Trip out West - Fallbrook, CA

Day 11; Monday, July 9th
First day in Fallbrook

Again we called to inform our next set of hosts we were ahead of schedule.  This group was Cathy Christopher and her husband Patrick – also friends of Rick’s family.  They work out of their home which cuts commuting costs, but it also means having company around can be tricky, so we agreed Rick and I would arrive a little later in the day.  This allowed us to take our time getting there. 

We stopped at a shopping mall looking for a movie theater.  It appears that folks in California don’t go to the movies frequently, no one knows where any theaters are and places that you’d think would have a theater don’t.  You couldn’t catch a flick at the first mall we stopped at even though there were movie posters all over.

We did, however, stop off at a fabulous stationary shop where I made my first splurge purchase of the trip on some wonderful stationary and note cards.

We still had a burning desire to catch a movie however so after some extensive asking around we were finally pointed in the right direction and off we went.  We ended up seeing the latest Fantastic Four movie.  It was good – not amazing, but watchable.

Finally we arrived at Cathy and Patrick’s home of at around 2:00 – a good time as they were just finishing up for the day.  Cathy showed us around the property (they grow a great deal of food on their land).  We enjoyed fresh tomatoes straight off the vine and ogled at trees dripping with avocados and peaches.

As we weren’t traveling until later in the day, we were able to sleep in until 9:30 – that was wonderful!  Rick and I spent the morning quietly reading and recouping from our break-neck schedule.

When Cathy and Pat were done working we sat down and discussed possible travel routes.  The two had been to Joshua Tree National Park recently and really thought we should head in that direction.  Though that had been on our itinerary originally, I wasn’t really feeling like we should go that way.  I wanted to head north – to Death Valley (in July, I know: what was I thinking?!).