Idyllwild Excursion

OK - so I'm a little slow in posting our little excursion to Idyllwild last Monday the 20th, but (and isn't there always a "but"?) I was having difficulties with the new Photo App on my Mac in downloading the photos from my iPhone without wifi, so had to wait till I got home with wifi to get everything straighten out (and learn how to work all this technology).

Anyways - we decided to take a trip to the small village of Idyllwild up in the higher country to get into some cooler weather and it was cooler up there at an elevation of over 5000 feet, at least 20-25 degrees, but it was quite pleasant and pretty. We walked around and looked at all the touristy shops. It's a very little town with some beautiful scenery.

The Lumber Mill Restaurant was recommended for their hamburgers.

So of course we needed to check this out - Jim ordered the Mile-High Burger - one whole pound of beefy goodness.

The beef patty was bigger than the bun and bigger then Jim's mouth! He finished the whole thing along with some of my fries. Needless to say - dinner that night was very minimal. I had a regular mushroom burger which was quite tasty also.

Here is a view of the peaks from a little on further up the mountain.

On the way back we stopped at Lake Hemet to take a few pictures. The water is really low.

Then we headed back down to the desert floor into the heat.

We traveled back to Tucson on Friday, and have been enjoying a quiet weekend at home getting ready to get back to reality on Monday. All in all it was a good time, ate a bit too much great food, probably drank a little bit too much great wine but enjoyed every minute of it.

Temecula Friday

Last Friday we headed over to Temecula (about a 75 mile trip towards San Diego) to do a little wine tasting (also to break up our daily schedule of walk/golf/boat). We've been to Temecula several times and not really been that impressed overall, only found a couple of good wines. This time Jim did a little research and we started out at Briar Rose Winery where you need to make a reservation for their tasting.

We had our own private tasting in their beautiful yard, where they came out and served each of the tastings. It was a pleasant and relaxing experience. The weather was great, the scenery was great and best of all the wine was pretty good. We ended up purchasing 6 bottles to take with us.

We drove around the area and tasted wines from several different wineries and only found a few that were any good. I believe our first stop the Briar Rose was the best.

At one of the wineries, even though their wines weren't any good, they had this old tractor parked in front, a memory for Jim from the 40s & 50s.

One of our last stops was the Doffo Winery, which we were impressed with their wines, so purchased several from them.

Towards the end of the day, we realized that we were so engrossed in wine tasting, that we didn't have lunch, so after our last stop we decided to indulge in a pizza. Of course it was the middle of rush hour and the traffic was quite congested, I dialed in the closest pizza place on the Lincoln's GPS, drove there to discover, there was no pizza place at that location. Jim finally found us a pizza place to eat on his iPhone and it turned out to be a great pizza.

All in all it was a great adventure, but a long day.

Relaxing in the Sun

We arrived at our lot in Indio this last Wed. around 6pm after an uneventful trip from Tucson. This will be our last trip for the season to Indio before the real heat hits the area. We arrived in the 80's and today it will get up to the mid 90s and will stay around mid 90's for probably the rest of our stay which will be a couple of weeks.

We have been eating at the restaurant to finish up our minimum amount we need to spend there, except for Friday we grilled some chicken and enjoyed our view from our lot.

 We've just been enjoying the golf, boat cruises and relaxing time. That beer sure tasted good after our round of golf yesterday with the temps in the 90s.

 On our walk this morning, Jim found some pretty lilies so I had to grab my camera and go back and take some pictures. I'm thinking this one would make a great painting.

Not much on our agenda, just kick-back time and enjoy the beautiful weather (as long as it doesn't get too hot).