the first European to step onto the West Coast of the future United States, but presently it's mostly a cool viewing point where you can watch various ships sail in and out of San Diego Bay, most interestingly Navy ships because the monument overlooks part of the naval base.

Here's me briefly abandoning my two most treasured companions so I can get a better look at a submarine:

Three national park passport stamps so far this summer, and at least two more before the road trip to college drop-offs even starts. AND my America the Beautiful pass officially paid for itself here, with eleven more months of national park travels still to come!

You can also hike down to the shore, where in the winter low tides apparently reveal some exceptional tide pools. There weren't any excellent tide pools revealed during this particular summer low tide, but we nevertheless had fun clambering around, getting our knees sandy, and making sure we'd touched the Pacific Ocean:

And then, off to tacos!

One of my goals on this trip was to eat as much Mexican food as I could fit into my mouth, so birria tacos were a good start:

The older kid had a California burrito, and the younger kid stole most of my tortilla chips and drank horchata. She was super excited at first to see that there was an entire horchata dispenser(!!!), but it turns out that, disappointingly, none of the horchata she tried in any of the restaurants we ate at were making fresh horchata in-house. I guess you can get a dry horchata mix, and that was what they were using? Later on this trip I'd order a jamaica that had definitely been made from scratch, but by that time the kid was burned from too many packet horchatas and so stuck to her Diet Coke. 

Tomorrow, Palomar Observatory and the desert!

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I Went to the First State National Historical Park, and I Need to Tell You about Caesar Rodney

 

All I wanted to accomplish was collecting my national parks passport stamp for the First State National Historical Park. 

Instead, I got myself caught up in the most pleasant and benign hostage situation.

First of all, I feel like all of these New England states just play fast and loose with each others' mottos. We were in Maryland at this point, not even close to New Hampshire! How does this warrant a New Hampshire state motto-themed pun?

The plan was to hit up First State National Historical Park, walk around for a bit--

cobblestones!

--do the museum so we could figure out what on earth we were supposed to be looking at, because I was, sadly and alas, NOT up-to-date on my Delaware state history, and then get back on the road to Philadelphia.

The museum had all my favorite parts. There were old pipes!

Remember when I mudlarked some exactly like this from the banks of the Thames?

Fun chances for guest input!

A "voter ID" is not an example of a voting right? MAGA party line people are so boring.

Hands-on activities!

I think we're supposed to be noticing how the boundary arc is similar to Delaware's current state line... but I don't know the shape of Delaware that well, and there's not an example nearby. You think too much of me, First State National Historical Park!

Cool tag lines!

Weird statuary!

I texted the kids that I found a statue of one of them in this museum, then waited to see which one got to her phone first to congratulate her sister.

We probably should have left after the museum, because we were technically supposed to be moving the kid out of her dorm that afternoon, ahem, but I wanted to check out the outside of the buildings, and as we were walking around the old courthouse--

--there was a sign that said that you could see inside it if you were on a ranger-led tour, and the timetable indicated that a tour had literally just started one minute ago!

So we popped into the building, where there was, indeed a park ranger, and since we were the only people who'd shown up, she started her spiel right away.

Thus began the nicest, most interesting hostage situation I have ever been involved in. 

Y'all, we got the WHOLE story of this courthouse. We heard interesting stories of the people who were tried and jailed here. We learned where the gallows used to be. We saw a cool handprint in one of the handmade bricks on the floor:

 We learned about the tea room that the courthouse turned into, on account of there were so many tourists coming to and fro on the nearby ferry:

We learned about how one time a youthful Shirley Temple visited the court house tea room with her family on the way to or fro the ferry, was heard sassing her mother there, and the person who heard her wrote a newspaper article about it.

We also saw a copy of the newspaper article.

I'll admit that the presentation did feel a little long, and every time I thought the docent was wrapping up she seemed to go back in time to a different interesting story and sort of start the run-through again with all-new information, but honestly it was so interesting and I was having a ball. Like, I knew that time was passing, but seriously, how long could one presentation be? Might as well lean in and learn stuff.

Finally, the docent really did finish telling us every single thing there was to learn about the old court house, and we got up, thinking we were about finished and let's go hit up the gift shop real quick and then hop in the car, when she was all, "Okay, now watch your step as we go upstairs!"

OMG you guys! There was an UPSTAIRS!!!

When we settled down in this room, we learned everything there was to learn about Delaware state history, including the fact that the 13 original colonies is kind of a lie, because up until just before Independence Day, Delaware Colony was actually not its own separate colony, but part of Pennsylvania! There was a bunch of scuttlebutt about the leadership in Pennsylvania never giving Delaware its due, so when they heard about the Declaration of Independence coming up, the people of Delaware were like, "Screw Pennsylvania! We're going to declare ALL the Independence!"

And they did!

We also learned about Caesar Rodney, who was this sickly Patriot dude who had asthma and migraines and cancer so bad that he commonly wore a scarf to hide a tumor on his face and was always in agony, etc. Oh, and his parents had died when he was a kid but that was actually his big break, because then he became a ward of some rich, political guy who set him up in politics when he was grown. 

During the First Continental Congress Rodney got super sick but since there were three Delaware representatives and they were both voting for independence, it was fine for him to travel home so he could properly rest. But then right before the final vote, he heard that one of his fellow representatives was now going to vote no!

So poor Caesar Rodney, asthmatic and riddled with cancer and also super sick with some virus or something on top of it, rode 70+ miles throughout the night, IN A THUNDERSTORM, to come back to Philadelphia to vote. And when he got back to the Continental Congress, not only did he turn Delaware's vote to independence, but he gave a speech so moving that other representatives of other colonies changed their votes, too!

He's on the Delaware state quarter riding his horse. The docent showed us a picture of it.

We also saw a portrait of Marqus de Lafayette, who gave a speech in front of the court house in 1824:

Y'all, I was so into those Caesar Rodney stories that the presentation just flew by. When the docent finally ended it and told us we could finish looking around the place by ourselves, I checked my watch for the first time and had to double-check that I wasn't randomly in a different time zone, because TWO HOURS had passed!

I don't know, you guys. I know I could have questioned it or called a halt at any time, and I literally thought I was walking in for a ten-minute run-down of a cool old court house, but this docent had me eating out of her hand. I was enraptured for two full hours of Delaware history.

On the way out, the docent mentioned that there was a historical cemetery next door. I said, "OOH, does it have Caesar Rodney?!?"

And then the docent had to tell me that Caesar Rodney, this American patriot who bodily suffered for our independence, had actually been buried in an unmarked grave and we never found out where it was. 

I think I was overwrought from so much Delaware history by that point, because I burst into tears, horrifying the docent. And then I was doing the thing where I was laughing at myself because of my behavior and apologizing for crying and actively crying and just kind of repeating, "OMG Caesar Rodney!"

Anyway, the cemetery had some other cool grave markers!

Lol at this statue of William Penn. Delaware couldn't get rid of you fast enough!

Okay, NOW we can go move the kid out of her dorm!

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I Did Not Get To Help Raise the Big Flag at Fort McHenry

It was still fun, though!

Because, as everyone knows, my entire purpose in life now is to collect national park passport stamps, I convinced my partner that the best way to get to the kid's college to pick her up for summer vacation was through Baltimore.

It's obviously not, but my wish for you is that you also find a life partner who deems it easier to support your delusions than to argue with you.

And not only did I convince him that we should detour through Baltimore, but I ALSO convinced him that we should do so a day early and spend the night there so that I could get to Fort McHenry National Monument when it opened and therefore be in no danger of accidentally missing the raising of the giant historic flag.

Because. You guys. If you're there for the raising of the giant historic flag, YOU GET TO HELP RAISE THE GIANT HISTORIC FLAG.

Enough said, right? Obviously this opportunity is worth any amount of effort.

The grounds around the fort are beautiful and free to roam, and combined with the free parking I imagine they're an awesome place to hang out all year. Here's the entrance to the paid area, with the small overnight flag still flying:

The admission to the fort is a horrifying FIFTEEN DOLLARS PER PERSON (?!?!?!), buuuuuttttt if you buy an $80 America the Beautiful pass it covers all entrance fees for you plus three people or your entire personal car-load for 12-ish months. 

I bought the pass, and it'll have paid for itself by the end of July. 

I'm sorry to tell you that also at the flag-raising was a giant group of MAGA schoolchildren, and I know this because many of them were wearing MAGA hats. Why on earth you would dress an innocent child in a MAGA hat I do not know; it's so gross to put a hate-filled agenda physically on a child and just expose them to the judgment of the general population like that. It's the same kind of people who also put their children in front of Planned Parenthood clinics holding forced-birth signage. Everyone knows that kids don't have the critical thinking skills to properly put themselves in positions like that; it's the parents who want their kids to grow up to be fascists who do things like that TO them.

I'm also sorry to tell you that it was too windy for the big flag. Instead, we raised the small flag, sob.

However, the bright spot of the day is that separately, there was ALSO a children's choir visiting Fort McHenry that morning, on the same kind of "visit Washington, DC, and its nearby educational sites" trip as the MAGA children's group. I actually saw these kids gathering as we were pulling into the parking lot and thanks to their aura of general productivity--busy sunscreening themselves and putting on their hats and their little backpacks--I was all, "Oh, look! A Girl Scout troop!"

I wasn't far off, lol!

When the park ranger running the flag raising heard that they were a children's choir, she invited them to sing the National Anthem during the raising. They agreed, and now, thanks to them, I have a very sweet national park memory:

Although I'd rather have a memory of the children's choir singing while I helped raise the BIG flag, humph.

The fort itself is interesting to walk around, with small exhibits inside many of the rooms:

Because it was such a beautiful day, though, the best part was exploring around the fort, all the banks and berms and cannon emplacements with an outstanding view to the river:

In the distance, there's even a perfect view of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. 

That walking path at the bottom of the photo and all the green space between it and the fort is a fee-free area, so I bet the whole area was MOBBED with spectators in the hours and days after the bridge's collapse.

I really liked all the cannon emplacements. During the Civil War, they were turned to face Baltimore in case of insurrection:

Genuine cannonball from the 1814 bombardment:

View from the jail:

View INTO the jail!

This is really cute. On the 100th anniversary of the bombardment, they dressed children in little red, white, and blue capes to make a "living flag." 

We spent about three hours exploring, and I wish we could have packed a picnic and spent the afternoon, too--I mean, look at this beautiful day!--

--but we were actually supposed to be literally moving my kid out of her dorm room that day, as well, ahem.

And on the way there it would be practically hardly any detour at all to just sneak by the First State National Historical Park for a couple of hours...

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I Read Death in Grand Canyon, Because I Needed To Be Told Not To Pick Up a Rattlesnake With My Bare Hands

Photos courtesy of a 2010 trip I took with the kids to the Grand Canyon. There's more than enough to see even when you're standing behind the guardrails and staying on the path!

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon by Michael P. Ghiglieri
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Y’all know how obsessed I am with my Special Interest of Human Mishaps in National Parks. I like to tackle it through various lenses--missing people, or search and rescue, or the occasional paranormal theorist--but my favorite is this type of book that simply chronicles every single death, of every circumstance, in one specific national park.

While Death in Grand Canyon isn’t nearly as gruesome as Death in Yellowstone (sooooo many people have been boiled down to their bones in Yellowstone! So many people have been devoured by bears!), it’s still pretty gruesome. I now know so much about how to die of dehydration, and ALSO how to die of hyperhydration. Eat salty snacks while you chug your water, Friends!

As I gleefully announced every time my husband walked by while I was reading this book, the main risk factor for dying in Grand Canyon appears to be being male. Men are the ones pranking their poor daughters by pretending to fall off the rim and then slipping and actually doing so (Greg Austin Gingrich). Men are the ones trying to pick up rattlesnakes with their bare hands. Men are the ones ducking under guardrails to go stand on the rim, and when their young sons warn them that they’re not supposed to go past the rail, they respond, “You gotta take some chances in life,” then immediately step onto an unsupported snowbank and fall 350 feet (Richard Pena). And most of all, apparently, men are the ones insisting on peeing over the edge of the canyon, then getting dizzy and falling to their deaths with their dicks out.

And when men aren’t actively getting killed on their own behalf, they’re actively dragging their women into death instead. I am still absolutely fuming about the talented young athlete Margaret Bradley, whose amazing performance at the Boston Marathon and in her collegiate competitions had her planning for the Olympic Trials… after she visited her buddy Ryan in Flagstaff, of course. He was a runner, too, and had planned a fun fifteen-mile training run for them down and back at the Grand Canyon.

It wasn’t even so much that Ryan’s proposed trail was WAY longer than fifteen miles. Or even that they didn’t carry nearly enough water. Or even that when they got tired and dehydrated and Ryan couldn’t continue, they agreed that Bradley would pound on to their destination and send help. That’s all stupid, but every one of those mistakes could have been recovered from. The mistake that couldn’t be recovered from is when Ryan, who’d sheltered in place overnight, was rescued the next morning by a USGS employee who happened by, HE DID NOT TELL HER THAT HE HAD A COMPANION WHO WAS MISSING. Instead, he was like, “Yeah, I’ve got a buddy down at Phantom Ranch. Can you have someone tell her I’m moving the car?” Like, Dude literally just assumed that Margaret, suffering from dehydration and heatstroke, had blithely run all the way to Phantom Ranch and then just… what? Hung out there without breathing a word to anyone about HIM?!?

You guys. This dude hitched a ride with that USGS employee back to Flagstaff, still without breathing a word about his missing companion, and went to bed. Meanwhile, Margaret’s parents are freaking out that she hasn’t checked in with them, they’re calling everyone, they finally get the police to get ahold of Ryan early the next morning, and he finally tells the authorities the actual story so they can get a helicopter out to look for Margaret.

The coroner’s report stated that Margaret had died about 12-24 hours before the helicopter spotted her. If Ryan had told anyone that his running buddy had kept going and he didn’t know where she was, she wouldn’t have died lost and alone from heat stroke.

I swear, y’all, if you’re a man and you want to go to the Grand Canyon, you need to first make sure it’s your turn with the single brain cell that you all share.

Fortunately, or the book might be too depressing even for me, we also learn about plenty of heroes whose quick thinking and compassion save lives. In 2001, when a couple with four children went hiking down the canyon, they didn’t keep track of their kids and the three older kids ranged far ahead of the parents and toddler. The three older kids happened upon a Boy Scout troop whose leader, Jim Furgo, had just made the decision that the troop was going to forgo their fun overnight at the bottom of Hualapai Canyon because of the weather forecast, and when that Boy Scout leader saw three unaccompanied children hiking towards an area he considered unsafe, he roped them in with his troop, and they all hiked a mile to a much wider area. And so when the flash flood came through the canyon with its 20-foot-high wall of water, the parents and toddler died, but Jim Furgo had saved the lives of every child with him.

I framed it for the vista, so you can't tell that they're not sitting anywhere NEAR the edge. Don't sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon! Your brain can't make sense of the perspective and will make you lose your balance or feel faint as you're getting up.

Although the authors can be a bit glib at times, I appreciated their emphasis on what one can learn from these accounts. Listen to the park rangers and heed all warning signs. Bring more than enough water, and enough salty snacks to accompany them. Don’t hike alone, if possible. Ensure that someone outside your party knows where you will be and when you plan to return. Be mindful of local weather. Don’t sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon, because you’ll stumble or get vertigo when you get up and fall. Don’t use the Grand Canyon as your suicide plan, because it’s traumatic for the people who have to pick your meaty bits out of the dirt.

And don’t try to pick up a rattlesnake with your bare hands. Why are people even doing that in the first place?

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