April 1st came by pretty fast, but no one was really into telling April Fool’s jokes.

Over the last few months there have been riots in the streets of Portland, violent Black Lives Matters activists events, random store shootings from people upset being told to wear a mask, and hit-and-runs during protest rallies – some just down the street from my home… and I live in a very safe neighbourhood!

I think people have been locked up too long and they’re just going CRAZY! Me too… but I attribute that to old (er… older) age! LOL

Anyway putting that aside, we had a little Easter celebration with just the two of us. Lockdown’s are partially lifted, but things are still too risky to hook up with anyone. The good news is that we managed to get an appointment for our first Moderna Injections for this whole COVID pandemic thing. The injection site was about an hour away, but beggars can’t be choosy – right?!? Besides, it was a good excuse to take a little bit of a road trip!

So we took the morning off and left the house early to get our injections. Afterwards we took our time coming home and stopped at a lake the went to a few years ago. It was a beautiful morning and there were few people around. I usually don’t wear my mask when out doors as we can easily avoid people, but that also meant that I couldn’t go into the Starbucks at the end of the lake for a relaxing coffee! Oops.

On our walk around the lake we saw a lot of turtles basking in the sun. There were also a few ducks waddling around and one goose was just about to give birth. It was nice that the city roped off an area to give her some privacy. As for the father, he was doing his ‘dance’ to either keep her happy, show that he’s a hard worker, or just to distract us ‘picture-talking-predators’.

For most of the month not much happened. I guess one of the highlights was spending more time going grocery shopping at our local Japanese store. It opened about a year ago and we are so lucky to be able to go there regularly. Sometimes we get lucky and find pricing mistakes were we can get Chutoro and Otoro grade sushi at maguro (bluefin tuna) prices! okay, I may be sounding like a Sushibar owner in the Ginza district of Tokyo… but honestly… Chutoro and especially Otoro just melt in your mouth. As for the price difference, it could easily be $40-$60 per pound! Now if you have’t had ‘toro’ you are truly missing out and some magnificent fresh fish.

Trust me!
Especially when washing it down with some good sake!

We also spent a lot of spring mornings over at the Yorba Linda regional park. Yes.. April is Spring for us here in SoCal. It always comes early.

Anyway, back to Yorba Linda Park…
As we are more or less regulars there, the local wildlife has kind of accepted us as part of their larger family and we’re able to get up pretty close to them so see all the babies. It’s quit a sight and April is a month when we get a lot of new birth. Even the Cherry tree on our backyard decided to bloom around Earth Day.

On the morning of Earth Day we also went to a different regional park called Carbon Canyon. It not too far from us, but there is no free parking. We usually have to pay to go into these parks, but when I pulled up to the pay station, there was a free ticket waiting for me! First car in the park on Earth Day is FREE! Woo-Hoo! That was a nice surprise and a nice change from going to Yorba Linda park all the time.

At the end of the month we were rewarded with an exceptionally low tide a Newport Beach. One one day at 5am the tide was as low as -1.25 feet. Even 0 feet is pretty low and make for some good running on the beach. So we actually spent the last three days of April heading down to the beach before sunrise to enjoy a good run and to take on the majestic sites and feelings of an early morning sunrise and moonset by the ocean.

Ah if only every day could be like this…