It was a clearer day today, sunny clear blue skies greeted us when we got up at about 7.30. After a good breakfast we loaded up the car and set off east towards Corona. We took the freeways there then set the GPS to avoid highways and sat back to enjoy the scenic route to Julian.

It was very dry, the on going drought is definitely biting in these hinterland communities.

Wildlife spotting of the day, a large flock of Pelicans on the move, some small red woodpeckers (Woody? Lol) landing on power poles, the first squirrel of the year and several Eagles flying including one which was on top of a pole but it took off before we could get a decent shot of it.

Lake Elsinore looks like it's well down from pre-drought levels and the "river" was totally dry & weed infested.

Murrieta, a smallish city with a seemingly huge appetite for religion. We lost count of the massive churches many combining the church with education academies.

The city of Temecula was notable for the enthusiastic ad sign twirlers putting on a show trying to entice very one into their employers stores and restaurants. Temecula Old Town was pretty cool if shamelessly touristy, lots of replica old west style buildings.

We came across a massive display of metal art on the side of the road. There were hundreds of the large as life sculptures which we stopped to check out. Most were in a western theme, Cowboys, horses, cactus, a stage etc but there were some a bit more out there, dinosaurs, a turtle even an octopus.

The outside temp kept rising, just after the sculptures it went past 100F.

Here and there we saw splashes of green, apple orchards and vineyards, not sure where they get the water from though. Another anomaly was a sign pointing down a side road to the US navy remote training facility; navy? It's over 3000 feet elevation and a long way from the ocean so that struck us as decidedly odd.

We found a small pull off with a shady tree for our usual on the road lunch; wrap for Pete and a salad for me.

Along the way there were references to the old stage coaches, it must be one of the routes they used When heading west.

We got to Julian about 2pm. An old town settled initially due to the discovery of gold. Nowadays it's a tourist town, somewhere for those in LA and San Diego to go to get away from the city.

Our stop for the next two nights is Oak Hill Inn B & B a gorgeous little spot perfect to explore the area from. We settled in, got some dinner on to cook in the slow Coker and went for a swim. The pool is tiled with sea creatures including a whale, turtles and fairly good representations of marine fish. There's even some starfish and a pair of things, it's very well done.

Back in our room we again crashed out for a few hours. We aren't adjusting as well as usual, we think it's something to do with the crazy hours we were working before we left but guess we will get there.

Dinner was ready about 9.30, we went to the common area and microwaved some rice to go with it. On the door to the bar area there was a super cute tiny frog.