David DiBiase

The User Conference in July is both the beginning and the culmination of the annual cycle of work at Esri. Intensity builds at headquarters in the weeks and months leading up to the event, which lasts eight days for me and my team and involves more than 15,000 guests and Esri staff. A cherished release near the midpoint of the event is the 5 kilometer footrace that takes place early Wednesday morning. The 2014 route started and finished at the Hilton Bayfront and followed the Embarcadero through the North and South Marina Parks. This year I decided to see how fast I could go. I aimed for 27 minutes, which is not fast but is faster than I’d ever finished before. I started off at a 7-minute mile pace and kept it up until about halfway when I felt a jolt in my left hamstring. I kind of hobbled to the end but still finished under 26 minutes. Fellow runner Rachel snapped my happy and dazed visage at right, where I’m sprawled out near the finish line, stretching my sore leg. The next day my colleague Angie informed me that I’d finished first in my age group. The one and only perk for advancing age.

On Friday the 4th of July Val and I hiked up to Big Meadows, the headwaters of the Santa Ana River. For most of its length, from San Bernardino to Huntington Beach, the Santa Ana is just a ditch that the Corps of Engineers paved and dammed to prevent floods. I often cycle a popular bike path that follows the ditch 20 miles south from San B, passing an incinerator, two landfills and a sewage treatment plant. Up here, at about 7,000 feet elevation on the northern side of the San Gorgonio wilderness, the Santa Ana is a charming creek that flows from a meadow that’s lush even in summer. From the trailhead on Route 38 on the way to Big Bear, it was about an 8.5-mile walk that we covered in a leisurely four hours. The trail was a little hard to follow in places, so we appreciated the signage.

This is a view from Leg 4 of the Tussey Mountainback 50-mile relay race course. Whenever I return to State College I make time to return to Rockrock State Forest for a run along one of the fire road trails. This time, on Sunday June 15, the weather was sublime. Great memories of relays here with my teams “Three Feat” and “Built for Comfort.” “Three Feat” (Mark Wherley, Beth Bailey and I) won a first place medal in the standard mixed masters class in 2009. No matter that we were the only competitors in that class.

My excuse for returning was the annual meeting of the Advisory Board of the Penn State Online Geospatial Programs. It was a delight to be with old friends again, to strategize together about the continuing success of the Penn State program, and of course to dine at Zola New World Bistro.

Mendocino headlands

Val enjoys the garden outside Trillium restaurant in Mendo

Stags Leap palisades above Stags Leap Wine Cellar’s Fay Vineyard. Photo thanks to www.wine-muse.com

Val arranged a get-away to Mendocino and Napa and points in between over an extended Memorial Day weekend. I needed the escape after a pressure-packed and travel-intensive month of May. I met her formidable mom Marion and shared Adventist Sabbath with her and many of Val’s hometown peeps. We shared a relaxing afternoon at the boutiquey little coastal town of Mendocino, followed by a sublime day of wine tasting in Napa Valley. I loved the Stags Leap district. Thanks to Barb, Val’s lifelong friend, who shared her charming cottage in St. Helena. We had a lot of fun together.

Almost every time I came to San Diego to represent Penn State at the Esri User Conference, I’d take time off to visit Anza Borrego State Park. In particular, I enjoyed visiting the desert town of Borrego Springs, and the nearby Palm Canyon Trail. The town and the trail are at the far western edge of the Sonoran desert, in the rainshadow of the Peninsular Ranges.

I returned to trail again on April 27 for the first time since moving to California, this time with Esri colleague Angie Lee. It’s only a mile and a half from the trailhead up an alluvial fan into the ravine and shortly to an extraordinary fan palm oasis. The second picture shows the oasis. For scale, note the two fellow visitors in the lower left.

Hiking here in April you’re likely to see plenty of people but no borregos. The bighorn sheep only tolerate people when the hot summer temperatures dry up the smaller seeps up slope and force the them down to the oasis in plain sight. Last time I visited, in July 2010, the temperature was 112ºF, and the borregos were there, wary but willing to share the oasis with a few visitors.

The third picture is one of the dozen or so bighorns Cindy Brewer and I saw on that visit. I remember how long the three mile round trip seemed in that extreme heat. Well worth it, though I should have packed more water.

Happy to visit with brother Jack Watson in San Diego on Saturday, March 29. He was in town for the National Art Education Association annual conference. We escaped the touristy Gaslamp District and walked on the beach at Coronado, a treat after the hard winter back east. Then we found a fun Mexican place in Little Italy of all places. Aircraft approaching San Diego International Airport roared past just a few hundred feet above El Camino‘s patio. I enjoyed learning about Jack’s session on relational aesthetics at the conference, and I got to meet some of his collaborators before driving home. Good times.

“Quinta do Roxo”

On March 3rd I moved into a delightful rental cottage in Paso Robles for a week of cycling, wine tasting, and touring around the Central Coast. The second pic is a view along the glorious 27-mile Peachy Canyon bike loop through the hills of west Paso. I can’t remember having more fun on a birthday, but then my 60-year-old memory isn’t what it used to be… 60!? Yikes!!

Vineyard and live oak forest on the west side of Paso Robles

Summit of Mt. Baden-Powell, looking east across the San Gabriels (including Mt. Baldy) to Mts. San Gorgonio and San Jacinto in the distance.

Presidents Day (February 17) hike to the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell with Angela Lee. 9399′ That’s a survey control monument I’m posing with. The fact that the summit is snow-free in February is testament to our drought.

Every Super Bowl Sunday the Surf City Marathon and Half Marathon takes over a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway starting at Huntington Beach. About 10,000 women and 6,000 men showed up on February 2, 2014. I’ve run the half every year since I arrived in Southern California. This year my modest goal was to average 10-minute miles. I made that goal by two seconds. Finished by 1030 or so, home in time for football!

Summited San Bernardino Peak with co-worker Angela Lee on Sunday, January 12. 10,300′, 17 miles roundtrip, 4,000′ climb, 10 hours. A nearly full moon illuminated our path for the last mile and a half. Next day sore but content.