CA Trip - Day 3 - San Juan Capistrano & Lake Elsinore

So on Day 3 we drove up the coast on I-5 from San Diego to San Juan Capistrano. The fabled place where swallows go...and they really do. Apparently in March. I love the name "San Juan Capistrano." Something romantic about that name.

Anyway, we visited the mission there and learned a lot about its history. It's a beautiful place -- in between the original walls, naturally aging, they have beautiful courtyards and gardens. The bells you see above were rung not only for prayer, but for special occasions, especially funerals. So, when people heard a certain bell rung, they would run to their neighbors to find out who died.

The mission is still active -- there is daily mass there, along with an assigned priest. There is also a "basilica" (which doesnt look like a basilica) next door, along with a school. So the Catholic Church is very active in this area.

After we saw the mission, we drove through the mountains along Ortega Hwy, a winding road up and down the mountains that reminded me of the Bear Creek mountain roads of Colorado through Morrison and Kittredge going towards Evergreen. As we came down the mountain, we saw Lake Elsinore there in the valley of the mountains with a small city surrounding it. It looked very picturesque--the kind of place you imagine in TV shows like Northern Exposure or some such.

We got there early, so we went to the local outlet mall and hung around an hour or so until evening. Then we spent the evening with my brother, his wife, and my neice and step-neice (is there such a thing?). It was very nice. We went to dinner at a cool asian-fusion restaurant and shared entrees family-style.

Afterwards, we went back to their house and watched t.v. They watch a lot of the new broadcast t.v. shows that I never watch. I can't even remember their names. But it was fun. They've done a lot with their house, and it's inspired Dean and I to do some work on ours. I'm finally going to paint the bathroom downstairs, and we've already done some things to spruce up the bedroom.

I uploaded the pictures for this part of the trip, which you can see here.

The uploader farked up about two dozen of the pictures, so I will have to tweak those and re-load them. I won't get to it until Sunday at the earliest.