Beautiful Places Part 5

Moving on from the highway following the Colorado River, here are a few shots from Arches National Park.  I didn't get to spend much time there, pretty much just a quick drive through and grabbing shots of things close to the road.  Still not much sun, but it was still gorgeous!  

It seems a lot of the formations were in groups of threes.  I think this one looks like a group of bystanders, huddled together waiting for the parade to begin, with the lizard king there on the right keeping watch for the first entry in the procession.  :)

I would love to go back when the sun is shining and take a few of the short hikes back to some of the other arches you can't see from your car.

There is still a lot you can see even on a rushed tour through like I did.

I think this looks like an elephant!  :)

This reminds me of the Three Wise Men, except these three look like they would be more at home in Chalmun's Cantina on Tatooine (from Star Wars fame).   And, instead of frankincense and myrrh,  the one on the left is bringing a stuffed elephant.  And, instead of lambs and cows milling about around the manger there's a lion sleeping on a stack of pancakes.  (See his cute little tail hanging down the side?)  Hmmmm . . hope there aren't any psychoanalysts reading this post . . .  ;)

This is their "signature" arch, the one they use on all their promotional materials.

And, through the miracle of Photoshop, a bit more of a close up of said arch!

I did have to hike a teeny way to get this one!  You have to shimmy through a narrow passageway through the rocks, and then trek a little way through dunes of really fine red sand.  I finally ended up taking my shoes off to walk through it and it felt simply delightful!  Cool, silky sand between the toes . .  oh, boy!  (But, I did find quite a pile of it in my shoes when I got home!  I didn't mean to steal anything from the park, but . . . I was glad to find it!  I was wishing I had taken some, it was so pretty!  I think I may have to start a little collection of sand from places I visit!  I'll have to stay on the lookout for some pretty way to display it!)

There is a campground allllll the way at the end of the park.  I think it would be absolutely fantastic to be able to stay there sometime and explore more of the park at a more leisurely pace.  It is within walking distance of several of the arches, some I didn't have time to hike back to!  Maybe one of these days!

Next up . . . will be just a quick post . . . I sure hope you'll stop back by to check it out!  More of the trip!  And after that, the final installation of this series will be of the critters I ran into along the way! 

Beautiful Places Part 4

Hello, again!  I'm back with a few more pics from my trip.  I last left you in Colorado and I am picking up from there to continue on my journey.  There were some sprinkles up there that made their way onto the windshield as I was driving through.  

I kept hoping the sun would win the game of hide-and-seek with the clouds, but no such luck.  I got a little sun, but not a lot.

The clouds followed me to Utah.  The closer I got to Arches National Park, the more overcast it got.  But, I did have a little sun off and on while wending my way through the backroads along the Colorado River.

Can you just imagine the color that would appear here if the sun were to suddenly burst forth and bathe these cliffs in it's warm golden glow?  Since there had been rain recently, there was a lot of green against all that red rock.

The Le Sal mountains far off in the background were covered with snow, which I suspect was a recent happening!

The rock formations were just gorgeous and so varied and intricate.  It almost looks more like a painted backdrop than reality.  It would be such a treat to spend a year watching how the light and shadow play on them throughout the year!  From dawn to dusk!  Just grab a nice glass of wine and commune with the lizards and cottontails while watching the clouds drift by.

Is it just me?  But, this formation reminds me of a ship.  The bow lifting just slightly up out of the water.  Perhaps I just have traveling and cruises on my mind . . .  Can you see the ship?

This seems to me the iconic representation of all the deadwood that you see everywhere out in the canyonlands.  A sculptural masterpiece in its own right.  I still have more vacation pics to share, which I hope to be able to do in a couple of days!  I also have several pics of some of the wildlife I came across, for which I will create a separate post later, so stay tuned!  Hope to see you back here soon!  TTFN my little BFF!  ;)

Beautiful Places Part 3

**Update 11-21-12 --  Before you travel to Colorado, please check out my posts here and here.**

Well, I got my internet back!  They actually delivered my new modem Saturday!  Yay!  So, anyway, I have been trying to catch up but am still about 2 weeks behind right now! 

I took way too many pics to post them all here, but will be sharing a little at a time for a couple more posts!  

Here's another batch for now!  The very first pic at the top of this post is a gazebo or picnic pavilion in a park in my hometown in the midwest.  The rest are all from the Colorado leg of the trip.

I had great weather on the way to the midwest and during my stay there, but on the way home I had clouds, rain and snow!

My nephew's wedding was very nice and everyone had a great time.  Even with the wedding, we still managed to squeeze in a little time for visiting, raking leaves and the obligatory leaf fight afterwards.

This was a very scenic trip.  Made me wish I could spend all my time traveling and exploring . . .  But, I sure would like to let Colorado know their traffic circles are very difficult to navigate when they are so small you don't have time to read all the signs to know where you need to be and at the same time, to be able to watch for the merging traffic!  I had to go through many of them a couple of times to get where I needed to go!  AND, why, why, oh why do they hide their gas stations?  The freeway signs would indicate gas at the next exit, but good luck trying to actually find the station!  After about 4 exits and 45 minutes I finally found a road worker who was able to tell me how to find a gas station!  "Go down this road about 3 miles and then look down over the left side - there is a big drop off, so it is easy to miss it.  Look for a restaurant, the gas station is part of the restaurant and it is easier to find the restaurant than the gas station."  She was right.  If I hadn't known to look for the restaurant, I would not have found the gas station.  And this was right off one of the main freeways!  You would have thought since so many people travel through there they would mark things better!

While, unfortunately, I can't spend all my time traveling, I am going to try to make more of an effort to take a few more long weekend trips to start making a dent in the very long list of places I want to visit.  Some places are so beautiful, I want to go back many times to see them in all seasons at all times of the day.

I just wish I could spend a lot more time at some of these places and really take the time to explore them more in depth.  Or maybe, just live in a house like the one below in a place like this!  Ok, I know the place is a church, but when I drove by, I just thought it would be a great place to live and the view was wonderful!  All it needed was a lake!

Anyway, this is just a sampling of the Colorado portion of my trip.  I wish the light would have been better, but I enjoyed the clouds over the mountains and the little spells of sprinkles I got.  I just wish I had an audio clip of the elk calls that echoed through the mountains on one of my photo stops.  I will be sharing pics of the critters I encountered on this trip in a future post also!

Next up will be some of the pics I snapped in Utah!  I hope you'll enjoy them!  Utah has sooooo many gorgeous spots to visit, it is hard to decide which spot is the most picturesque!  Since I still haven't seen all of them, I'll have to reserve judgement for now!  

Well, I hope you'll stop back by to see the rest of the trip!  See you later! 

Julian Apple Days Festival

I went online last night and found that the Julian Apple Days Festival is going on this weekend and decided I wanted to go check it out.  It had been a while since my last trip to Julian and I was anxious to go back and to check out the festival.  The only problem was going to be the weather.  Normally Southern California flatlanders are not used to getting rain between May and December, but yesterday I was sitting at work in front of full length floor to ceiling windows being treated to a little bit of one of mother nature's pyrotechnic displays.  We don't get thunder and lightning very often, so I do enjoy it when I can.  But, being out in the rain for the festival didn't sound like a lot of fun.  So when I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was peek outside.  Hmmmmm, overcast.  Should I or should I not go . . . 

I decided to go ahead and get my breakfast and get ready to go and see what things looked like then.  When I was ready to leave, it looked like it was at least thinking about clearing up, so I decided to go ahead and make the 3 hour drive up the mountain, hoping I was making the right decision.  I got on the freeway at 9am and within a few minutes it began to sprinkle. . .  And then it began to rain. . .  And then it began to pelt the windows so hard it sounded like rocks hitting the windshield. . .  And that's when I started to get the idea that I had made the wrong decision.  But, I like driving, so I thought I might as well see it through, enjoy the ride and hope for the best.  And as it turned out, I'm sure glad I didn't turn back.  By the time I got to Oceanside, it had stopped raining.  And by the time I got up the hill, the sun was out and the sky was a beautiful blue with big gorgeous puffy white clouds.

The hills were covered with straw-colored vegetation that has been baked in the summer heat until it was completely dried out, and here and there were bits of green that somehow managed to survive all these months without water.  There were broad swashes of a rust color that looked like someone had taken a giant brush full of water-color and swished it over some portions of the hills.  There were orchards and vineyards, oaks and evergreens, chicken ranches and horse ranches and sheep and cows.  And I might have been dreaming, but I thought I saw a sign that said Oasis Camel Dairy.  Hunh?

Anyway, along the way, in the distance I saw a big, big balloon in the sky, but it didn't seem like it was really going anywhere.  It didn't look like the typical hot air balloons we are used to seeing floating around so peacefully, so I was curious to get up there to see what it was.  When I got close enough I saw it was tethered at the entrance to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and stopped to snap a picture.

It looks like holly leaves, but the berries are blue?
Do they start out blue and then just turn red for Christmas?

Once you are off the freeway, it is mostly just a 2-lane winding road with very few places to pull over.  I kept trying to stop to get some photos of the clouds, but could never find anywhere it would be safe to pull over and where I wouldn't have phone or power lines in the way of the shot.  But, fortunately, there were still some great cloud shots to be had once I got to the Menghini Winery where the festival was being held.

Tink was soooo cute, I had to snap a pic!

There were several vendors at the festival offering everything from decorative items to food and pumpkins, pony rides to jumpers, jugglers to face-painters, panning for gold to bands and musical entertainment and tug-o-war contests to pie eating contests.  I got a chance to taste hard cider for the first time.  I thought it was like a cross between beer and wine.  It was very refreshing and the vendor was extremely nice.  He pointed out that Julian Hard Cider had just been featured in the latest issue of Sunset magazine.  I picked up a local apple recipe book that looks like it has quite a few tasty treasures to try.  While there, I also managed to score a piece of apricot apple pie and it was delicious!  It looked like everyone was having a great time!

After I had made the rounds at the festival, I headed into town to wander around the streets there for a couple of hours, window shopping and trying to chose a place to eat.  It looks like Mom's is THE place to go for apple pie and apple dumplings.  Every time I walked by, there was a long, long line to get in.  Since I had already had a piece of pie at the festival, I didn't want to wait in line for another piece of pie, but I definitely peeked in the windows every time I walked by and did a little drooling each time.  It sure looked delicious and now I am really wishing I had gotten in line anyway and brought some pie home . . . sounds heavenly with with the vanilla ice cream I have sitting in the freezer.  Darn! ! !

Mom's always has a line.  Next time,
no matter what, I'm stopping here for a treat!

Delicious meal at Soups and Such Cafe.

I finally decided to try Soups and Such Cafe for my late lunch/early dinner and I think it was exactly what I was looking for.  It was a nice, clean little place, the service was extremely friendly and helpful and I liked that they also ran a little bit of a flower shop in there as well.  Made it seem especially cheerful with all the brightly colored flowers around.  I chose the half-sandwich/soup/salad combo and got the roasted red pepper sandwich and broccoli brie soup.  The soup had little slices of almonds in it also.  The salad was a mixed greens with a very tasty vinaigrette.  Yum!

The town cemetery is just a block or so from the main part of town and I thought I had seen something about some of the older tombstones from the beginning of the town, so I decided to take a stroll over there.  I didn't find the headstones, but I didn't search very hard for them either. 

On the way back down the mountain, I stopped at a little, and I mean little roadside stand to pick up a few apples.  He was down to the last bit for the day and it was pretty picked over.  I selected 3 apples that didn't look too bad and he just said enjoy and didn't charge me for them!  Thanks! 

As I got further down the mountain, I realized that I should have stocked up on . . . well, . . . something.  I mean, how could I have gone all the way to Julian without picking up some fresh something.  So, I also stopped at the Wynola Valley Orchard Peaches stand and picked up several more peaches to eat and to dry.  I do wish I had picked up more apples while I was there!  But, I think I was afraid to because I knew I wasn't going to have any extra time over the next few days to do anything with them and didn't want to waste them.

So, finally, I am ready to head home for sure and I am driving along and look over to my left and then have to do a double take.  Remember on the way up I said I thought I was seeing things when I thought I saw a sign that said Oasis Camel Dairy . . .  well, I now think I must have really seen that sign, because there were camels grazing along side the horses over there to the left!  Yes, camels, with their big humps mixed in with all those horses.

I got back to the freeway just as the sun was going down.  And just as I got to San Clemente, I found myself driving under some very thick cloud cover that extinguished the last dredges of sunlight that had just been grazing the horizon.  It was a very pleasant end to a very pleasant day.  I had the sunroof open and the air felt deliciously cool.  The cloud cover seemed to help concentrate the scent of the ocean and the residual heat from the sun on the dried vegetation was causing their scent to rise into the night air as things started cooling down and it all mingled with the scent of the bonfires on the beaches.  Awwwww . . . .

Well, I need to scoot for now!  I have an early morning planned.  I need to harvest some seed and baby basil plants for my cousin and her little 9 acre farm before I head down to the Newport Beach Sandcastle Contest tomorrow.  Stop by her place and check it out if you get a chance!  And, hopefully we won't get rained out and I'll be able to share some photos from the Sandcastle Contest soon!  Stay tuned!