Sunday, January 15, 2012

Pines to Palms Highway

Today we went back to the FMCA rally to pick up our serviced tow bar and found out that it had been bent. At some point John tried to back up the towed car and must have put too much stress on one arm of the bar and it cracked. They fixed it but could not guarantee it so we decided it might be better if we just bought a new one. This has been an really expensive rally to attend!


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Once that was taken care of, we picked up our friend and went for a drive thru the San Jacinto Mountains along the Pines to Palms Highway up to Idyllwild and then back down on the Banning-Idyllwild Panoramic Highway. The mountains start out high desert with just scrub brush, low trees and sand but as we climb, the trees get taller and there seems to be less sand and more grass. When we reached Idyllwild, we were in the tall pines. I half expected to see a mountain lion or bear, but I guess there are too many people and homes in this area for that to happen. We had a nice lunch and then explored several shops in Idyllwild. Our favorite was the leather shop located at the back of a parking lot. It was interesting to visit with the shop's owner as he stripped leather ties from a soft piece of black hide.


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We had to go up higher before we came down the back side of the mountain range. Our highest point was about 8,000 feet. The view from up that high was pretty and would have been better if the clouds had moved out.

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