These pictures were taken from the driveway of our home in
Rancho Calif., or also called Temecula, in the Starlight Ridge
Development. One of the first large housing tracts to be built
here. This is one of three homes that we owned (we & the bank)
when I lived in California. The homes here were built on some of
the rolling hills familiar to the area. It was actually in "Wine
Country" where there were large ranches and vineyards. You could
drive through the vineyards and sample free wine, and there was
a lake close by. This was probably the nicest area we lived in
and located close to San Diego.
It was an area where lots of "Hot Air
Balloonists" would come to fly their hot air balloons almost
every weekend, weather providing. Every year they held a "Hot
Air Balloon Festival" and lots of balloonists would come from
all over to participate. It was quite a site. Very peaceful and
serene. Our home was located about 1/2 way up the hill you see
in the picture. From our upstairs bedroom windows you could see
across the valley and all these hot air balloons and also
"Skydivers" would be visible. This particular day I believe was
during the Festival and as you can see they would fly right over
the tops of the houses. Some would be so low that you could
actually stand there and talk to the people as they flew over. I
remember they also had "Tractor Races" as part of the festival.
They had different classes of tractors that would race around an
oval track, and Tractor pulls too.
This area has since been heavily developed
with housing tracts and communities. I don't believe it's still
the same as it was then. I believe this was around the late
1980s.
Below is our more recent
home.
