Exploring California and Arizona

Julian California (Pie Town!)

2010-04-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

The tiny town of Julian is only 7 miles from Santa Ysabel. We headed there in search of pie. And...we found it!

Mom's Pies Etc.....an Excellent place to stop!

The inside of Mom's coffee shop...

And...just what we needed! A nice big piece of pie along with steaming hot coffee. I went for Bumbleberry Crumble and the hubby enjoyed Apple and Boysenberry Crumble. Of course, we shared bites with each other, and they were both absolutely delicious!

Julian is a historic mining town....along the way it has also developed quite the reputation for its local Bed & Breakfasts. At over 4000 feet in elevation, it can be quite cool. It actually snowed the morning we went thru Julian!!

Apples are sacred to the town, and they enjoy Apple Days which runs from mid-September thru mid-November.

Take the historical tour thru the town and you'll come across the Pioneer Museum, the Swycaffer Saloon, the Julian Jail and more!

In September, head to Julian for the Annual Bluegrass Festival!

Head over to the Chamber of Commerce for more information.

Not far away from town is the Palomar Observatory....renowned to stargazers around the world. It's home to the Hale Telescope, as well as many others.

We really enjoyed our stay in Julian! Friendly people, lots of historic things to see and of course....pie!

Update

2010-03-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've still got lots and lots of photos and info to be posted here.....but life in our Cariboo Valley has taken precedent...for now.

Come on over and see what we've been up to since we returned home. I'll get back to updating this California blog in the next few days!

Vallecito Mountains

2010-03-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about travelling to different places is the people you meet! And with few exceptions, people are relaxed, friendly and interested in who you are and where you are from.

Several people mentioned the town of Julian to us....and without fail, they would say "If you get to Julian, you have to get one of the fruit pies the town is famous for."

So when we left Borrego, we headed south thru the Vallecito Mountains on our way to Julian. And within a few miles, we were exclaiming Wow!! over and over. What an incredible drive....

The town of Borrego Springs

Starting to climb thru the Vallecito Mountains

An Ocotillo just coming into bloom....see the red tips?

Climbing higher....

Cactus

Climbing higher still....

Cattle grazing in the high country just outside of Ranchita....

Coming into Santa Ysabel....there's a Casino here with a gorgeous view of the Valley

The rolling hills near Santa Ysabel

Borrego Springs

2010-03-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

Continuing on thru the Anzo-Berrago Desert on S22, we made our way over to Borrego Springs. We decided to stay at The Springs at Berrago and we were really glad we did!

The weather was finally beautiful and the resort is just gorgeous! There's both a 9 hole golf course and an 18 hole course designed by Jack Nicklaus. The resort itself looks out over the courses and has a salt water pool and several mineral spas (some built for 2!)

The view from our site in the dry camp (even the overflow camping area is fantastic!) We're looking out over the first tee of the course.

Overlooking another part of the golf course. The green in the foreground is Completely Surrounded by water!

A Beautiful Evening Sunset at Borrego....

We did leave, somewhat reluctantly, after 4 days.....we enjoyed this resort so much we have booked a month there in 2012.

Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area and Boondocking

2010-03-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

We had never heard of this recreation area. We wanted to head over to Borrego Springs, southwest of Palm Springs. A fellow told us about Borrego and he had mentioned the word "boondockers" to us, but we didn't know what it meant.....

We turned West onto S22 - imagine our surprise when we came over a little hill and saw......this!!

Literally, hundreds and hundreds of RV's out in the desert in the middle of....well...nowhere.

And....more and more RV's. Quite a few of them had flags flying....maybe as a way to show their friends where they were camped?? One RV flew a flag of a cold frosted beer stein!

This is Boondocking....simply setting up your self contained camp out in the desert. People had large RV's, small RV's, even tents and tent trailers set up.

And here's why most, if not all of them, are there! Miles and miles of trails....people were riding quads, motorcycles and trucks all over these trails....

Check out the vista! It was incredible! The Eman and JP would have LOVED to come here....

The Gman and da Wolf, standing at the top in the wind....it was so amazing, we decided to take a break from driving, set up the lawn chairs and just watch all these folks having so much fun!

Can you see all the RV's in the distance?

A pretty steep hill the truck was going up and over...

This truck was stuck high centred for quite awhile, but eventually did make it up and over....

These guys also were stuck on the crest of the hill for awhile, but they managed to get out as well....

There was a Jeep that we watched get high centred, and he never did get it out, at least not while we were there!

If you ever have the chance, this place is a must see! Especially if you are travelling with a quad or Jeep behind your RV....so much fun!

Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea

2010-03-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Leaving the Palm Desert area, we began to head south. The last time we were in the area, we drove down the 10 and met up with Highway 86, which took us down the Western side of the Salton Sea.

This time, we thought we'd take the 111 right from the Street Market down to Coachella, site of the huge Music Festival. At that point, we got on the 86, and drove thru the Valley.

Lots and lots of fertile fields through the Valley....

Orange trees....

Date Palm Trees....and Lots of them!

The Salton Sea, with the Chocolate Mountains in the background....quite incredible story about the history of this water. If you are a bird watcher, you will want to spend some time here! The abundance of fish results in huge amounts of birds. The elevation is 227 feet BELOW sea level.

It has such a high salinity level that boats can move on it at much faster speeds....check out the link to learn more about this inland Sea.

There's a California State Park there with campsites....and more in the area....

Kobe's in Palm Springs

2010-03-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Kobe's is THE Japanese Steakhouse in Palm Springs. It's right on the 111 Highway, past Frank Sinatra Drive. If you have the time...go there! It's expensive but well worth it. And there's an Early Bird menu too....it's part of the Palm Springs Experience....

Joshua Tree National Park

2010-03-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

Head South thru Indio on Highway 10 and you find yourself at one of the entrances to Joshua Tree National Park. Quite an amazing place....check out the Association website. There's lots of hiking and camping to be done in the Park.

Cacti at Joshua Tree National Park

The rocks on the left form the border of the walking path thru the Cacti....incredible!

Looking down the Coachella Valley towards the Salton Sea.....just one of the vista points in the National Park.

A Joshua Tree

The desert

We saw this car in the parking lot..a Shelby. Lots of beautiful high end cars in the Palms Springs area....

A Coachella Valley Sunset

Flowers in Palm Springs

2010-03-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

Beautiful Bougainvillea plants...brilliant red. How I would love to grow this plant outdoors at home! But I would settle for the trip to Barbados!

The McCallum Theatre...renowned for concerts in the area - if you are coming to the area, it is well worth it to check and see who will be playing here while you are in the Desert.

Little grass hut....

Snapdragons, allysum and more all blooming in roadside beds....The Desert area is testament to the saying "Just add water and it will grow!"

da Wolf at the Street Fair

2010-03-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

Someone got a LOT of attention at the College of the Desert Street Fair!!!!

This gal just loved him....she had a Malamute years earlier and was quite taken with da Wolf.

And this couple....the wife's sister lives in Vancouver!

Apparently, we should have rented a booth and charged $$ for petting da Wolf! We would have easily made enough money for a tank of gas!!

We're Still Around!

2010-03-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

We've been staying at places without internet access, which has been hard for an addict like me! I'm going to try to post on what we've been up to, but first we are going out for dinner!!!

Street Fair at The College of The Desert!

2010-03-09T08:57:00.000-08:00

If you happen to be in the Palm Springs area on the weekend, the College of the Desert Street Fair in Palm Desert is a must see! It's held every Saturday and Sunday from 7am - 2pm.

Coming thru Cathedral City on our way to the Street Fair.....

"I Did it Myyyyyyyyyyyy Wayyyyyyyyyyyyy"

Be prepared for total mayhem, as probably thousands of locals and tourists come out for the Fair! The intersection of College of the Desert and Fred Waring Way...turn to the right!

Free parking....if you're in a small car, you'll have a much easier time than we did to find a parking spot!

This Street Fair is so big, they have shuttles taking people from the parking areas over to the Fair itself!

There are hundreds and hundreds of vendors there....offering everything from Tshirts and socks, to fresh fruit and veggies to beautiful clothes, jewellry and incredible patio furniture!

I remembered this stall from when we were here in 2006! And the hunt was on to find it again last weekend, as we were quite desperate for Good Fresh Veggies and Fruit!

My haul for a total of $40.....$20 for fresh asparagus, broccoli, tomatoes, lettuce plus blueberries, mushrooms, 9 heads of garlic (!) and 3 baskets of absolutely to die for delicious strawberries!

Oh...and another $20 that I couldn't resist spending on Egyptian Cotton bedsheets.

An awesome morning spent wandering the aisles...the weather was nice and hot!

Palm Springs Windmills

2010-03-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Heading from Yucca Valley down into the Coachella Valley....

First sighting of the many windmills in the Palm Springs area....

Snow on the mountains....

Just a few of the 4000 windmills in the San Bernadino mountains....

These windmills provide enough electricity to power the entire Coachella Valley! The Gman wants to know how we can get one! They are very expensive, but a fantastic natural way to garner electricity! Tours of the Windmill Farms are available.

Lake Oroville - Oroville Dam

2010-03-05T17:04:00.000-08:00

Leaving Redding, we headed south on the I-5.....somewhere around Corning (Olive Capital of California...gotta love the Olives!) we stopped for a bit of a break. The Gman decided he wanted to camp by a lake, so he checked out the map.

A few minutes later, he decided we should head East. We were going to head for Lake Oroville to camp for the night. We'd never been there and had never heard of it.

We got onto Highway 32 and went thru Chico on the way. The rain stopped for a few hours....

We went thru the town of Oroville and followed the "Green Line" up to the Welcome Centre at Lake Oroville. This is when we realized there is a BIG dam there! What an Incredible Place!

Since it wasn't raining, we took da Wolf for a walk....here's what we saw. And...keep in mind, this is only a Small part of the Lake.

The boat ramps were 4 lanes EACH way! We had never seen anything like it.

Here you can see how low the water level is....that pavement on the other side is another boat ramp.

Some Very Large Houseboats....

I'd love to go out on one of these Houseboats!

You will notice the obligatory can of Kokanee beer in the foreground. This is our favourite Canadian beer....it's brewed in Creston BC. There's a Sasquatch hidden on every can, you know. Linda easily found hers when I mentioned that to her! When we met AJ, almost the first thing he asked us was did we bring any Kokanee beer along? We were happy to say Yes, and share some with them!

Redding California

2010-03-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

Boy these little laptops are hard to type on! I'm fat fingering all over the place....

Where were we? Oh right, Redding. So we got to Redding and it was pouring rain...simply pouring. We looked to the West and it was so socked in with black clouds...

We pulled over and tried to decide what to do. Linda had looked up the weather forecast for us and she told us it would be rainy all week.

So...should we go out to the Coast and drive down in the rain? What fun is that? And we remembered a trip we took to the Oregon Coast several years ago. It was so foggy we couldn't even SEE the coast. I knew all that beautiful coastline was out there but it was nowhere to be seen. We actually had to go BACK another time, just to see those gorgeous rocks!

Gman suggested I go on the Weather website and see what was happening down South. Hmmm, looked like LA wasn't too bad, altho they were going to get rain on the weekend. What about Palm Springs? Well, it looked warmer and sunnier there.

Fark it, we decided, we would just start driving South. We wanted sunshine and heat. So we kept driving South. IF the weather turned nicer by the time we had to start back up North, we could drive back UP by way of the Coast.

That's not as nice as driving DOWN the Coast. We'd be on the "wrong side" for all the pullouts along the highway. And, for the driver, it is a lot nicer (and safer!) to view the scenery driving down. A LOT of neck turning would be happening if we did the Coast trip going UP.

Oh well!

Guess I will have to change the name of this blog, ha! Maybe I should call it "Freezing our Butts Off in Cali" instead! The weather has been unreal.

Seriously, I was warmer in Canada than I have been down here! As I type this, there is frost on the windows, even tho the sun is shining. Hopefully, later this morning, it warms up!

Finally!

2010-03-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

Well, this trip turned out differently than we thought it would!

We made our way thru Washington and into Oregon. We had to stop there and find a pub, as it was almost Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Game time!

We had a great time with a few new American friends watching the game in a pub in Tigart Oregon. They did not even mind when we cheered when Canada scored!!

They did say that in Oregon there is not that much interest in hockey...football and basketball are their "sports of choice".

After that, we carried on. We made it to Linda and Jim's place in Northern California on Monday. We had a great time with them and also their friend AJ!!

They cooked us a wonderful dinner and we enjoyed a really good visit! It was great to finally meet Linda, after all these months of blog commenting, and our yaks over at The Journey.

I got some cute shots of the goats, mostly Beiber. And also some of da Wolf and Linda's dog cavorting around the yard. I'll post them later.....

So, we left there the folllowing morning, hoping to make our way West to the Coast. However, a mud slide closed part of the road!

Jim suggested we backtrack, go down to Redding CA, then head west to the Coast.....

More to follow, but the Gman is calling me!

2010-02-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

Here's where we'll be posting pictures of all that fantastic California coastline scenery!