Many Trails To Travel, Many Tales To Tell

By Barbara B. Baker, Event & Volunteer Coordinator

Expect The Unexpected At Lake Hodges

I was feeling pretty bored lately.   It’s been a long hot summer and my routine was becoming fairly fixed.   A friend said that the problem with doing the same thing is that you never expect anything different to happen; the only distinction between a rut and a hole is that one is a little deeper.   I’m not sure which one I’d fallen into when she said that, but it was enough to get me up and moving.   I headed out to Lake Hodges to go kayaking – kind of like hiking on water – and with an I’ll-show-her attitude I began to paddle toward the dam because, after all, I know how to get there and what to expect.  


Leah Deleon, Kayaking at Lake Hodges

The night before I’d indulged once again in sitting in front of the television, snack bowl beside me, watching movies. In the triple digit heat of the last few months this has become routine I admit, but Alfred Hitchcock is classic so I know that my doctor probably understands that exercising my imagination is just as important as hitting the trails.   I hadn’t seen “The Birds” in years and figured it would seem kind of cheesy since it was made back in the day before the advent of high-tech horror films.   This movie was shot at a lake near San Francisco.   It looked a lot like Lake Hodges, except there were so many birds . . .  

That’s one of the first things I noticed as I kayaked around Lake Hodges.   The water is lower than it’s been in a while and there are a lot of birds!    I think I might have been just a little nervous if there were black crows around but instead I saw my favorites:   snowy white egrets and giant egrets—the giants are more stately and still and the snowies are fast and feisty.   The grebes with their red eyes remind me of Southern Red Eye Gravy.   Belted Kingfishers, terns, and sparrows flew overhead.   I saw osprey nests and heard the Voice of the Chaparral, which are wren-tits.   They’re called this because of their ping-pong-bouncing-ball call.  

Fortunately for me I know that everything is more intense in Northern California so no doubt the birds adapted to their environment up there . .   Down here on Lake Hodges outside of San Diego things are not as weird.   At least that’s what I was thinking until I saw something moving rapidly on the water that I didn’t recognize.   I came to a standstill in my kayak, resting my paddle over my body.   I dared not move a muscle.   I waited until it came closer to me, within thirty-five yards maybe, before I saw its eyes, staring and focused on the opposite shore.   This part of the lake was so deep that not even any tree branches stuck out of the water.  

I didn’t know that deer can swim and here was one crossing Lake Hodges!   When she reached the shore she got out, shook off the water, and disappeared through the trees and shrubs.   The mallard ducks kept bobbing through the ripples that the deer created, never seeming to notice anything unusual.   No boats zipped by to throw her off her course.   Even fishermen on the water and opposite shore didn’t stop what they were doing, instead bringing up their lines and examining their catch.  It was a one-of-a-kind moment.   I guess that’s the best thing about the unexpected! You can’t plan those moments.   But I’m beginning to think you can expect them . . .  

It was a nice day on the lake.   The temperature was in the seventies, it was cool and cloudy, and I knew that I should have put on sunscreen because these kinds of days are notorious for getting sunburn.   I never seem to learn.   I got out of the kayak so wet that anyone would think I’d been swimming – I like to throw myself into what I’m doing.   I gathered up my water bottles and snack trash and once again thought how glad I was that I didn’t have to use the H.M.S. Relief, a floating port-a-potty on the lake, (seriously) and then just sat on the shore and looked out at the blue of the sky and the water.

  If you have a favorite trail or story please contact me at Barbara@sdrp.org.   History isn’t always in the books; sometimes it’s in the stories!   Share your history with the San Dieguito River Park.