It's Not Looking Good for Tourists

It’s Not Looking Good for Tourists

There is a powdering of snow on the ground this morning here in the mountains east of San Diego. Precipitation is still coming down in a contest between snow and rain blowing in horizontally at about 25 to 30 mph. It looks like the rain is going to win this round. The weatherman just said it will clear up a little by nightfall, but during the night the storm will circle around and hit us again with snow at 2500-foot levels and temperatures down into the twenties. I tried to pick a lull to let my dogs out, but they got very wet anyway and it took a lot of paper towels to blot them dry Brrr! The wind chill is going to drive me back to bed.

I just saw the flock of quail scurrying along in small groups, their top-notches bobbing and little feet a blur as they leave their tracks in the snow. There are blue jays and juncos making short flights from the oak trees over my trailer to the ground where there may be small pieces of dry cat and dog food. One enterprising jay has found the bag of birdseed I put inside the doghouse to keep it out of the rain. He has put a hole in the bag and is scattering seeds around for the juncos as he has a morning feast.

My TV shows a miserable looking reporter seventy miles to the west standing on the Ocean Beach shoreline where wild churning waves are eroding the sand. I don’t see any surfers in the background. There are craft fairs and a parade scheduled for today, as well as a Christmas festival of some kind at San Diego’s fabulous Balboa Park tonight. With the cold wet weather, some will be cancelled and it doesn’t look as if much money will be raised no matter how good the cause.

In the mountains 2,000 feet above me at almost 6,000 feet, they have 2 inches of snow with lots more to come. That will bring people with sleds and tourist money to Julian’s restaurants and apple pie shops unless the roads leading up there are closed. Most people here in this usually warm climate don’t have chains, and the Highway Patrol doesn’t allow cars to attempt the steep grades without them. There will be a clutter of parked cars at the base of the mountains where family members will be tossing snowballs at each other and sliding between the manzanita bushes down the banks on illegal immigrant trails. And there are probably hidden immigrants shivering under the bushes in the mountains to the south, waiting for a chance to make it to the fields and orchards north of Los Angeles. Every winter the bodies of unidentified Latino looking people are found dead from exposure in these mountains bordering Mexico. In the summer they die of dehydration.

I’m also thinking of the homeless people who flock to southern California every winter. The downtown shelters are probably full to overflowing. And I’m worried about my homeless friends Bob and Shirley. I wonder if the tent I bought them is sufficient to keep them from freezing. They said they were headed back out into the desert where it may be a little warmer but will probably be cold and windy too. I have their old dog Sherpa right here beside me on a soft dog bed next to a heater. I gave them an open-ended invitation to come back to use my too small and uncomfortable dinette-made-into-a-bed if they get desperate enough. Maybe they can find temporary shelter at the Salvation Army in El Centro. And if things are getting uncomfortable here, just think how much worse they will be when this storm reaches the plains states and the northeast! Better get out your long-johns my friends to the east!

Well, I think I will cook myself some pancakes and snuggle back in bed with a book my book club is reading – "Rain of Gold" by Victor Villasenior. And then again, I just might write another article about presidential contenders first.