A Scenic Dry Run to Julian

We have an upcoming 7 a.m. appointment in Julian (CA) and to insure our being on time, we took a dry run.

Our GPS system could not route us to our destination, and I did not want to try to locate the turns in the last few miles in the early morning light.

So, taking I-8 to Exit 40 brought us to CA 79. We headed north on the winding two-lane highway.

It was a beautiful sunny day with a number of turnouts that offered the opportunity to stop to take photos.

But the purpose of the day's trip was to determine how long it would take us to drive to our destination near Julian.

So, that meant no stopping for photos, and this "non-stop" travel was completed with no missed turns.

With the destination located and the drive time determined, we made the return trip with a higher scenery-sensitive attitude.

We passed Lake Cuyamaca and Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and a number of hills (or mountains?) along the approximately 20 miles back to I-8.

There were splashes of bright orange that stood out in a sea of muted golds, chocolates, tans, and browns.

Now we had seen a sign indicating that a controlled burn was taking place at one point along the route, but had not noticed signs of any burn on the trip north toward Julian.

On the return trip, however, we began noticing trails of smoke along the eastern edge of the highway.

The clouds of smoke provided an interesting background for the rust-colored tree leaves and the white, sunlit branches of trees in the grove shown here.

As we neared the point of the burn, we wondered just how large the area of the burn was.

We continue our travel on CA 79 tomorrow.