I go almost every day on my bicycle the half-mile down the hill from where I live to the banks of the San Diego River. California has some impressive rivers, but the San Diego River isn’t one of them. It is so small that in most other parts of the world it wouldn’t be called a river... probably a creek or branch or run; but here it’s a river... The tides lazily push the water back into Mission Valley and for a few hours each day, it even looks like a river for a few hundred yards before it spills into the Pacific Ocean. Periodically a big enough rain comes to the area to swell the river and even push it over its banks for four or five miles east of the sea.

Water birds and flowers along the banks of the river have begun to show signs of spring. Today the blue lupins are blooming and willow trees are showing off their catkins. Life is good.