Mt. Palomar Observatory
Thursday - 19 October 2000:
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.
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