Jon and Hanny DeJong immigrated to the United States from Holland in 1947. They leased their first dairy in 1958, with one cow and four teats to milk. Now their children and great grandchildren run the operation, which produces 500 gallons of milk a day. DeJong’s Dairy is the only dairy in California that breeds …
Palomar Observatory Trail is a 4.5 mile out and back that connects the 1928 observatory with Observatory Campground. Palomar Observatory is owned and operated by Caltech and is currently closed to the public due to the pandemic. I guess they want to conduct their “compelling scientific investigations in astronomy and astrophysics” in private. Since you …
Oceanside’s Rosicrucian Fellowship was founded in 1909 by those who study Christian Mystic Philosophy. Rosicrucianism is symbolized by the rose cross (which is where its name evolved from). Church members believe that everyone can find God from within, through prayer, meditation and concentration. They offer a service of spiritual healing, even building a sanitarium at …
When the idea of Disney California Adventure was first developed, Disney executives were debating between building a second California park next to Disneyland in Orange County or next to Long Beach (since the company had just acquired the Queen Mary and the Spruce Goose). The Long Beach location were to become DisneySea and the parking …
Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded on November 1, 1776. It is the seventh of twenty one Spanish missions in California and sits on ten beautifully manicured acres in the historic center of San Juan Capistrano. This was our first time here but it won’t be the last. With monarch butterflies floating from one flower …
Oceanside’s iconic pier makes the perfect backdrop for any beach photo. At 1,942 feet long it is one of the longest piers on the west coast. Just another reason to love Oceanside!
Disneyland has been the happiest place on earth since 1955, rain or shine. It unexpectedly drizzled the first hour we were there, which made our hair extra curly, the ground extra slippery, and our glasses extra blurry, but it didn’t dampen our good time. Today was our first day back since the pandemic. We had …
Our plan with this maiden camping voyage was to make it easy. We didn’t make a fire. We didn’t even make any food (everything was a prepackaged from Trader Joes). The only thing we heated was water on the jetboil for coffee, which was cowboy style (some coffee grounds included). After packing up in the …
Anza Borrego Desert State Park is the largest desert recreational area in California, and the largest state park in the contiguous United States. It is 935 square miles of badlands, dry lake beds, slot canyons, and mountains. Today we were focused on the mountains, in a campsite that we found the last time we were …
Thirty seven acres of Encinitas, ocean view property has been reserved for the San Diego Botanical Gardens (aka Quail Botanical Gardens) for the past twenty years. Their mission is to “inspire people of all ages to connect with plants and nature”. We connected today; wandering along rainforest trails, in bamboo gardens, near turtle breeding grounds, …
San Clemente is famous for its Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. This was all part of Ole Hanson’s master plan in the late 1920s. He had a dream to create a Spanish Village by the Sea, and in doing so created one of the first master planned communities in the United States. He had to drag …
Less than a mile from where I attended grade school, at Murrieta Elementary, looms Kea Mill, a hundred foot tall, hundred year old building. Constructed for farmers to store their grains in bulk until it could be shipped to Los Angeles, it hasn’t changed much since it was built around 1918. Kea Mill was in …
Today’s low tide wasn’t super low (-.8′) but I was hopeful it would be low enough to see at least some of the 1930’s shipwreck that sits in front of Coronado Shores Condos. We had no such luck, however, we did find out that the only time to see the wreck is winter, when the …