"Relaxing" in Hemet, California

Mark was a little suspicious of Denisa's plan to relax for several days while we parked at Golden Village Palms Resort in Hemet, California. She never has been good at sitting and relaxing while in a new place that surely has places to explore. On our first day here, we stopped at the farmer's market and bought a bag of local oranges. The streets of downtown Hemet are lined with trees, filled with bright orange fruit. But we were told they are still on the tree because no one likes those bitter oranges. We were promised that the oranges we just purchased were sweet and juicy and just picked that morning. We found their promise to be true.

We also visited the little town museum. The docent there told us great historical stories, and gave us a recommendation for an interesting drive to Hemet Lake. The road took us straight up into the mountains that we had been admiring. We are just a little over an hour away from the ocean, and now we can see the snow-covered mountains. California does have some great landscape to visit, or as we like to say--some great wonders to wander.

We made the drive all the way to Lake Hemet, and it was interesting to see that the palm trees had been replaced by pine trees at this higher elevation. But we were underwhelmed by the lake itself, and weren't interested in paying for the parking fee to stay.

At the museum, we learned that this lake was made to become a reservoir to water the agriculture in the valley. There is a pipe that carries lake water over twenty miles down hill to Hemet Valley and the orchards near town. We stopped in at a local fruit stand, because we enjoy these opportunities to talk to the people that grow the produce we love. This farm has a citrus season that allows them to harvest for six months each year. We could look over the orchard, with trees in rows in the valley, and on the sides of the mountains all around us.

We couldn't decide which type of oranges to buy, so the grower made us a special sampler bag that included a couple of each type. We took a picture of them when we got home. The top oranges on the left are navels. The red oranges are called blood oranges, and we cut one in half to show that it was truly deep red inside. We also had cara cara oranges to the left of the avocados, and tangelos to the right of the avocados. The oranges across the bottom of the picture are the sweet juicers from the farmer's market in town. The avocados were different than any we have ever bought. Unlike the Haas avocados that we normally see in the grocery store, these are named "sir-prize" avocados. They need to be darker when picked, and they are generally larger. When we used them, we found that their seeds are soft and their skin is very soft. And it's no sir-prize that the taste was really good.

The little mini-oranges on the far right of the picture above are actually kumquats. They grow on smallish trees, and we took a picture before we left. We had to get lessons on how to eat a kumquat. We were told to put the entire piece into our mouth, and to crunch down. That technique gives the combination sweet and tart citrus taste all at once. Even though their skin has a texture like an orange, it is not peeled, but instead eaten whole. Mark isn't a big fan, but Denisa likes them a lot.

When we first got to Hemet, we noticed that the mountains near our resort had an interesting orange color. We thought at first it was coloring caused by different minerals in the rocks. But then we realized it was the spring wild flowers bursting open that we were witnessing.

We pulled to the side of the road to get a better view, hoping to find a trail that would take us up the side of that mountain to get a closer look. Instead, we found a locked fence. That's when Mark noticed that there was something soaring in the air in front of that mountain.

It was a paraglider, catching the thermals around the mountain. Then we realized there was another--and another--and another . . . We could spot eleven different parachutes in the air. In the picture below, we caught three in the same frame.

Some of the paragliders were just tiny specks in the sky high above us. But others were putting on quite a show for us. They came close, then pulled up to the top of the mountain again. Through the metal gate, we watched as several of the flyers made graceful landings in the field on the other side of the fence.

One of those flyers hopped on a four-wheeler and rode toward us. It was the owner of the property, asking if we were interested in learning how to hang glide. We are pretty adventurous, but this looked a little extreme even to us. He invited us into his property so we could see better and get our car away from the busy road. Now we had a better view of the flyers and their parachutes.

Again, we have somehow managed to leave home without the good camera. But the cell phone camera did a pretty good job of picking up the gliders against the sky.

It was especially fun watching them glide up and down as they came closer in for a landing right in front of us.

Immediately after stepping foot on the ground, they bring their parachute down and wad it up into a bundle to carry off the landing strip.

It seems that wherever we go, we manage to find fun and interesting things to do. Even in the small town of Hemet, we find that it is hard to relax and just do nothing.