Sheltering in place

February 4, 2024

The storm is here, the calm is gone. I spent a restless night waking up periodically to doom-scroll through articles about the storm and thinking again about our plans to drive to Solvang in the morning for our uncancellable three day Airbnb booking there. We’ve already given up on our hopes for biking and riding there - it looks certain that our entire stay will be a complete rainout now - but now I’m thinking more about safety as I read predictions of hurricane-strength winds, record-breaking rains, and flash floods. And the worst impact looks like it will be exactly on our driving route, through Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara. It’s easy to imagine us being mired for hours in horrendous traffic logjams, or trapped in a flooded road somewhere hoping that a rescue vehicle will reach us in time.

I hit Rachael with this thorny topic as soon as she’s awake enough for a serious discussion. It’s a painful situation to talk through, partly because we dislike our too-cozy Motel 6, but mostly because we really hate the idea of throwing away $450. Eventually though we find our way to the right idea - it’s just money, and it would be foolish and foolhardy to drive north when we’re being advised to stay off the roads if at all possible.

So we turn next to seeing if we can weasel out of our Airbnb reservation. We send a message to our host, who tells us to call Airbnb. We call Airbnb, get referred a few times and finally land with an agent who works with us. He starts by suggesting we speak with the host and request that they cancel us, but that’s where we started. So he calls them himself and appeals on our behalf, without success. They respond that they can’t cancel because it’s too late, and complain that we didn’t bring this up four days ago while there was still time for them to rebook with someone - but who knew then that conditions would be this dire today?

So we’re given the option of doing nothing, or of cancelling and accepting a whole $44 refund. We chose to do nothing, but as a last act I recontact our host to tell them that we won’t be coming today, if at all; and then, inexplicably, they grant us a cancellation with a full refund. We can hardly believe it.

We still don’t like our Motel 6 though, so while I’ve been working with Airbnb Rachael’s been doing some room research and finds a much better sounding place two miles to the north at a La Quinta. We book it for two nights, pay an extra $20 to buy an early check-in, and are in our new digs by 11:30. It’s a much more comfortable place and will be fine for the two days we’ve booked ourselves, or possibly longer if it comes to that.

Much better. Warmer, brighter, comes with breakfast, and the HVAC doesn’t leak water on the floor.

So we’ve come out of this smelling like roses. We’re safe and dry, we’ve saved a fair amount because this place is cheaper than the cancelled Airbnb, and as a bonus Carlsbad is just far enough south to be sunny and dry for at least the next few hours. I look around and see that we’re only a mile from Batiquitos Lagoon and its nature preserve. I map out a walking route for Rachael and then drive over there myself with the thought that I’ll walk through the reserve hoping for last few California birds, and then move on to the waterfront to look there too.

Bataquitos Lagoon is very nice, with a pleasant sandy footpath beside the lagoon that’s busy with walkers and their dogs out enjoying a last few hours of dry weather. It’s not a particularly good birding location though, at least not with the equipment I’ve brought along because the birds are backlit by the sun and all too far out in the water to identify. There is though one bird I was hoping I might find here - a red-shouldered hawk up high atop a tall snag. I don’t get the best shot of him either, but then he flies off and gives me a good enough look from below that it’s clear what he is.

After walking along the lagoon for an hour I finally give up and turn back to the car and then drive a short ways to the Ponto Beach Jetty, where the mouth of the lagoon opens up to the sea. It’s not a day for birding here either though, maybe because it’s so windy. The only birds around are a few California gulls hunkered down in the sand or fighting the wind. I walk out on the short jetty for a few photos up and down the coast and then drive back into downtown Carlsbad and find a spot for a late lunch.

The view south. It’s actually very pretty here today. Hard to believe that all hell’s broken loose fifty miles to the north.

Pretty slim pickings on the bird front today.

The rains were predicted to arrive mid-afternoon sometime, so I’m pleasantly surprised after lunch to find that it’s still dry out. I drive a few blocks to the nearest beach access and then just sit on the rocks for the next half hour, watching the waves as conditions gradually change. Still no birds other than of course the gulls and then a half dozen pelicans heading south, but it’s very therapeutic to just stop, look and listen.

The rains still haven’t arrived by the time I’m back at the motel not long before sundown - and in fact the weather just keeps pushing out, the first rains not arriving until late in the night. When I look at the satellite view on the weather app it looks like we’re positioned exactly at the south end of the formation. If we were just ten miles to the north we’d probably be getting drenched by now.

Rachael and I return to the motel at precisely the same time. I’m at the door fishing for the key card in my wallet when she calls out to me from about thirty feet away. She’s had an excellent day herself, once she started feeling better - she felt off this morning and her mouth was bothering her some, making her fear that she’d overdone herself at dinner last night. Once she got out though she really enjoyed her eight mile walk, that began on that same path by the lagoon that I visited earlier.

And she came back with a few photos that she packed into a slideshow she’s not the most excited by but wants to keep here to remind herself of the day.

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Steve Miller/GrampiesGlad to hear you are hunkered down somewhere comfortable and relatively safe. The news stories about the atmospheric river had us a bit concerned for your safety. Good that we are no longer needing to be too worried.
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesThanks. Once we worked ourselves around to it, this was the obviously right thing to do.
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3 months ago

Bill ShaneyfeltBeen watching as that develops with a daughter in the hills not far out of Santa Cruz, and having grown up in Mojave with lots of connections still there. I'm gonna guess that trail with the little mud puddles is now a raging torrent.

Good job making lemonade out of the storm!
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3 months ago

Kathleen JonesGood move on staying there. Really bad storm.
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3 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonI read the AirBnB doings with some interest. We have not used AirBnB, until forced to by the place we will stay in Paris. To sign up, AirBnB demanded a photo of a passport (but not too many mB) plus a live current photo from their App (difficult on the desktop!) plus time to, presumably, run a facial recognition on the two, plus time for the host to approve the deal. We were ready to dump the whole thing. In the end, this one booking produced multiple SMS, at first to our not yet functioning European phone, and scads of emails documenting each tortuous step. Is this just AirBnB in Europe, or is it standard and I am just crabby? P.S. AirBnB earned a 15% service charge for annoying us with all that.
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesWell, some part of could be due to Grampy crabbiness? I can imagine your frustration though. We nearly always stick with Booking unless there’s no alternative, but even there well run into the occasional obnoxious hassle - they want us to wire cash in advance, for example. When something like this comes up we nearly always cancel and look elsewhere.

I can’t speak for Airbnb in Europe, because I’m not sure we’ve ever booked with them there. I will say though that even over here we like them less all the time and tend to avoid them too.
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Kathleen JonesYup. We’ve done the right thing here. I’m just hoping we can get out tomorrow, but that’s looking doubtful too. Bad news for a Morro Bay meetup though - we’ll just be making a beeline north once we can move.
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI stand corrected. Rachael reminds me that we have used Airbnb a few times in Europe - including for an upcoming booking in Mallorca. I don5 recall any documentation hassles, but maybe it’s because we were already registered in USA.
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3 months ago

Keith AdamsAs I sat hear reading this on the 6th- the day it was posted- I was pretty certain based on the byline date that you'd managed to survive. Glad to know you were eventually excused from paying Airbnb hosts for accommodations not used due to circumstances. Perhaps as they experienced the storm themselves they grew a conscience?
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Keith AdamsIt could be that. They were certainly well aware of the situation. I was surprised at how gracious they were once they decided to let us off. Something they said in our final exchange made it sound like they were hoping that if they held out long enough Airbnb would cover the loss for them. Fat chance on that!
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3 months ago

Karen PoretTo Bill ShaneyfeltYes, the second storm we had two days ago ( which wasn’t really a “sure bet” actually produced more rain in a shorter period of time ( a little over an hour) with thunder and lightning , equalling one full inch!
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3 months ago