LIVE THEATRE AND SIGHTSEEING TRIP TO TEMECULA

When you stay at a timeshare resort, you are always offered “free” gifts if you go to their ownership presentation.  We’ve been through these events before, some that were stressful and some that were easy.  We decided to try one here as the gifts were 2 tickets to the live performance of The King and I here at the resort plus a $20 gift certificate for purchases at the resort.  The presentation was on Wednesday morning and we were treated to coffee, hot chocolate and muffins to start with and then met with a nice young man who has been doing this job for only 6 months.  We spent about 2.5 hours in the whole process which included a golf cart tour of the property and a tour of their show suites which are much fancier than the one that we’re staying in.  At the end of it all, there was no high pressure to purchase as they could already determine that we weren’t going to be convinced.

We saw the play on Thursday afternoon and it was very well done with a cast of about 20 people.  The theatre had good sound and lighting and we thoroughly enjoyed the performance, even though it’s not something that we would normally choose to do.

Yesterday, we went on a sightseeing drive north and east of here circling around Palomar mountain that has an observatory at an elevation of 6000 feet.  We drove through miles and miles of citrus orchards and nurseries and greenhouses.  There were a couple of large casinos on the Indian reservations but we didn’t stop to see them, or give them our money.

The eastern road connected to a road heading north that went through more open range land where we saw herds of cattle, more scattered boulders and lots of tumbleweed. 

The road swung around to the west towards Temecula and along the way, we stopped to see a metal sculptor’s studio.  He had a huge display of many different types of animals from horses to dinosaurs to scorpions and even some aliens.  Inside the studio were coloured metal works like sun faces, geckos, fish, etc.  The prices for purchasing a sculpture ranged from $30 to $150 which seemed reasonable.

We saw some vineyard signs along the way but the plantations were well back from the road so you couldn’t see much.  The Temecula valley is known for its vineyards and wine tours are one of the attractions in the area.  We had lunch in Temecula and headed back to our resort along I 15.