Mt. Palomar Observatory
Aguanga, California: Today the weather was
just lovely - very warm and sunny. We had a lazy morning, then headed-out in
the BC2 to explore the mountains east of Aguanga. We passed through
mostly desert, dotted with huge boulders, scrubby brush and yucca, then into
ranchlands, a few hot springs and then into mile after mile of orange,
persimmon and pomegranate orchards. Our route took us around Mt. Palomar,
home to the huge
Mt. Palomar
Observatory, through several Indian reservations and we crossed the
Pacific Crest Trail twice. Several brochures we have seen advertise the
local "wine country", but today we only came across one vineyard and
neglected to stop-in.
Mt. Palomar Observatory
At the end of our circular route, we found ourselves in
downtown Temecula, which advertises a historical old town, so we decided to
check it out. It was overly quaint, cowboy-western, flower-laden and they
had country-western music quietly playing from speakers on the
antique-replica lamp posts... but it was a town filled with antique
knicky-knacky ticky-tacky shops... and we have enough of our own old junk
and didn't need more. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, which was housed
in a beautiful old bank building. We dined outside on their patio and amused
ourselves by feeding tortilla chips (hopefully not made with
genetically-altered corn!) to a half-dozen or so sparrows at our feet. Then,
back to Goldie, via Albertson's, for a rest in the sun and a long, hard look
at the atlas. DT went for a run, I made a big salad, we dined late and
decided to leave the nicest RV park we have even seen for places yet unseen
- we are heading toward Yuma, Arizona tomorrow.