My Town Monday: La Jolla, CA (3 days late)

Oh my, my. What has happened to me? I've been sucked into the vortex of end-of-the-school-year activities and beginning-of-the-summer activities.

Ambitious Child #3 (15 year-old son) decided he'd like to get a Spanish high-school class under his belt this summer, no mean feat in the impoverished California public school system. After weeks of internet searches and phone calls, we finally found a course--at a posh private school! So, for 4 weeks, 6 hours a day, he's getting a little glimpse into another world.

Likewise, Child #4 (11 year-old daughter) and I have migrated along with him to swanky La Jolla. She's enrolled in various morning camps to allow her mother some writing time. So, I'll be posting to you from a variety of locations in La Jolla over the next while.

Check us out:

After dropping off Child #3, we head over to La Jolla Shores for breakfast on the beach. This is Child #3 and a good friend, munching it up before heading to a shark camp.


The surf is up! All those black dots are surfers. Very fun to watch. But not great for shark spotting as the great surfing waves means churned-up water with less-than-stellar visibility for enthusiastic snorkellers.

After dropping off the girls, I wander the streets of La Jolla, my laptop in tow, looking for an open library (once again, not easy in these times of budget cuts) or an interesting coffee shop.

And we'd like to recommend Pizza on Pearl for lunch where they serve all sorts of thin-crust-New-York pizza, by the slice or the pie.

It's never to late to check out My-Town-Monday posts! Please click here for links to what's going on in other corners of the world.

Hope you're enjoying your summer!

My Town Monday: Great White Shark, La Jolla, CA

I had an entirely different My Town Monday post planned for today. Then I thought you might like to see what's actually in our headlines.

Taken with my Blackberry (Kidding! This delightful shot is from Google images.)

Yesterday, a great white shark was spotted outside the SURF line (edited. thanks Anon) at La Jolla Shores. Which is only the beach I usually go to with my kids! A kayaker saw the shark and reported it was longer than his TWELVE-FOOT kayak! Lifeguards informed people along a two-mile stretch of beach. Most people opted to stay out of the water. Imagine!

Here's a link to a fatal great white shark attack at Solana Beach (about 12 miles north of La Jolla) in the spring of 2008. Prior to this, there hadn't been an attack for about 50 years. So, you can see that we generally don't have much trouble with great whites.

A few facts about the great white shark:
-It's the largest predatory fish in the ocean.
-It has a white belly.
-It attacks by biting its prey, letting it bleed out, then returning to eat it.
-Gestation may last longer than a year.
-Life span is over 30 years.
-This shark is found in all our oceans.
-This shark doesn't like to eat humans.The adults do like to munch on marine mammals (like sea lions and elephant seals)

Have you heard of the White Shark Cafe? It's located in the Pacific Ocean, between Baja California (part of Mexico) and Hawaii, in the winter and spring. No one knows why the great whites congregate here. It's not for the gourmet food. There's not much food at all here for them. It's not a mating area. Juveniles as well as adult males and females hang out at the White Shark Cafe. A popular shark activity at the Cafe is to dive down 1,000 feet every ten minutes. No one knows why. Creeeepy.

From Google images (I knew you wouldn't fall for the Blackberry line again!)

And, in case you were wondering, the Summy family will not be at the beach today.

Check out these other My Town Monday posts:

Clair Dickson: Chains that no longer come or never came to Livingston County, Michigan

J. Winter: The Jeremiah Morrow Bridge, Cincinnati, Ohio (repost)

Gabe Goldstone: The Countess of Dufferin, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada


This week, I'm the hostess with the mostest for My Town Monday. So, if you've put up a MTM post, let me know in the comments section here or on the official My Town Monday blog. And I'll link to you on both blogs. Happy Monday!



sources:
http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=38
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_white_shark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Shark_Cafe