Oceanside, California

Good morning, my friends. It's another beautiful day here in Escondido. We're meeting up with some friends for lunch in a couple of hours. Aside from that, there's not much going on today. As for yesterday's wanderings, I took the first stitches on the smaller embroidered section for Block 11 of Raggedy & Friends.

We were meeting up with friends for lunch at the Oceanside Broiler near Oceanside Harbor, and then we were going to walk on the Oceanside Pier. When we left the kitties, they were clearly distraught about being left alone for a few hours. Sadie was snoring on her window hammock. (Don't mention the snoring, though. You'll embarrass her.)

Smitty was crashed on the couch, having already cried his eyes out.

I didn't take any pictures of the harbor yesterday, but here's one I took during a previous visit. It was cloudy on the day I took this picture, but the weather was perfect yesterday. We were out in short sleeves. (I actually wore shorts a couple of days ago.)

After lunch, we headed over to the Oceanside Pier for a little walk around.

We were in the process of taking a selfie...

When a woman offered to take our picture with my camera.

Our friends on the left, Tom and Deb, and I were all in our high school band together. Deb and I played clarinet (I played alto clarinet), and Tom played the saxophone.

Okay, so let's go for a walk, shall we? Please obey the rules.

Don't embarrass me now.

If you're riding your skateboard, please pick it up and carry it from here.

It's a beautiful and long coastline here in Oceanside. Looking north toward Los Angeles, it looks like this:

Looking south toward San Diego, it looks like this. That road you see on the left side of the image is known as "The Strand."

It was a good day for surfing

When we're here, I always take a picture of the Roberts Cottages below. You can read about the history of this Oceanside landmark right here. When I see them, I renew my commitment to make a quilt of them some day. 

I haven't yet taken a picture of them that I really like for rendering them into fabric. On the other hand, when I looked for that link about the history, I found lots of images online. One of those might do for my quilt.

Looking in the other direction, there were boats offshore.

We walked to the end of the pier. Since our last visit, the restaurant that was here burned down, damaging the end of the pier. It's now fenced off to prevent folks from walking out there. We know of no plans for rebuilding, but I expect the pier will be repaired eventually, even if the restaurant is not rebuilt.

As we were leaving the pier, these musicians were setting up for some entertainment.

We walked south on The Strand. We were on the hunt for the house you see below. 

If you've ever watched the program "Animal Kingdom" on TV, this is the house that Baz lived in on the show. We enjoyed the show because it was mostly filmed right here in Oceanside, and it's always fun seeing places you recognize on television. (And if you haven't watched "Animal Kingdom," it's a good show. Some violence, but an interesting story and engaging characters.)  We tried to locate Deran's bar (also on the show), but couldn't find it.

Turning directly around from the house above, we could see the length of the pier...a little shorter now with the loss of the restaurant.

Walking along, I took a few shots of the landscaping. I'm not sure what these are. They look like huge rosehips, but this is not a rose plant. The "berries" are about the size of a cherry tomato.

Also, this...it kind of looks like a double daffodil to me.

Okay, and we headed for home mid-afternoon. We got into some terrible traffic, making our drive longer. We tried looking for some wheatgrass for the kitties, but couldn't find it at the two stores we visited. We'll try again today. 

As for today, lunch with these same friends, as I mentioned earlier, and then probably home to relax for the rest of the afternoon. (I can't rule out a visit to a quilt shop.) The good weather is expected to continue into next week. We still have two weeks here in Escondido, and we still have some items to check-off on our to-do list. Also, we're hoping to get over to see our recently-hospitalized friend the weekend. She's home from the hospital now, and slowing feeling good enough to meet up again.

So that's all I have for you today. I'm going to get busy with my slow-stitching next. Have a good day, Everybody! 

Coming Up Roses

Good morning, my friends. We had an easy-going day yesterday. I did three loads of wash...wash loads are small in our washer/dryer combo, and so three loads are required to do the work of two. Aside from that, we got out for a walk around the park, and then sat and relaxed for most of the day. 

First thing, I spent a little extra time on my slow-stitching. I'd missed a couple of days, and so I wanted to stitch a little longer. That allowed me to finish the second embroidered section for Block 10 of the Raggedy & Friends project.

Here are the two sections for Block 10.

Finishing those two sections was my goal for January's 

So, I'll link up there when the party starts at the end of the month.

From here, I had to decide whether to continue on with the Raggedy & Friends or whether to start something different. There are two blocks left to finish off all the embroidery (four embroidered sections), and so I decided to continue on. I started this project when we left on our trip to Alaska. If I can finish all the embroidery on this trip, I'll be able to finish off the quilt top when we get home.

Okay, so with that decided, here are the two sections I'll need to stitch for Block 11.

And since it's impossible to see anything there, here's the image from the pattern. I'll start with the lower one.

So we had breakfast, and then got ourselves around. We planned to get out for a walk. We left Sadie basking in the sunshine.

Smitty is more careful about his tender skin. You don't want to get skin cancer, you know. He decided to camp out under where we hung the bird feeders, although no birds have visited the feeders as far as we can tell. One can hope though, and Smitty is an optimistic guy.

Before we leave for our walk, though, I remembered this photo from the wineries the day before. It missed the boat when I posted my pictures yesterday. This is bougainvillea. It's just one of many plants I wish we could grow in the Pacific Northwest.

So, okay...off we go. Remember I told you some folks who live here have some nice potted gardens around their rigs. This one had a couple of good looking bell peppers.

At another site, we found this waist-high lemon tree with at least two lemons on it. I'm guessing the cactus there is to discourage any visitors to the midnight market.

Moving on, we found this blooming jade plant. I don't think I've ever seen a jade plant with flowers. I didn't even know they bloomed.

Along our way, we passed this aloe plant budding out and ready to bloom. This one seems to get shade most of the day.

Walking on, we found a few blooming to beat the band. These get full sun all day long.

Here's how the whole plant looks.

We walked all the way out and past the gated entrance to find these pretty blooming roses. They were very fragrant.

Our neighbor has this interesting plant. My phone tells me this is Kalanchoe. It's common name is "Mother of Millions." It's a succulent native to Madagascar.

This is an Organ Pipe Cactus. We have a whole national monument in Arizona dedicated to the Organ Pipe Cactus.

We didn't see our friends the Great Egret or the Great Blue Heron, but we saw the cormorants again. The two on the left are the double-breasted cormorants. The one on the right is a black cormorant.

There are speed bumps throughout the park...annoying when we're driving in and out.

Of course our shadow selves had to bump up against one another to demonstrate how this "bump" business works. Yeah...they're hilarious...not.

Today we're planning an early lunch at a restaurant near the Oceanside Harbor that we like. Afterward we'll get out and take a walk on the Oceanside Pier, which is one of our favorite destinations when we're in the area. Since our last visit, there was a fire on the pier, and the restaurant at the end has not yet been rebuilt. We're not sure what we'll find there, but I guess the mystery will reveal itself soon enough.

Smitty was the picture of contentment yesterday evening. Kitty treats and a comfy quilt are all he needs.

Back in Business

Good morning, my friends. I'm happy to say we've banished One Drive from the laptop for the second time. Strangely, there was, for a while, a folder marked "One Drive." There was nothing in it, and anything related to One Drive had been disabled. Still, if we deleted the folder, it would reappear within just a few seconds. Kinda made us wonder why Microsoft wants in tentacles in everything we do. Weird. But you’ll note that was all in the past tense. Mike spent some time watching a video that told him how to delete it completely, and it’s gone. For good. He could not have accomplished any of this without the assistance of his trusty cat, Sadie. She watched him like a hawk, making sure he didn’t F anything up.

In conclusion, you can rest easy knowing I've turned off all automatic updates. We won't be fooled again. Also, thank you to those of you who sent helpful links and comments. They were all taken under advisement by the resident engineer.

Okay, so a new day. Our friend is out of the hospital, but not feeling up to visitors just yet. We decided to spend our day visiting a winery I'd read about, The Vitagliano Vineyards. The "Only in California" newsletter described this winery thus: "[W]e think this Tuscan-like vineyard with a serene lakeside setting is pure magic." Well...if there's magic, then lead on!

So we headed north on I-15. We could see snow in the San Bernardino mountains in the distance.

Heading east on Rancho California Blvd., we crossed under this arch announcing we were entering Temecula's Wine Country.

I've mentioned before that the explosive growth in this area in the past 50 years since we married and left the area has been remarkable. Our memories of Temecula have it as a mere wide spot in the road. In a previous post, I wrote about the growth. The history of the place borders on the comical. You can read more about it at this post from 2024. 

It was a little over a half-hour drive to reach our final destination. Before leaving, we'd checked and found out they had a "bistro" here. The menu looked reasonable, and so we'd planned to have lunch here as well.

Parking at an upper level, we entered through these trellises.

The steps were lined with roses.

At the bottom were two lovely lakes. To our left, it looked like this. 

Turning more to the left, those are the steps we just descended, and there were also grapevines there. The walkways and roadways were all paved with those cobblestones.

Planter boxes lined all the walkways, filled with cyclamen, geraniums, and pansies. Very pretty.

Walking to the far side of the same lake, it looked like this:

Behind me was a structure with a small waterfall.

Walking on to the second lake, we approached this statue and more flowers.

Look at all this color:

You can book this place for a wedding, and wouldn't this be lovely? (Expensive too, I bet.)

I love these happy little daisies.

Here's some lantana.

As we walked along, we met up with a nice woman who informed us the bistro was closed on Tuesdays. Bummer! Oh well. We found another place we could get lunch just down the road a couple of miles. Many of the wineries in the area serve lunch, brunch, breakfast, and other light meals. There are also beautiful hotels and spas. As we left, I snapped one more picture of the roses.

And this...my phone tells me this is Leadwort.

Okay, so we ended up here at the Ponte Winery.

Seated at our table, we could gaze out at this courtyard. Lovely. The weather was perfect.

We got a chuckle out of these Angry Wife wines. You could have either a white or a red.

We each ordered a glass of the Petite Sirah. Mike had just taken a sip of his when I snapped this picture.

The service and the food here were excellent. It might have ended up for the better that the other place was closed. They brought us some homemade bread and "scallion oil" right away. The scallion oil was delicious. They had it for sale in the gift shop, and we bought a bottle. Included was the recipe for that bread. Also, I love it when there are fresh flowers on the table.

I ordered the Mediterranean Sandwich at the bottom of the menu. It was served with sweet potato fries (my favorite). Sheesh...a lot of food, and it was delicious.

Mike ordered the beef sandwich at the top of the menu. His was served with a pasta salad. Neither of us could finish our sandwiches. We each brought half home with us and had them for dinner.

We visited the gift shop before heading back. Along the way we passed by this pretty potted tree. My phone tells me this is Rose of Sharon.

On our way back, I was able to capture the roof of this building in a shopping center to our right. Don't you think this roof was designed by a quilter?

And there you go...that was our day. You can file this under the heading of "Something to Do."

There isn’t much on today’s agenda. I need to do some laundry. If our friend is up to seeing visitors today, we’ll head over to their place. Mike borrowed a vice from them, and we need to return that as well. We’ll most likely get out and walk around the park again, but mainly, it’s just going to be a quiet day. Maybe I’ll get out the sewing machine. We’ll just have to wait and see what the day has in store for us.