Escondido, California

Good morning, my friends. Yay! We made it! It was an absolutely hellacious day of driving, and we were mightily glad to get off the road and out of the truck. For those keeping score, we ranked this as our fourth worst driving day ever. But nobody died, and so it was still a good day.

Before we left Cachuma Lake yesterday, I took a little walk over to see the lake. We could see it from our site, but it was a short walk to get to the lakeshore. Along the way, I spied these pretties.

They produce this flower. My phone tells me this is wood sorrel.

Also these...my phone tells me this is Henbit Deadnettle. (I should have known this one. It grows in our field at home.)

Approaching the lake, I encountered these two locked gates. It was confusing because I wondered how anything could be coming up the path from the lake without first going down the path. But, you know...I'm a rebel, so I just walked around the gates and down to the lake. They're not the boss of me.

I first took the trail to the right. At the bottom, I found two boys fishing to my left. To my right...these pipes.

And remember my photo from yesterday's post? This one:

See the flume piping on the right? It looks like the same pipe, doesn't it? And since we know Cachuma Lake exists because of the California Aqueduct, then it makes sense those pipes are related somehow. But why on the far side of the lake? And what is their purpose? Well. You know I always consult The Google for these sorts of questions. I searched for "Cachuma Lake piping," and came up with this answer:

Cachuma Lake piping refers to the critical water conveyance infrastructure, particularly the recently installed emergency pipeline connecting to deeper lake waters (below the intake tower) for better water quality and drought resilience, linking to the Tecolote Tunnel to supply Santa Barbara County's drinking water, managed by the Cachuma Operation and Maintenance Board (COMB). Recent storms in late 2025 filled the lake, allowing for these deeper water access projects to improve water management. 

So, I get the feeling this is an unfinished project, and these pipes are simply lying there for now. Don't take my word for it. I really have no idea.

From there, I walked back up the hill and took the path leading to the left. At the bottom, I found some slips and a boat launch. Surf's up on this windy morning.

I was standing on the boat launch for this next image.

Looking to my right...

Turning around, there was a place to rent kayaks or small boats.

Turning all the way around, there was a restaurant.

Okay, and from there, I headed back up the hill and back to the RV. To my right were these three cabins. I had my cymbals with me and I was gearing up to make a loud cymbal crash when I noticed the sign. Bummer. No rhythm and blues for me today, I guess.

Back on the road, I was able to get a better picture of this pier(?), road(?), footbridge(?). Not sure what it is, and it leads out to that little island. So I tried doing an image search on The Google and I found a similar image on a California land use site that identified the island as Rincon Island.

Doing a search for Rincon Island, I learned this:

Rincon Island is a small, man-made island off Ventura County, California, built for oil drilling, known for its connection via the Richfield Pier and its role in oil history, now undergoing a state-led decommissioning and cleanup after past operators' issues, with potential future uses being assessed by the CA State Lands Commission (SLC) to address environmental concerns and prepare for reuse or removal. 

And that made sense because we could see about a dozen off-shore drilling rigs along this road.

Continuing on...it's always good to see something like this. We see them more and more in our travels. Sorry for the rain spatter on the windshield. It's unavoidable. Also...sorry about the Tesla Cybertruck at the lower left. They're ugly enough to burn your eyes, so don't look too long.

Regarding the wildlife crossing, The Google tells me that:

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills, CA, is a massive vegetated bridge over US-101, creating the nation's largest wildlife crossing to connect the Santa Monica Mountains with other ranges, allowing safe passage for mountain lions, deer, and other animals, reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, and enabling genetic exchange, with completion expected in late 2026 as a major public-private conservation effort led by Caltrans and the National Wildlife Federation, funded partly by the Annenberg Foundation. 

Nice. We need more of this in today's world.

So, I didn't take many more pictures on our drive down. This was our view for most of the day. Sheesh.

I captured this water tower...just because I kind of like water towers, and because I was bored. As it turns out it's a faux water tower that marks the location of a public storage facility.

And when the rain stopped for a bit, I captured this rainbow. Gotta be a good sign, right?

In the last hour of our nearly five-hour drive, it was a relief to see the sign below and to know we were going to be leaving this terrible LA freeway traffic. It was tempting to jump out of the truck and kiss the ground, but I resisted the urge.

Heading on down the road, we came upon this iconic rock we associate with southern California. I've mentioned this granitic rock in previous years' blog posts. For this, I always turn the blog over to someone I met while consulting The Google. This gentleman, Bill Walker, tells me he's been "studying the earth sciences my entire life." And according to Mr. Walker,  "You’re seeing exposed granitic rock that’s undergone arid-climate weathering. 

"The granite is there because 100–120 million years ago, a tectonic plate under the Pacific Ocean was being forced (subducted) under the North American continent. As the ocean floor was forced down to depths of hundreds of miles, it melted. This molten rock rose upwards towards the surface through layers of rock. Some of it may have erupted through volcanoes, but most of it slowly cooled miles underground in huge masses called plutons, gradually turning into granitic rocks.

"Tens of millions of years later the region was uplifted many thousands of feet. This allowed erosion to gradually remove the miles of rock overhead, eventually leaving the granitic rock exposed to the elements. The various types of granitic rock, such as granite, granodiorite, etc. tend to be massive in structure. That means that cracks (“joints”) are far apart and the rock tends to split into boulders rather than small fragments. Arid-climate weathering then tends to make the boulders rounded.

I realized yesterday that when I picture certain areas of the country, a representative image comes into my head. With Arizona, it's saguaro cactus.

In Utah, it's the red rock:

In Alaska, it will always be the mountains:

When I draw a mental image of southern California, and this area in particular, it's always the granitic rock.

Where Mike grew up, there were rocks like this all around his parents' property. He liked one particular rock that had a large flat top, and he liked to lie there sunning himself like a lizard. I can remember going to his house once, and his Mom told me where he was: "He's out sunning himself like a lizard on a flat rock," and I knew right where to look.

Okay, and I remember when this iconic bridge was built over what was then the new Interstate 15. That arch was unique and a new kind of construction. When I see it now, I know we're almost to the end of our day's drive.

We had just about a mile to go when we turned off here. And hey! Who're you calling old? I remember when US Hwy 395 was just that. Nothing "old" about it. Such rudeness and lack of respect for your, um, elders.

And in just a few minutes, we were there. And here we are for the next four weeks. (Huge sigh of relief.) 

Today's agenda is pretty slow. We need to make a quick trip to the grocery store. Of course, we'll make a stop at our favorite farm stand for a pile of avocadoes. After that, we're just going to hang out for the rest of the day. I haven't had time to work on my slow-stitching for the last two mornings, and so I'm itching to get back to that. Probably we'll get out and take a walk around the park just to get the lay of the land. Hopefully, the weather will give us enough of a dry spell for that. And, if not...well, slow-stitching will save the day.

Solvang, California

Good morning, my friends. What a beautiful day we had yesterday. We were hoping for no rain for our visit to Solvang. As it turns out, it was a mostly sunny day. We got into a few rain showers, but nothing that lasted for more than a few minutes. I was happy enough to see the morning sunshine, that I got dressed and walked over to Buena Vista Lake for a picture.

Turning a little to the right, it looked like this:

Turning to the left, it looked like this:

There were a few coots swimming around.

And I took this picture just so you'd know I wasn't kidding about the blue sky.

Turning around and walking back, that's our rig. If you look just to the right side of the RV, you can see Mike rounding up our hoses and cords, readying for another day of travel.

Oh yes, and I got an in-focus shot of the "cootvention."

They're shy birds, and they walked in the other direction as I got closer to them. Still, I managed to get a pretty good shot of their feet.

Okay, so that was a nice start to the day, but we had driving to do, and diesel fuel to buy. When we stopped for diesel, I was taken in by the ripples in the landscape. The dark strip toward the bottom of the image below is a field of grapevines.

Below, I wanted you to see the flume. It carries water up over the top of the hill from the California Aqueduct. At the top are turbines. So, power is used to pump the water to the top of the hill and over to the other side. As it spills to the other side, it turns the turbines, generating and recapturing at least some of the energy used to pump it uphill. Cool, huh?

And knowing that, one would think we'd cross the aqueduct as we turned west. And there it is:

The road was absolutely terrible as we crossed over the mountains via the Tejon Pass. California, work on your roads, wouldja? Reaching the other side, we saw the first of the California avocado groves. Oh man...we're Jonesing for some of those delicious avocados.

And then we drove toward Santa Barbara. We were too far north, but with the palm trees lining this road, we might as well have been on Santa Monica Blvd. It looks like Hollywood or Beverly Hills.

Stopped at a stoplight, I opened the window for this shot of a date palm.

A few more miles down the road, we caught the first glimpses of the Pacific Ocean outside Mike's window.

There were more expansive views to come:

In the image below, you can see a pier or a bridge or a road or something that leads out to an island. (It looks a little like a ship in the image, but it was an island.) We couldn't locate anything on the map about this, and there was no helpful signage either.

Amtrak's Pacific Surfrider train paralleled us for a short while.

Eventually, we could see Cachuma Lake...our final destination for the day.

It was an uphill climb on a narrow road to reach the campground.

We thought we'd be "dry" camping last night (no power, water, or sewer), but we asked if any hook-up spots were available. Indeed, there were. Nice. And it was a quiet place to sleep for the night. Backing into our site, I spotted these two red tail hawks there to greet us.

They were there for a while...separating, so that I could get their individual portraits.

It was around 2:30 p.m. by then, and so we wasted no time getting back on the road for a visit to Solvang.

The street was lined with these Danish banners.

The architecture was the thing. We drove down the main drag, and I took pictures of pretty much everything I saw there.

We ended up parking on a side street and walking up and down. When I saw this sign, I knew I had to go inside.

Inside, it was a claustrophobic's nightmare. I found a refrigerator magnet and then fled the place. They did have some cute stuff. 

I didn't take pictures of every blooming thing, but a few were irresistible. These African daisies, for example.

Some lantana...

And this pretty rose.

We had a late lunch/early dinner, and then headed back to our campsite. Along the way, we stopped off at the Bradbury Dam Observation Point. It was a pretty view of Cachuma Lake in the setting sun. You can see the full moon in the upper right of the image below.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this lake is created from one of the three spurs off the California Aqueduct.

There's the dam, creating the lake.

And you know it's been a banner day when I can find a refrigerator magnet and a shot glass. First ones of the trip.

Okay, so let's talk about this Cranberry-Cookie Butter Cheesecake I made before we left home. I scaled the recipe to half and made it in this 4-1/2 inch spring form pan.

 

We had it for dessert last night. It has two layers of filling...the top layer made from cream cheese and some cranberry "jelly" that was cooked on the stove-top from fresh cranberries. The bottom layer is cream cheese and some cookie paste. I talked some about how this was made at this Christmas Eve blog post. (It sounds so long ago now.) Cutting into it, it looks like this:

And it was pretty darned tasty. The crust is made from cookies, and it was very nice. Definitely, I'll be making this again. I'd like to make the full-sized version and serve it to my cheesecake-eating family back home.

Okay, so we have one more day of driving today. We'll end our day in Escondido, and we'll stay put for the next four weeks. We're hoping we can get our slide repaired while we're there. Either way, we're making due with our smallified space, and so the trip goes on regardless. We already have a dinner invitation from my dear friend, Debi. She's gotten our gang of eight together for a late lunch/early dinner. I'm looking forward to seeing all these folks.

We've eaten all our frozen breakfast burritos, and so I have to make actual breakfast this morning. Oh, the humanity. And with that ahead of me, I guess I'll get going.