WALK 78 IS REQUIRED TO FULFILL OUR MISSION

It has come to my attention that one of the Seiko watches in my collection was used twice (blue Seiko Prospex Diver) Several on the table did not get used on a walks. A few days we wore 2-3 watches between us. 

I have to ask - DO ALL MY READERS HAVE OCD? (Obsessive - Compulsive Disorder)?!

I guess I must have it too, because I have identified the missing watches, and we have them with us today.

This little quartz gem is one of them. Its tiny frame and bracelet were filthy, and after an hour of ultrasonic cleaning all the dirt had fallen out but so had the crystal. So it got a new battery, new crystal, cleaned case, brushed dial and my wife is very happy with it.

Mrs. C insisted we get a few rays of sunshine and Vitamin D, so we went out at a very late 8am, and walked a short stretch of Liberty Station that neither of us had done before ...

 

on the south side / right hand side of the channel adjacent to the airport. (We talked about walking through SD International Airport, but decided that would just be trouble. Not like the old days when you could just amble down the corridors endlessly...)

Anyway, we started at the USS Recruit, a training facility on the old Naval Training Center. It's a concrete-locked ship, built so the Navy could acquaint new sailors with all shipboard duties, WITHOUT having to tie up an actual ship, It's a 2/3 scale replica that was actually commissioned as a Naval Vessel in 1949 but decommissioned in the Seventies when computerization hit and government bureaucrats couldn't easily categorize this ship, list its missions, mileage traveled, etc. It was easier to decommission it than to explain it. Sadly, it now does nothing more than look down upon old Lycra-clad ladies and the odd gent doing yoga in its mooring area.

As we walked across the Nimitz Bridge (1993) a huge brown pelican strafed us, only a couple feet overhead. I did manage to get a photo of him before he crash-landed into the canal.



We walked under clear-ish skies with a few strange cloud formations, past a new hotel with architecture to match the old Liberty Station buildings.



We came upon a flock of tiny seed-eaters scratching out their breakfast in the pathway



I got a rare straight-on photo angle of his symmetrical coloration and feathers.



while he was preoccupied looking at this old-style rower in the canal. Nowadays people rarely row boats, they row sleeker craft.



or they paddle (or pedal) kayaks or outriggers, like these three.

Another group of about a dozen birds were in the shallow water to our left, poking about for their food.



We wondered if the males have the curved beaks and the females the straight ones? OR are they different species? 

I find that these walks raise all sorts of questions that demand (however faintly) to be answered, someday.

The birds with the curved beaks always look back with an indignant glare.

And what are these flowers? They seem to be on a vine, they are not bottlebrush, but look like it.

And look at this bus bench. 

It must be rarely used, as it's on a 6 lane roadway with no reason to stop or start here. Four uncomfortable seats, room for a wheelchair, barriers between seats to preclude sleepers from stretching out...

How much must it have cost?? - it includes a cantilevered roof; welded, cast, forged and stamped metal components welded, bolted, and riveted together; powder-coated, mains-powered with lighting, and handy trash bin adjacent; requiring 24-30 precisely-located studs set into concrete base, etc. etc.

My critical attention was diverted by a guy whizzing by on a unicycle at about 35 mph! How can he stop that thing without planting his face in the roadway?? More questions to research and answer!!

 

Here we are back at (back of) the Recruit. My wife happily posing with her last remaining "new" watch. 



I have poached her new Seiko NOS Half-hunter Quartz Pendant watch for today.

And for good measure am wearing a Kinetic Sportura Chrono as I write up this walk for you faithful readers, who also couldn't go cold turkey from the morning walks.

Cheers! Thanks for reading.

Cazalea