La Cresta & De Luz

To the west of Murrieta & Temecula are two mountainous communities call La Cresta & De Luz.  La Cresta is home to the Santa Rosa Plateau that I talked about in some of my previous entries.  You have to drive through La Cresta to get to Tenaja Falls.  The homes that tower over the Bear Creek Community where we live are located in La Cresta.  You can see them very clearly on the hills above the community, but you have to go up and around through La Cresta to get to them (its about a 15 minute drive).

Today we went to two yards sales, one in La Crest and one in De Luz.  The La Cresta sale was in a 2 million dollar house with a fantastic mountain view.  Elly bought a table runner for the dining room table, but most of the good furniture was already sold.  It was apparent that the people that live in these houses up on the hill may have money, but in our opinion they have little in terms of decorating style or taste.  The decor in most of the houses that we have seen so far is right out of the Pottery Barn or Pier 1 catalogs.  Everything is stamped "Made in China" with no real antiques or furniture of any quality.  Its very disappointing!

 
Next we went to a yard sale in De Luz.  This is where most of the avocados are grown.  There are avocados trees and farms everywhere.  We like the ride to De Luz because the road literally "drops off" the face of the Santa Rosa Plateau and the view of the valley below is unbelievable.

Terrain View showing where the road drops off the plateau

We tried to make a video as we we traveling down this road, but it really doesn't do it justice.

 

 Google maps got the address wrong, but that was OK Where we ended up was a road that had a great vantage point of the valley so I too a panoramic photo.  Click on the photo below to see it in full size. 

Panoramic of De Luz (Click photo to enlarge)

 The yard sale was at a house that was on top of this hill. Their driveway was real steep.  You could never have a driveway like that in New England due to the snow.  These people has a 360 degree view from their house. They were real nice and we spent about 45 minutes just chatting with them. They were from Missouri and moved there about 19 years ago.  They are looking to downsize and move into a smaller house because the upkeep on their land is too much for them now.  We bought a few items, some pink grapefruits that grow on their land and a few large cactus for our patio.

After our yard sale adventures we went swimming in the condo pool.  Oh, it was over 95 degrees here during the day, but as usual it cooled off with the usual breeze in the evening just in time for sleeping.