Winding roads through the California Mountains

is not for the faint of heart. Especially when my DH 

is channeling his inner Mario Andretti.

 We did stop at a lot of "vistas".

And getting out of the car as he screeches

to a halt at the edge is not for the vertically challenged.

 We blew through the town of Julian which we

visited the last time.

It was raining then, so no photo ops really presented itself.

So........we did a drive through.

 Julian is famous for its apple pies. 

Don't the storefronts look like they should be in a western?

 I was anticipating gunslingers, but found mostly bikers
and horse and buggies.

 These flowers were at a casino (and the name escapes me)

while DH was playing blackjack.

I was entertaining myself with flowers and panaromas.

Which is all good.

 We then blasted down the long and winding roads once again.

Once again imitating Mario,

we headed to the Hale Observatory on Mount Palomar.

We blew into the parking lot with minutes to spare.

Gasped our way up the walkway (remember we are 1 mile up)

walked up the 109841923841947 steps

to where the telescope lives, just in time 

for the lights to be shut off.

It was closing time.

 Does anyone know what that is? We saw them

on the mountain roads on the way down, from the mountaintop.

 Since we were on a roll in making things in the nick of time.

We decided to head to sea level and check out the

sunset on the Pacific Ocean.
*Dramatic pause* waiting for my ears to catch up.

And my camera battery died. A race to the car and a quick

switch. And wa-la - sunset!