Torrey Pines Story Times

This past weekend, Deepak and I rounded out our tour of California golf courses with a 2-night stay at Torrey Pines.

What is a Torrey Pine, you might ask?

Now, I remember grappling with the “What is a Torrey Pine(s)?” issue years ago while working at my college newspaper. Each fall, the outgoing cycle of editors had a tradition of creating a “joke issue”—that is, a full-length issue of the daily newspaper, but filled with The Onion-style spoof articles and obnoxious inside jokes. It was a masturbatory and indulgent errand, sure. But I will brook no criticism about the joke issue’s merits. Response was generally positive, but sometimes clueless critics—i.e., classmates in the dining hall or the pompous printers of a pulp tabloid that featured a regular “pointing out mistakes in the latest edition of the newspaper” section—would complain that they didn’t like the jokes, or that the spoofs missed the mark, or even that there were typos.

Er, hello? We just stayed up all night of our own volition and cobbled together this FREE publication – both distributed for free and made on the backs of an entirely unpaid labor force – and all this after staying up for the past 30 consecutive hours debating the minutiae of the incoming editors’ merits in the deceptively prosaic-sounding gory ceremony known as “elections.” Sit down with this disapproval of our satire choices.

Anyway! I got off track. My first encounter with Torrey Pines was when I was entrusted with writing the bio for my Yale Daily News colleague, Alberto. I interviewed a few of his close friends in search of juicy backstory. I’ll always remember his friend Laura’s deadpan response: “Berto is from Torrey Pines. Just write that and end the bio there.”

What does it mean to be “from Torrey Pines”? I whipped out my camera in anticipation of an investigation.

… But sadly, not my waterproof camera. The silly thing – an Olympus shockproof/waterproof I bought 5 years ago – has never been impressive or reliable. But I think now we’ve finally heard its death knell. The battery cover became loose on our trip to the Maldives last March. But now it’s become so loose that I can’t get the “CLOSE BATTERY COVER!” error screen to go away, thus preventing me from taking (or loading!) any photos at all. Ugh. I guess the picturesque Indian Ocean creatures were too much and WatCam (nickname for the waterproof; also indicative of questionable reliability) wanted to go out on a high note.

San Diego/La Jolla/Torrey Pines has a gorgeous coastline and lovely beaches, so I was excited about my waterproof camera. But the upshot was that there were no shots! Though we kayaked into some true breathtaking sea caves in La Jolla, and saw numerous sea lions, no photos survive of the event. It’s like a Beyonce concert in that way.

I know this disappointed Deepak, because he loves animals. So I made sure we left with some photos of us with the sea lions.

San Diego is about as close as you can get to Tijuana without getting your head lopped off in a senseless and random narcotics-related incident. Thus, the perfect chance to enjoy authentic Mexican food (and the attendant spices)! If you visit La Jolla, I recommend the Fisherman’s Torta from Oscar’s.

Also recommended if you are in Irvine, CA: 85 Degrees Taiwanese Bakery.