STREET WISE: / New Directions : This Street Has Both a Good and a Bad Side

My favorite North County street, I’m afraid, is a bit of a schizophrenic.

It’s like some guy with a good side and a not-so-good side so that when he poses for pictures he always turns his head to the left or right because his nose is too big or too crooked.

I like one side of my favorite street very, very much. The other, the crooked--to me, unsightly and cutesy--side represents everything that scares me about the North County.

I’m talking about Cadencia Street in La Costa.

But let me explain.

My favorite street runs from Point A to Point B in the heart of suburbia, no winding country road here, friends. It’s found just east of Batiquitos Lagoon and basically makes its way between Rancho Santa Fe Road and La Costa Avenue.

Generally, on the east side sit the neat, trim, oh-so-tender-looking two-story houses that my neighbors have paid an arm and a leg for, the type that I think will soon turn the North County into some huge parking lot of domicile gridlock.

Anyway, when I drive my favorite street, I always look the other way. To the West.

That’s where I find the green grass park with the kiddie swings my wife and I like to ride after dark, the place where I see dads throwing footballs to their sons and the scores of other kids running absolutely wild like kids will do.

Stretching past the park is Box Canyon, a sweeping piece of open space where coyotes and foxes and rabbits still roam free--pretty much like the rugrats in the park.

Once, on my way to work, I saw a mother raccoon and her three young ‘uns traipsing down the side of my favorite street. And you know, just seeing that made it easier to handle the aggravation of the office that day.

A drive down your favorite street can do that.

But the image of my favorite street I savor most I save for last. Each day, driving from work to my suburban condo, I turn onto Cadencia from Rancho Santa Fe Road and drive past the kiddy park.

Cruising down a fair-sized decline, I pass Box Canyon knowing that the mother raccoon and her cubs are somewhere safe inside.

Then I look straight out into the Western skies, past Batiquitos Lagoon and the Pacific Ocean in the distance, at some of the most breathtaking sunsets a working man could ever ask for.

And yet, Cadencia has that blasted split personality.

Like the arguments with visitors over whether they’re turning onto “Ka-den-sha” or “Ka-den-see-ya” Street.

Last year, the city of Carlsbad put up a fence around Box Canyon to keep out trespassing kids who like to make 60-foot leaps into a pool of San Marcos Creek down below.

That bums me out.

So does the motorcycle cop who sometimes sits near the kiddie park looking for speed-crazy suburban traffic scofflaws. Like me.

But even that can’t spoil the feeling I have late in the day when, driving down Cadencia, my senses take in that inescapable rush of knowing that I’m almost home, courtesy of my favorite street.