Halloween California Style

After our 3 mile hike in the San Timoteo Canyon, and a little rest, we wanted to go experience the sounds & sounds of Halloween in Redlands.  The police block off some of the streets, houses are decorated in the typical Halloween "spooky" decorations and thousands of people trick or treat from dusk to 11:00PM.

We decided to go early before the sun went down to enable us to get some pictures of the decorations. After night fell, the houses were lit up, but the details of the great decorations were lost in the darkness.

Body parts "for sale"!

OMG, I can't handle all these kids!

This display was animated. Watch on YouTube below.

Some of the people estimated that they get around 4,000 "Trick or Treaters" each year.  They were mostly giving out small candies such as lollipops, etc.  The highly decorated houses seemed to be businesses along this main street such as lawyers, dentists, doctors, etc. 

 Other well decorated homes had sponsors that helped defray the cost of the decorations & candy.

 Some of the homes were extremely well done, others were "over  the top"!

Great Halloween display!

It was fun watching the parents and the little children enjoying the sights.

 Later, after dark, the older children & teens were about. Bands were playing their music on a mobile stage set up by the city,  and a party atmosphere prevailed for the rest of the evening.

We were thinking about our past experiences of Halloween back in New England.  In New England it always seemed to rain (or snow!) on Halloween, the children wear coats over or under their costumes, the houses are farther apart in the country, and the weather is just not that conducive to outdoor activities like this.  People were trick or treating in flip-flops, tank tops and shorts.  This is a BIG holiday in California. You can read more about it in the local paper here.

After we had seen most of the attractions we headed to San & Mike's home for dinner as we hadn't eaten since our 3 mile hike and the walk around looking at the decorations made us even more hungry.

Mike said his pedometer registered over 6 miles of walking today!  Elly and I were a little "pooped" because we have not been keeping up with our daily walks.  After a lovely dinner by our gracious hosts, we packed up the pomegranates (see earlier post) and drove out through the San Timoteo Canyon and headed home.

Look at the size of those Pomegranates!

After we went hiking and before going to see the Halloween festivities in Redlands, I got to pick some of my favorite fruit from their neighbors tree that abuts their driveway.  These were the largest pomegranates that I have ever seen!

Pomegranates on the tree, don't they look just like apples?

 

A very large pomegranate. Here you can see that its a pomegranate

  

More pomegranates

These are big!

Next to a large Granny Smith Apple and a 9-volt battery for comparison.

  
I will enjoy eating them.  I am sure Evan will like the large ones that I am shipping out to him!

Hiking in San Timoteo Canyon

Yesterday for Halloween, we were invited up to San & Mike's house in Redlands.  They had a full day in store for us including hiking in the San Timoteo Canyon, viewing the Halloween festivities on Cajon Street in Redlands, and dinner.   We haven't seen them since they came back from their vacation trip to France with their nieces and their work trip to China where they were teaching Chinese students.

The hiking trail they chose overlooked the San Timoteo Canyon (see here on wikipedia) and was not too far from their house at the Redland Conservancy.  Read more about the Conservancy here on their website.  We hiked the Oakmont & the Oakridge Trails there.

The Trail map of the trails we hiked

Here is a panorama of our view from most of the hiking trail.

Panorama of San Timoteo Canyon. Click to make larger

The hike was 3 miles long on a trail that was cut into the sides of the hills.  We were in the sun the entire time and Elly loved it. The day was warn in the high 80s.

The hiking trail ahead of us

San, Elly & Mike on the Trail

San & Elly wondering how come the guys are so slow!

Another view from the trail.

More Trail Views

After hiking we stopped for a well needed rest and water on the benches at the trail head.  There were some nice houses right near the trail head.  These houses typically are selling right now for over $1.2 million.  I am sure that if someone gives me a $1 million I could come up with the extra $200,00. 

One of the homes at the head of the trail.

Hummingbird in the House

Today, while the doors were open to move some furniture out, a hummingbird flew into the house!   It got really stressed out and  couldn't find it way out despite our best efforts to shoo it out.  I finally had to get on a ladder and move it out personally.. The poor thing looked really stressed. out. 

After I caught the hummingbird

 

The really scared hummingbird!

 Once I got it outside, it flew away just fine.  Everyone is happy!

Flabob Airport Cafe in Riverside,CA

Today was Estate Sale Day.  We traveled up to Riverside to go to an Estate Sale hosted by one of our favorite estate sale people, Home Sweet Home Estate Sales.  Check out their web site here.

We bought a few thing at the estate sale and then called Debbie to see if she was home.  She said she was having brunch at the Flabob Airport Cage with Tony and her Dad.  So we decided to join them.  You can read about the airport here on their web site.

Flabob Airport Cafe

Inside the Cafe

 The place is decorated in aviator motif with airplane photos, etc everywhere.  The food was good, I has french toast, Elly had an avocado omelet.

Phil, me, Elly & Tony at the Flabob Airport Cafe

This cafe is a very cool local hangout.  We didn't even know it existed until Debbie told us to meet her there.  She found the place by accident one day when her horse ran away and ended up at the airport.

Here is a video from youtube about the Flabob Airport Cafe:

Large Wright Bros. sculpture outside the Cafe

 After hanging out for a while chatting and drinking coffee, we headed home to put stuff up on eBay.

San Clemente Beach Day

The forecast was for 100 degrees today, so we decided to take the day off an have a "field trip".  We decided to go to San Clemente for lunch and then find a beach to spend the afternoon at.  We took the Ortega Highway to San Juan Capistrano.  If you look at our May 1 blog post, there is a map of the Ortega Highway.  It is the only way over the mountains from here to Orange County.  The only other ways are up through Corona or down through Oceanside.  It is a very winding road, and although Capistrano is only 20 mile as the crow flies, it takes an hour on the Ortega Highway!

The San Juan Capistrano Mission (you know the "swallows") is very disappointing.  It is on a street corner downtown. Plus there seemed to be a lot of construction go on inside.  I am sure it is nice to visit inside, but it just wasn't in our plans for today.  Here is a google maps street view of the mission.

That's the Mission behind the van.

We did walk down the street to a large antique shop and spent some time browsing around.  I saw a nice amber necklace that I wanted to buy for Elly, but we passed on it to save money.  This shop also charges 12% sellers premium in addition to rent if you want to sell in a space at this mall.

This is the amber  necklace that I liked

Me in one of the booths

You can tell we are in California!

Elly in the Antique Mall

One of the antique booths

After looking around the shop for some time, we decided to head to San Clemente for lunch. Once in San Clemente we decide to eat at Nick's. The place was real nice and the food was fantastic!  It wasn't too pricey either.

Nick's Restaurant

Elly at the restaurant. Her hair is getting longer!

Downtown San Clemente

After lunch we decided to head towards San Onofre State Beach.  We decided used our GPS to take all the back roads in San Clemente that would take us to the shore.  If we found a nice beach we would stay there, rather than go to our original destination of San Onofre.  As luck would have it we found the San Celemente State Beach at Calafia.

This beach was great, a lot of parking, not crowded and really nice sand with no rocks.  There were condo apartments overlooking the beach.  I bet those are expensive!
 

Looking down the beach

Condos overlooking the beach

Elly Relaxing at the Beach

 Just like in Del Mar, the train tracks run right along the back of the beach. You can watch this youtube video I took of the train going by.

After we had enough sun, we drove down to our original destination, San Onofre State Park.  The State Park surrounds the nuclear power plant which is currently shut down.  There is a lot of controversy and public meeting surrounding the restart of this plant.

The State beach was packed with all sorts of vehicles with surf boards. There must have been over 300 "surfer dude" vehicles and only a few parking spaces left.  This is where all the surfers go.

San Onofre State Beach in 1963.  I think some of those cars are still there!

San Onofre State Beach today.

 We sat at watched the surfers for a while and then headed to Carlsbad on the way home.  In Carlsbad we stopped at the Coyote Grill to relax with a few drinks and nachos.

Coyote Grill & where we sat

 The band started playing and they weren't that good, so we decided to call it a day and head back home.  We decided to try and do at least one outing like this each week before we have to head back to to New England.