March 31, 2017

• Spring Joyride

  It's finally spring weather, which in Southern California means sunny, breezy, not too hot or cold, and no threat of rain.  A friend and I had talked about visiting the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad for some time.  We had driven past it, and had even scheduled such a visit -- three times we had to cancel for one reason or another.  We had scheduled a trip last week Monday, and cancelled because they close on Mondays, so this week we scheduled it for Wednesday.  It was a beautiful day, and the traffic was not bad -- we reached the area in time to have a nice leisurely lunch before heading to the museum.  Once inside, I did take one photo, but put the camera away -- the light was insufficient for natural light photos, and I don't like to disturb other people with flash photography inside a museum.  The result is a little blurry, since the camera was handheld and required a longer than usual exposure.  This shot gives an idea, though, of what we were to see for the next couple of hours in the museum.

  

  The museum included many guitars and brass instruments, sprinkled with a few woodwinds and other instruments.  The instruments were displayed in sections of 30 year spans, beginning in the early 1800's, and in each section were short (1 minute) clips of recordings of the music of the era, tracing popular music through the decades.  It was fascinating, and well worth the time we spent there.

  Directly across the street is the top of the Flower Fields.  We didn't spend the time or money to enter the fields this time, but this is the location where they grow ranunculus for flowers and for salable corms.  They plant the corms in rows of color, and at this time of year it is very spectacular.

  

  

  Below the Flower Fields are an outlet mall, a restaurant row (where we ate lunch), and infrastructure for the cities of Carlsbad and San Diego.  The tower is part of a power plant.  Just below that and to the right is a new desalination plant which will provide 1/3 of the fresh water used by San Diego.  We drove past the plant, to see how bad it looks -- we could hardly see it from the main road a block or so away.  There are two low 'towers,' and on one side a fairly large lagoon provides the salt water for the plant.  It doesn't look bad at all!

  

  

  In previous years, I have walked the fields, getting closer to the flowers, but have never taken a ride on the wagons -- after sitting in the car, and standing for some time at the museum, this looked tempting!

  

  It was a wonderful spring day, and I hope now to do many more of these 'joyrides.'

  • 3:59 pm
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