temecula

We followed the winding road through Mount Palomar to Temecula. Temecula sits about 60 miles southeast of Irvine. To me, Southern California seems like one giant city that runs along the coast between LA and San Diego, and in contrast to that, Temecula seemed like a small town. But it's definitely not, not with a population of over 100,000 people.

One of the first things we noticed about Temecula is that drivers actually abide by the speed limit. Sometimes they even drive 5 under it. And nobody seems to be particular bothered by this. There weren't those annoying drivers weaving through traffic. It was quite a contrast to what I'm used to in Orange County.

We first hit up Temecula's old town, which was bigger than Julian's, but less tourist-y and busy than San Diego's old town. These are good things. It also didn't hurt that old town had a lovely view of the mountains.

Old town had your usual assortment of shops, restaurants, and antique shops. Drew and I stopped off at the Root Beer Company...

...which was filled with quite a selection of root beer and other kinds of sodas.

It was warm outside, but we cooled off with some root beer.
We continued walking around, ducking in and out of shops.
And then we went to the Temecula Olive Oil Company, a locally owned business.

There is a tasting bar, and we enjoyed tasting the varieties of olive oils and vinegars. It was awesome, and we left with quite an assortment of oils and vinegars.

It was a great way to end our day.