Ramona Canyon (2)

Have you seen Santa Claus recently? We had heard he was visiting Temecula and whaddya' know....Marilyn's cousin Dewey and her family live there too! So we made it a point to drop by and pay her a visit. It just so happened that their young son Wyatt wanted to see Santa so we hopped in the car and went down to "old" Temecula where there was a street fair going on.The street was all dressed up with holiday cheer and even included an ice rink for would be Olympic champions.

On Santa's red carpet

Marilyn and Dewey at a wine tasting bar

Buying fudge. I love this stuff

Marilyn, Wyatt and Dewey in front of city hall

A special treat for us was going to Julian CA for Christmas Eve. We stayed at the Julian Gold Rush Hotel which was decorated Victorian style.

The hotel parlor 

The hotel lobby

Self portrait of maba and papa for the grandkids. Took this in the hotel bed.  Just thought I'd throw this in.

The town of Julian was a gold rush town back in the 19th and early 20th century. One mine is open to the public and we decided to take the tour. The Eagle mine is just a short drive from the city center and is hewn from solid rock. Before the days of the carbide lamp (circa 1905) miners had only candlelight. I can't imagine seeing much in the depths of a mine shaft using only candlelight. During the tour the guide turned off the lighting to show us what total darkness was like. It was mind numbing. Imagine what it must have been like boring holes in solid rock with only a steel star chisel held by one man and the other man swinging a 10 lb sledge hammer hour after hour. The holes were filled with black powder and after the explosion, all the debris was hauled out. This produced about four feet of advancement. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Ready to go!

The majority of the horizontal shafts were about 6 feet high and 4 feet wide. Lots of rock edges to look out for. Pity the tall guy in the group. I'll bet he had a backache by the time we got through

In the hoist room. There is a vertical shaft behind the tools that descends at least 450 feet. No one really knows how deep it actually goes. A man would go down in a large box and shovel ore into it. Scary!

The rules of the hoist

A steam powered crushing mill. The cams on the horizontal shaft lifted the red weights which are fastened to the vertical shafts. At the bottom of the shaft was a solid block of steel which smashed the rocks. The total weight of the impact was over a ton. Just above the "Five stamp mill" lettering is a screen mesh which allowed the proper sized crushed ore to fall on an inclined copper plate.

These are original buildings from the early 20th century

By this time we were pretty hungry so we asked the desk clerk what restaurant she recommended. Being Christmas Eve, most of the town was closing down but the Rongbranch Restaurant was still open. The name is a play on words from the old TV series Gunsmoke. The Longbranch Saloon was Matt and Miss Kitty's favorite hangout. Later on we attended a Christmas Eve service at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic church.

I've always been fascinated with astronomy. My Dad bought a 60X telescope for my brother and me and I spent many hours peering at the dark night sky looking at the distant stars and planets. The Palomar Observatory with the giant 200 inch Hale telescope was a marvel that I hoped to see one day. So that day arrived Dec 26th. We drove the long winding south grade road up to the observatory and caught glimpses of the dome growing closer and bigger.

An excited little kid is inside that body!

 The interior of the dome was lit with an eerie glow from the HPS lighting above. The dome interior is kept at a constant temperature to stabilize the mirror.

I had to manually enhance this photo to bring out some details.

The mirror capsule with all the attendent mechanisms to keep it at a constant shape when tilted

The Palomar Observatory visit was truly a "bucket list" experience.

Ramona Canyon

We arrived safely at Ramona Canyon Friday after an arduous journey from Rancho Oso. We choose to use CA 1 instead of the freeways to avoid the infamous LA traffic. Instead we traveled through west LA immersing ourselves in the....well, you know don't you? The infamous LA traffic and endless stop lights.

This moment in time was repeated for two hours.....a very long two hours I might add. We finally reached I-405 and I-5 and were promptly immersed in the.....again you can guess. The infamous LA traffic. By this time I was getting a bit grumpy....no....a LOT grumpy. But I held my tongue thanks to the soothing words of my beloved......"shut up and drive!" She is always willing to tell me where to go. (as navigator, that is)
On the way down the coast from Santa Barbara we passed through several famous towns among them Malibu. Lots of fancy homes along the waterfront with plenty of beaches.

Ramona Canyon RV resort is located roughly five miles east of the small town of Ramona. We can now claim to be in SoCal, a moniker used by all the locals and now by yours truly.

Rancho Oso

Rancho Oso is located about 20 miles north of Santa Barbara deep in the Los Padres National Forest. It is basically a dude ranch with room for several RVs. It is well laid out and the amenities are quite adequate.. Getting here is a challenge for larger RV's as the road is narrow and twisty. I've posted a short video on You Tube as we were winding our way back from an excursion to Solvang. You can see it here. Winding road to Rancho Oso

  Monday we spent a few hours geocaching again and had a delightful time enjoying the fresh air and sunny weather. Tuesday we drove to Buellton for lunch at the famous (I guess) Pea Soup Andersen restaurant. The pea soup was great as was the rest of the food. Afterwards we visited the small town of Solvang which reminded us a lot of Leavenworth WA. Solvang was founded by a group of Danes who traveled west to establish a Danish colony far from the midwestern winters. We found a small (very small) museum dedicated to Hans Christian Andersen and I snapped a photo of Marilyn flirting with him. 

Wednesday we visited pastor Tom Richard at the church he serves in Sherman Oaks. He was kind enough to spend some time with us before a meeting and showed us around the church campus. 

We spent the rest of the day visiting Marianne and Michael Cox in Encino. Marianne was a 10 year old student at the Parent's Cooperative School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and was in Marilyn's classroom. They have four delightful children ages 10 to 18.

I took a lot of photos around Rancho Oso and here are a few that I liked

View from access road

Looking east from the back of our camper

Looking south at dawn. LAX flights northbound

Rancho Oso from the other side of the canyon

Looking north from our campsite

And finally, Marilyn's reaction when I managed to skunk her in a game of cribbage. A rare event indeed!!

Santa Maria

While out geocaching last Wednesday we ran across some very out of the way places east of Paso Robles.The country road we traveled was a great introduction to the vast vineyards this area has. The locals said it was mostly cattle ranges before the vineyards took over starting in the early 90's. The mansions we saw were very large and had signs like Margarita Vineyards and Continental Vineyards etc. It was just amazing to see acre after acre of vineyards some of which seemed to be miles long. One area in particular was simply stunning with the vines covered in plastic.

While in Paso Robles every night I had to disconnect the fresh water supply to the camper from the resort hose bib. It was so cold overnight that the water freezes in the hose. That happened to me once....lesson learned.

Visiting the Hearst Castle Thursday was an amazing experience. The opulence is reminiscent of a Hollywood movie out of the 40's. But this was real. Words aren't sufficient to describe it so here are some photos.

Who is that guy?

You're invited to visit

South tower

Neptune pool...oops I mean Marilyn

Ambassador's room 

Library

Guest room

Portrait of WRH's mother in his bedroom

Lots and lots of artwork

Ceiling in the master's room

WRH's library with old priceless treasures.

Afterwards we drove to Cambria and visited Diane Young, a teacher at the school where Marilyn also taught during our time in Saudi Arabia some 30 years ago.We had a very nice time and the three of us spent a few hours catching up with our lives.

We left Paso Robles Friday the 13th and arrived here in Santa Maria around 3pm. Having had no access to amenities at the camp in Paso, we both took abbreviated showers in the camper while there. We looked forward to a proper shower.Each night we relax in the hot tub. Had quite a fright yesterday. Marilyn wanted to rearrange some of her clothes. These were located in the forward portion of the camper. When she started removing them she noticed that there was mold stains on several items. Apparently with all the wet weather we've had the past month, it produced a perfect climate for condensation to build up in the two enclosed spaces. She lost five items but the rest were OK after being machine washed.