Its gates are forever locked. The koi have died. A lonesome breeze blows through faded gardens overgrown with weeds. The waterfalls have ceased falling and even the roses have faded into wilted dreams. Welcome to Pikake Botanical Gardens at 15515 Villa Sierra Road, once one of the wonders of the horticultural world, now reduced to ashes and memories. A private botanical garden on nine acres,…
“A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or a privacy hood, with pre-payment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debit card, or a telephone card. Around the Big Apple, Google Sidewalk Labs is replacing them with free city-wide Wi-Fi. In Ireland, units now are used less than once every…
Pastor Wes Mauch took a road less traveled through Valley Center, carrying a 38-pound wooden cross, a well-worn Bible and message all the way to Rancho Santa Fe. Mauch, 66, walked along the side of Cole Grade Road, wooden cross on his shoulder and all, “doing what Jesus asked me to do,” he said while vehicular traffic whizzed by as if he were invisible. When…
An appreciation from Ramin Zahed, Editor-in-Chief, Animation Magazine We’re saddened by the recent death of long-time Pixar and Disney director and storyboard artist Rob Gibbs at age 55. Details of his death are unknown at the moment, but the news began circulating on Facebook and twitter earlier on Friday (April 24) . A 22-year veteran of the animation industry, Gibbs was working on Monsters at Work for…
(Editor’s Note: Even as Broward County and Palm Beach County election officials grapple with a razor thin-tight election recount, shades of 2000 reflect on the registrar of voters walls. The road to Florida election recount chaos runs straight through Valley Center where the originally defective voting machines traced to the well-turned home of Dick and Loralee Stephens at 29751 Valley Center Rd. The Stephens were…
Between the Valley Center Museum and Dos Valles Garden club, lots to do, lots to see in the unincorporated 10,000-resident community spanning the globe from the Hidden Valley to Palomar Mountain. New thoroughbred exhibit An exhibition of famous thoroughbreds with a local connection has been mounted at the Valley Center History Museum in a new expanded display. The show, first presented in 2010, is one of…
The dying officer treated for cancer with baking soda The father of the alkaline diet, Robert O Young, is hailed as an inspiration by one of the UK’s most popular food writers, Natasha Corrett, but he faces a jail sentence for practising medicine without a licence. One patient who believed he could cure her cancer, British Army officer Naima Houder-Mohammed, paid thousands of dollars for…
(Editor’s Note: Michael O’Connor is a retired 32-year Escondido firefighter who is a Valley Center Community Planning Group member. The dispute concerns reporting about the defeated Measure B in the November 2016 election that would have allowed the Lilac Hills Ranch housing project to be built in rural Bonsall and Valley Center. ) I responded to a story written by editor David Ross of the Valley Center Roadrunner. Seems…
“Bermuda Triangle of Price Overcharging?” That’s how one store manager characterized navigating through a well-traveled, but consumer challenged, section of Westfield North County regional mall. Three of what inspectors called the top 10 overcharging outlets in San Diego County reside within plain sight of each other in a 50-yard stretch at the Escondido mall. A fourth store whose Oceanside branch is number one in the…
San Diego Superior Court Judge Eddie C. Sturgeon Wednesday told Lilac Hills Ranch supporters to forget about changing opposition ballot statements. Sturgeon denied the request of Lilac Hills Ranch advocates that opponents alter language in their ballot statement, in effect legitimizing the right of opponents to frame their arguments as they chose fit. “The court supported our concerns about Measure B,” James Gordon of the No on B…