Happy Earth Day! That picture is from Easter, on our stroll through Barnett. Yesterday, Jes had the day off and we wanted to do an all day adventure, before we met with my pastor; for coffee, at 6! We decided to venture to Julian and get pie. We didn't have much of a plan. We drove up and our first stop was in Santa Ysabel, at Dudley's Bakery. I grew up eating Dudley's bread and it always makes me feel warm inside when I go there. After a wonderful service at church, for Easter, these crosses really stood out to us both.. As this picture says, Dudley's was founded in 1963. Dudley Pratt was a middle aged expert baker who had previous bakeries and wanted to start one in Santa Ysabel. After receiving criticism on the bakery being "too far away" he soon had customers traveling from near and far to taste his delicious breads, fruit bars, and pastries. Every Summer, Mr. Dudley Pratt would close the store for two months, to travel to Europe and get inspiration. He would search long and far for delicious and unique breads, pastries, cafes and more to find the perfect flavors to adapt to his menu; to please his customers. Ten years after opening the bakery, Dudley Pratt passed away. The bakery still prides itself on doing things the Dudley way. Quality, taste, uniqueness and freshness is their hallmark. The bakery now produces thousands of loaves of bread a day, and provides deliciousness to many bakeries and grocers all over San Diego County. After visiting Dudley's, we trucked along and made our way to Julian. We took a few delightful pictures along the way. It really was a beautiful day! Our first stop, in Julian, was the Julian Jail. This used to be my favorite place to go and peek in to. Before, they had the door open and a gate, so people could peer in and imagine being a criminal back in 1914. They have since closed the door and blocked off the window. It's sad that others have to ruin it for people like us, who aren't planning on throwing our trash in there; but, simply enjoying history. We continued driving and saw a sign for Lake Cuyamaca. We both hadn't been in a long time, and decided to explore that area. I was amazed with how beautiful it is, once we started driving around to the other side of the lake. The sun glistening off the water, the clear blue skies and my best friend by my side..how could I feel any happier??! We both glanced into the water at the water toys we could rent, and we knew then what we were doing for the day! The winds were considered "strong", so we couldn't rent anything other than a motor boat. We were so excited, since neither of us had rented a motor boat before. With Jesse's military discount, it was only $25 for a half day! Not bad! We went into the restaurant next to the rental shop, bought a veggie sandwich and headed down to the dock. Say "hello" to our little blue boat! We both knew I didn't have a clue what I was doing, if I was captain; so, from then on, I referred to him as Captain Jesse. It was so lovely to just sit back, take pictures, and enjoy the beautiful day. Knowing at the beginning of the day we had no idea we would be doing this, made it even more fun! Being spontaneous and enjoying life, really is the way to live. We went around for a bit, docked the boat on an "island", and enjoyed our lunch. Please excuse my "candid" moments. I prefer to be behind the camera, not in front. ;) After eating, we started our hike, on the "island". And now for our jumpy pics! I apologize for mine being blurry. We returned the boat, and made it back to Julian in time for pie!! We ordered one slice of Dutch Apple with a scoop of cinnamon. We will definitely be back!! Picture of the day is of two huge frogs we saw while leaning over the edge of the wooden bridge. They were SO big. I think they were fake, but Jesse thinks they're real. Who knows... Thanks for reading! Until next time, Ciao
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HAPPY EASTER!!! We have been busy lately, so we haven't gotten to explore or blog as much. Today, we went to church and then had brunch with my mom and grandma, at my grandma's house. How adorable is my gram? She made my mom, Jesse and I Easter bags full of chocolates! Yum. But, OH MY! How adorable is my 1-month old niece in her Easter outfit! AHH! Can't handle it!!! Yesterday, Jesse and I got a booth at Kobey's Swap Meet, here in San Diego, and sold a bunch of our old stuff!! It was a long day! We came out of it with a decent amount of money, and almost 10 hours of selling. We both got so burnt! This Icee helped, though... Back to today. We had a very lovely morning with my family. We realized we could either: A. Take a nap and be lazy, or B. Hike and be productive. One severe food coma later, we chose to hike. We ventured to Barnett Ranch, in Ramona. It was more of a relaxed evening stroll, but we really enjoyed every minute of it! A bit of history (if you care): Augustus Barnett and his wife, Martha moved west, as he established himself as a pronounced businessman, in Cleveland, from around 1825-1840. The couple moved to San Diego in 1875. Barnett Ranch was built in 1877, in Ramona. The property was a working cattle ranch for over 100 years. Much of the vegetation is native and non-native grassland. The Preserve actually spans 728 acresThe Barnetts were important to the expanding of ramona; including gifting the Ramona Town Hall, on Main Street. There are two trails to choose from, but we started on the first trail we reached, on our left-hand side, and did the full loop. It is all flat, no steep hills, and I think it is 2.5 miles round trip. All of the beautiful greens and blues were overwhelming, yet calming. We fell in love with this spot to do our jump because of the greenery, the visual of the trail, and the picnic table on the other side! So peaceful!! We sat and enjoyed the view for a while and chatted. When we started walking over to this area, we heard a huge group of coyotes howling, not too far away. So many beautiful green hues!!! Jesse said this tree looked like alligator skin! Lol. Spike-y area of doom!!! Here's a coyote and his 4 friends waiting for him. He tried staring us down with intimidation. The trail was overall extremely peaceful. The weather was perfect and we ended up having a delightful day, all around! This is such a nice tranquil trail. It was also a bit romantic. Picture of the day is of my cat, Mr. Barnes. Thanks for reading! Until next time! Ciao
The flowers on my back deck are so beautiful right now!! I get distracted by them daily! Back to the topic of the day. I've always had a serious fascination for all things abandoned. It's so eerie and intriguing. I grew up watching tons of scary movies with my dad, so infatuated with mystery. I received my BS in fashion business marketing, almost a year ago, and was fortunate enough to do an abandoned-themed photoshoot. This photoshoot was maybe two years ago and I found this abandoned bus, while searching for interesting abandoned locations, in SD. Here are a few pictures from my photoshoot. Photo credit: Kerstin Winter Back to 2014. So, I've been wanting to come out here again, and yesterday we made that happen! The area is Sycamore Canyon Test Facility. It's actually restricted government property. My bad. But it's just so cool, how can I not? Anyway, the day was fairly warm weather! Probably in the low 80's. It's a few miles to hike out to it, and super creepy the whole time. Since it's government property, I feared the entire time that they would either come out with guns and warn us off the property, or a helicopter would land near us. Neither happened, thankfully. [Please note: When we are on property that is considered "risky", like this, we are not destructive nor are we disrespectful. Again, please keep in mind nature can be fragile.] My curious George. We couldn't figure out exactly what it was. Still so cool, though! We continued on the trail, with our destination in site: building 4 and the abandoned bus. The last time I was here, this building was open. You were able to go inside. I didn't go inside, which now I'm sad, since it's bolted shut. Awwwww :) This structure is so strange. We weren't sure what it was for, since there was no door to go inside it. Jesse found this melted glass down there, that we thought was pretty neat. Building 4 also has a "7" on it, along with an alarm. We guessed that a lot of this property was used as a shooting range, hence these "tables", that went on a path, for a while. oh, hello...ironic There were bee hives everywhere, in the broken pipes!!! Luckily, I had my EpiPen, just in case! It ended up being quite peaceful to just sit and chat; although, the whole time I was a bit paranoid. And now, time for our jumpy pics! We started heading back, and stopped at a rusty old water tower. My monkey had to climb. Climbing a water tower was something he always had on his bucket list! We were hungry, so, we decided to head back to the car. We ended up grabbing Chinese food and eating it at Mira Mar lake. A wonderful end to the day!! Picture of the day is rusty barbed wire. We had to walk through it on our way out. I've always had an attraction to anything rusty, as well as barbed wire. Call me weird. Thanks for reading! Until next time. Ciao
Yesterday, Jesse got off work at 4, so we decided to find adventure somewhere new. If you have ever driven south on the 5, in Encinitas, and looked right, you have probably noticed a lagoon. Also next to the lagoon are these cliffs. To me, these cliffs look nothing more than just boring old cliffs with tons of brush around them. Boy, was I wrong!!! This location is incredible, and nothing like what I ever expected! Lets start from the beginning. I Googled how to find the trail and where to park. I couldn't find the answer I was looking for. I found that the area is called San Elijo Lagoon Ecological Reserve. So, naturally, I just mapped it on my phone. What came up was, to me, the place to go: San Elijo Lagoon County Park. We exited the freeway, drove to the end of the road and got out; so excited for our adventure. We found this trail, (AKA not the one we wanted) but still a cool trail. So, back on the road we went. We exited Manchester, turned left, and parked in Mira Costa College parking (after asking the police officer if that was alright). We crossed the street and were shocked to find... DEER!! Who would have thought?? Now, I'm trusting you with telling you these directions, in hopes that you will not disrespect nature, in ANY way!!! I want others to enjoy it, like Jesse and I did. Please don't litter, carve or destroy the nature. We continued on, until we found this fence. A jogger was coming toward the fence from the other side, so we crossed through. How pretty is that? I love hot air balloons! We passed parts of the lagoon and I am now convinced that the Loch Ness Monster lives in the lagoon!! (Ok, not really, but something creepy like it!) Not only did we see at least 3 snake-like creatures, but we saw, and mostly heard, more under the bridge. And, no, it wasn't our imagination, or ducks, ok?! We continued on the path, reached another fence, walked along the trail, and finally reached the bridge. You want to walk under the freeway bridge. My anxiety was pretty high, because it was nearing 7PM, so the sun wasn't going to be up much longer. We had a ways to go, and still wanted to enjoy it. So, we started jogging. There were two trail options, after the bridge. Take the right path. We did pass a few of these. Oops. Sorry mom. The true thrill, lay behind the yellow signs.. Of course, my monkey had to climb. :) Ah, my dangerous monkey scares me sometimes. I had to tell him to get down, 'cause he didn't realize how high he had climbed!! I considered doing some climbing of my own, but then I thought, mmm..better not! Lol Like I said, some parts get extremely narrow! I was beyond excited when I realized we had made it to the top in time to watch the sun set!! Sadly, we had problems taking motion shots :( But it was still fun. We do this jump everywhere. We were sad to leave this beautiful site, but it was getting so dark and creepy, we had to! Something you must know about me is that I am terrified of the dark!! Yes, I will openly admit that. Mind you, it was basically pitch black on our way back. We chose to take a different way back, due to the fact that it was a bit quicker, and the other way back didn't seem too appealing. At one point I was basically on Jesse's back as he macheted through "the forest", with his hands and body. We sometimes choose to make our own trail. (respecting the wildlife, obviously) Famished when we finally reached the car, we decided to stop and grab a bite at The Habit, off Lomas Santa Fe. This place is amazing! Awesomely delicious food, super cheap (like In-n-out) and unbelievable shakes and malts. The Habit Burger Grill was established in 1969, in Santa Barbara! They donate to various charities, schools, food banks, humane societies and more. I ordered the strawberry milkshake with a charburger + avocado. MMM! The best part? They have caramelized onions on their burgers!! Heaven! Jesse got the teriyaki charburger, which has pineapple; and he also got the chocolate malt. All in all, another amazing adventure. Now, here is my favorite picture of the day! Thanks for reading! Until next time! Ciao
So, Jesse and I have been talking for a while about doing this hike, but just haven't done it; merely because it is such a far drive. We have done Devil's Punch Bowl, (I'll blog about it later) and have been wanting to do Three Sisters together too! Now, mind you, I grew up hiking with my dad. I have done many hikes, and don't consider myself a beginner, nor advanced. With that, I am going to tell you this hike was HARD! The difficulty level is very high. At certain points in the hike I was actually scared. It gets incredibly steep, and is NOT for beginners OR people who aren't prepared. Jesse and I even saw a tourist with flip flops on!!! Anyway, we began our journey with a late start, and then chose to stop off at the Viejas Outlets, which were oh so conveniently on the way! We have a thing about matching our shoes and clothes sometimes, so, we got matching Nike's from the Nike outlet. I'm in looove!! Can you tell we're obsessed?? Lol. After being distracted at the store for probably an hour and a half, we finished the rest of our journey, to the three falls. We ended up getting super lost and our maps wasn't working, since there was zero service. We wandered a bit, until we received service and found the right direction. Before approaching the hike, we came across a really cool (but extremely creepy) abandoned house and old truck. The house was super eerie as we reached it. I had an uncomfortable sense that someone was watching us. Of course, Jesse being Jesse, goes, "Oh, I'm sorry about that, sir" as he was stepping in the house. Gullible little me actually believed him for a few (long) seconds, thinking someone was actually in the house, before he burst into laughter and hopped through the front "door". The door was on the ground outside. The house was destroyed inside. Other nosey people, like us, had come in and trashed the place, I assume. After being totally grossed out by rat poo EVERYWHERE and creeped out by just walking through, I finally sprinted out. I found myself at the abandoned truck. PLEASE NOTE: The quality of the pictures in this whole post aren't the best because I used my Iphone 4s instead of my Canon 50D. We hopped in [Jesse's] truck and drove on for about 20 or so more minutes, until FINALLY finding the parking "lot". It's basically street parking around and near the beginning of the trail. This is the location of the trail ... The beginning of the hike is a breeze, and actually is really enjoyable to stroll through and enjoy the greenery, since it recently rained. Jesse found this cool plant, in the tree, that reminded me of something you'd find under, or near, the ocean. Don't you just love nature? Ah. I didn't take any more pictures until we got to the falls, because it was too dangerous; and to be honest, I fell HARD and cut up my hands. Oops. I'm never one to fall when I hike, nor am I clumsy, so I was pretty mad at myself (and the hike) for making me fall. The trails get extremely steep! So steep that people have actually added rope in at the top, and thrown it down the hill (or cliff) for assistance. At times it is near to impossible to move on further, without using rope. People were slipping, sliding, and falling all over the place. Like I said, come prepared for this hike!!! This is one example of a cliff that one cannot simply climb down, without a rope. Believe me, it looks so simple in this picture, but it was either you jump 12 or so feet, or carefully step down; gripping the rope for your life! Or was that just me? But I think the tree roots are pretty cool! Jesse had told me that the last time he did the hike, he caught TWO rattle snakes! Fortunately, we hiked it just after a recent rainfall, so we didn't see any. Once we reached the top, we turned around and noticed the trail we had hiked. See how steep it is?? Jesse ran ahead of me to jump on these rocks. I stared at them and they reminded me of a camo-type print; with all of the greens, making it almost monochromatic. Jesse is a Navy rescue swimmer, so, naturally, he blended in and I couldn't find him.. ;) Please note: These waterfalls are extremely hard to capture in a picture. The true beauty lies in the naked eye, in person. After almost crying, and swearing to myself (on the way to the falls) that I would never hike it again, I'm positive I will! It took us around 4.5 hours to hike it, including time that we sat and enjoyed the view at the top. One of the best moments, was when we were almost to the car, both exhausted and wanting food, a bed and some sleep; and we saw this... No words can capture this feeling. All in all, the most difficult hike I've ever done, but so worth it! Picture of the day, you ask? We drove passed these beautes on our way back!
Thanks for reading! Until next time! Ciao Jesse and I had been talking about going to the flower fields, but we didn't know they were already open! He had the day off, so we decided what better day to go, than today? We started out our day having brunch at Cafe Elysa (AKA the best stuffed french toast ever!) Jesse was SO excited, to say the least. I had been once before and obsessed over the stuffed coconut french toast! It is so fresh and just, yummy! I ordered the coconut stuffed french toast, and he the strawberry. I got a standard latte and he ordered the "Milky Way Mocha". Jesse is more of a "I only drink black coffee, with occasional creamer" type of person; so, I encouraged him to try the mocha. He definitely enjoyed it. Here he is posing with his french toast. He was so excited! [Note: the lady in the background has a cat (full grown house cat!) in that backpack!] It was hard to focus on every word Jesse was saying, because that lady was having FULL conversations with her cat. Don't get me wrong, I'm a full-blown cat lady; however, I would never put a leash on it, like her, and take it to brunch with me. Or would I? Anyway, We also ordered the ham and cheese quiche, which i HIGHLY recommend, as well!!! YUM! Next, we walked around downtown Carlsbad a bit. Here's Jesse lookin' all dapper and stuff. I blushed when I just posted that pic there! We walked on the train tracks for fun, until the Coaster actually came! Lol. He wanted to take my pic, so I taught him how to use my camera, and he did pretty well! He was all proud of taking a close-up of a bee on a pretty flower. We walked down to the Carlsbad Village Art and Antique Mall and spent a good hour and a half walking around. It's HUGE! It gave us so many creative ideas! On our way back, we walked through the Carlsbad Chocolate Bar. They sell amazing individual chocolates, wines, and other cute knick-knacky things. We passed this cute, tiny church, took some more pictures and headed to the flower fields. If you aren't familiar, The Carlsbad Flower Fields have been around for over 60 years, as a tourist attraction; in San Diego. There are almost fifty acres of Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers, that are available to see for two months each year. All of the colors in the fields are so unreal, and even more amazing up close. And, without further adieus I present to you...The beautiful Carlsbad Flower Fields. [Random snippet: Lately I have been seeing this reoccurring theme of purple flowers everywhere I go. I noticed it at the flower fields too! It makes me happy because my dad's favorite color was purple!] Jesse and I both notice every little detail..you will see this through our journey! We both were obsessed with this arrow sign; so, naturally, he took a picture in front of it! We crack each other up! The flowers are in rows by color, but, we couldn't help but love the randoms that wanted to be with the pink flowers. I don't blame them! What an amazing and beautiful day it was. If you have a chance to go to the flower fields, I would definitely recommend it. Now, these are two of fav pics of the day! Can you say "candid"? Thanks for reading!! Until next time! Ciao!
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AuthorA passionate lover of food, adventure, traveling, and enjoying life! Archives
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