To celebrate my wife Crissy's 50th birthday we took an all day trip down to Julian, a remote little town known locally for its fresh apple pie.
I sat down at the computer and went through the options for our route there and back. This is what I came up with:
Trip to Julian
This ride was a good inauguration for her favorite present,
Sidi Vertigo Lei boots!!
We left our home in Indio at about 9:30 and cruised to our usual starting off and fueling point in Palm Desert. From there we went straight up Hwy. 74, the
Palms to Pines Hwy. This is our normal Sunday morning run, so it was a good warm up ride for us. A quick climb up the side of the mountain and then a comfortable wander up through the hilltops until we got to the start of the little valley up there. That's where we turned south onto Hwy. 371, which jumps over the ridge and quickly winds down into Anza.
In Anza we stopped at the Dairy Queen, had a late breakfast and took advantage of their "free coffee for motorcyclists" offer.
After sharing a burger, onion rings and a salad, we continued through the hills, turning left onto Hwy. 79. The area is spotted with residences, farms, ranches and campgrounds. A nice scenic background. Fortunately, the traffic was only moderate, so we weren't stuck in a parade of motor homes, or anything.
At Lake Henshaw we stopped to enjoy the view.
We were also glad to see another motorcycle friendly establishment.
There was another group of four or five bikers there that we struck up a conversation with. They were from Camp Pendleton, enjoying a ride to Palomar.
From there, we went back to a little place we noticed on the access road to our next milestone.
All kinds of bikes, mostly Harleys, but
all kinds were there.
I can't remember ever hearing about this place, what a great discovery!! We stopped, shared a bowl of chili and enjoyed the ambiance. A good, comfortable, accepting bunch of bikers. As we sat, many bikes came and went, some just cruised by to see who was there. It made us feel like it's the San Diego version of the Rock Store on Mulholland.
Then we went
UP. Up the side of a hill. Up what is probably the steepest, twistiest, country hillside road I've ever been on. At least for the first mile that is, then it mostly leveled off, but the road runs just above the treeline, so there's definitely some more twists that come up now and again.
Mesa Grande Rd. is a very fun little detour. I'll have to think of some excuses to take it again. I think I saw a cute mailbox. I'll have to go back and look for it sometime.
Shortly after we got back on the main road, we stopped for fuel. I'd figured out a good spot, close to the middle of our journey, so that we wouldn't have to worry about running out.
After gassing up, we headed to Julian. A cute little town, a bit touristy. It's a popular destination for motorcyclists, so there were quite a few there.
We looked around for a while before we went to the BBQ place and shared a pulled pork sandwich. Then we followed up a suggestion from one of the locals for a slice of apple pie, à la mode of course!
With our tummies full, we headed east. The section of
Hwy. 78 that is just east of Julian takes a pretty good run along the side of a canyon with some sharp twists thrown in. Cool. Beyond that was one of the few stretches of straight road that we drove that day. That eased into some gradual hills until we got to the turn off to get to Borrego Springs.
Yaqui Pass Rd. is another jaunt that goes
up as fast as it can, with some great twists too. Once at the top, we were on a comfortable slope down into the Borrego Springs area.
While driving along Borrego Springs Rd. we made another surprising discovery. There are a number of large metal sculptures not too far from the road.
We found a sign that showed the name of the area is
Galleta Meadows Estates, but we found no explanation for the
sculptures at that time. It was amazing to see so many out in the middle of the desert. After taking a few pictures, we went into town and got a large bottle of water to share. It was a
little warm.
Our next upward trek rose at a slower pace, but had a lot of twists flowing with the hillside. No traffic, very cool.
From the top of that mesa, all we had left was our meandering path home. Until we turned back onto Hwy. 371, we were driving into the Sun, as it slowly dropped in the sky. Sometimes we had shade from the trees, but not always.
We stopped again at the Dairy Queen in Anza. A relaxing break, but we were running out of light. We got back on the road and made it back to our familiar stomping grounds before it got totally dark. Driving our favorite road at night was a big change. On our way down into our home valley, we stopped at
Vista Point. The spread of the city lights looked way cool. Too bad those pictures didn't turn out very well.
We had a very nice day with wonderful weather, mostly perfect road conditions and fairly reasonable traffic. We'll have to do some variations of this ride in the future.