Fall Colors and Pie Town - Julian, San Diego County

Cousin Martha took me on a field trip to look out for fall colors and the perfect pie. 

We found both in and around Julian, nestled in the Cuyamaca Mountains, an hour or so from San Diego. Julian is both an agricultural center (think apples) and home to six (or more?) businesses that focus on producing the perfect pie. It also turned out to be a great spot to stop in for a delicious classic deli lunch - imagine your back in the 1960's, when butter was still queen - after which we headed back down the road for a hike and a chance to take in colorful deciduous trees and a meadow of autumn-red California Buckwheat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian,_California

CA Buckwheat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eriogonum_fasciculatum

Time Travel Portal - 1915 - CA Tower - (San Diego Field Trip)

Looking for a way back to 1915? Travel up the stairs of the California Tower in San Diego's Balboa Park. Back to the time of the Panama Pacific Exposition, when folks saw the world through a pair of rose colored  - Beaux Arte flavored - glasses, International was another word for exotic, and California drifted like an almost unexplored cultural island.

Balboa Park San Diego (Field Trip)

Franklin Roosevelt 

Climbed these stairs to see Expo

Panama Canal!

Panama Pacific Exposition, San Diego, Balboa Park, 1915

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama–California_Exposition

Postcard from HI 152 (Field Trip San Francisco Bay Area)

The natives are friendly on CA HI 152

Highway 152  leads out of Gilroy, self-claimed Garlic Capital of the World, then meanders gently through quintessential CA farm land before rising up Pacheco Pass and out to Interstate Highway 5. HI 5 is a powerhouse interstate, filled with big trucks and small speeding cars. It's famous for talking folks, livestock and products there - in a hurry wherever it is that we need to get to, that's far away. It's the speediest route from the southernmost point of the west coast, up through the low lying, central, predominantly agricultural valleys in California, Oregon, and Washington.

Highway 152 reminds us of our agricultural heritage, 

moving San Francisco Bay Area dwellers on a multitude of western adventures. It's takes us out of Silicon Valley and onto Disneyland, San Diego, or even the Cascades. 

Then it leads us back home again.

HI 152 Farmlands

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Web Resources

CA Highway 152 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_152

Gilroy CA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilroy,_California