Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA) is located in Oceano/Pismo Beach and provides 1,500 acres of beautiful sand dunes and beach area for roaming about in your OHV, dirt bike, dune buggy, 4×4, etc. Camping is allowed on the beach south of Post 2 and in the open dune area.
Links: Oceano SVRA previous related post
The Self-Realization Fellowship Center in Encinitas (known locally as “Swamis”) has a meditation garden that is open to the public. This beautiful area boasts a multitude of trees, shrubs, and succulents along with several koi ponds including the one above. Benches are spread throughout, inviting one to sit quietly under a canopy of leaves or on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Links: Self-Realization Fellowship
One of the reasons we love the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is because of the lorikeets, which are so much fun to feed. All you have to do is purchase a couple of little cups full of nectar and then enter the lorikeet enclosure where the birds proceed to perch on your shoulders, arms, hands, head, etc. It’s become a birthday tradition for us.
This 5-acre site in Poway seeks to preserve this important archaeological area where the Kumeyaay people lived about 1,000 years ago. Acorns were a primary food resource and this pic shows the milling area where acorns were ground into flour. After leaching out the bitter tannic acid with water, the resulting dough was heated to make “shawii” or acorn mush. Docents lead tours every Saturday (except the first Saturday of each month) from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Links: K-I Interpretive Center
The “Cardiff Kook” is a sculpture of a surfer by Hemet sculptor Matthew Antichevich that was installed in 2007 and is officially named “Magic Carpet Ride”. Located just outside of the San Elijo State Beach campground, the statue is “dressed” in widely varying garb that changes from day to day or week to week. It’s always fun to drive by and see what he is wearing that day!
Link: 5 years of pics
Sleeping Beauty Castle opened on July 17, 1955 with Disneyland Park. Its design was based on the Bavarian castle Neuschwanstein. Guests could not walk through the interior until 1957 and the drawbridge has only been lowered twice, once at the opening of the park and again in 1983 at the rededication of Fantasyland. It’s never more beautiful than at Christmas when specially lit for the holiday season.
The $1 billion Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, is adjacent to the Encina Power Station on the Agua Hedionda Lagoon and produces 50 million gallons of purified water daily, enough to supply 400,000 San Diego County residents. This pic shows part of the interior of the reverse osmosis building, which contains more than 2,000 pressure vessels housing more than 16,000 reverse osmosis membranes.
One of the most interesting features of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley is the ability to tour the Air Force One airplane that served seven presidents, including Ronald Reagan, during its service from 1973-2001. The Boeing 707 is housed in a 90,000 sq. ft. exhibit hangar as part of a display about presidential travel.
The Olivenhain Dam and Reservoir is located within the Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve and serves as an emergency water storage facility for San Diego County, to be used in the event of an earthquake or other disaster severing incoming water transportation lines. It was the first roller-compacted concrete dam built in California and was designed to remain fully functional during a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. Completed in 2003, the reservoir can hold 24,000 acre-feet of water.
Links: SDCWA Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve previous related post
Red Rock Canyon State Park is located where the southernmost end of the Sierra Nevada meet the El Paso Mountains, about an hour north of Lancaster. The campsites in Ricardo Campground back up against dramatic desert cliffs. Off highway exploring opportunities abound in the nearby Dove Springs and Jawbone Canyon OHV areas.
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