Slabtown
Nov 15 2008
Our time at Thousand Trails in Palm Desert is over now and we are moving to an escapee park in Aguanga, near Temecula. We will be visiting with our friends Bev and Lowell Kuhn who use this as their home park.
Yesterday we went with a group from the park to Morongo Canyon Preserve where we hiked in the morning and in the afternoon we went for lunch at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown. Pioneertown was founded in 1946 by a group of Hollywood personalities as a permanent 1880s town for filming westerns. Roy Rogers broke ground for the first buildings assisted by The Sons of the Pioneers, from whom the town gets its name. Over 200 movies and TV serials were filmed there. There are people who live there and occasionally parts of films are still made there. On the way the mountains looked like big piles of rocks, we also saw plenty of Joshua Trees; The wild fires here are terrible. We passed sections where all the trees were burned. And the one right now has burned over 600 homes and many acres.
We are now in Jojoba Hills in Aguanga, we could see the smoke from the fires far in the distance from here.
We went to Palomar Mountain Observatory. You can see it from the park but you must drive around the mountain to get there. Our GPS said it was 6 miles but when we saw the dirt road she was taking us on we opted for the paved way of about 35 miles. The dome houses a 200 inch Hale telescope. Astronomers used to climb inside it and take pictures but now it is all done automatically and the study the pictures from computers.
We also went into San Diego and toured Coronado Island. What a lovely place to live. We were told more Admirals live there than any other city. The Del Coronado is still a beautiful Hotel. Just down the road is a state park with camping right on the ocean for $23. We might end up there after our next stop.
Norm went to breakfast with the mens group this morning.
Fri we went north to Yorba Linda to see Richard Nixons Library. It was very educational. It is located on the site of his childhood home. It is a 900 sq ft kit house built by his father. The helicopter used to transport presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford. Was also on the site.
We are now at another Thousand Trail park closer to San Diego, and we found Panera Bread!!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!Lois