Blog Parties

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Great American Town Tour

Melissa over at Huckleberry Prairie is hosting a Great American Town Tour Party. We are suppose to take you on a tour of the town that we live in.

I'm also going to link up this post for my 2nd entry today for Outdoor Wednesday hosted by A Southern Daydreamer. If you want to see my first post about a street painting festival in Old Town Temecula, click here.

In true procrastinator fashion, I decided to join in at the last minute. Well, the last daylight minute that is. At 6pm tonight my son Brandon & I decided to drive around our city & take some photos to share with you all.

I call this, the tale of 3 cities. Let me do some explaining. I live in southern California in the City of Menifee. When we first moved here 4 years ago & bought our house, the tax records show that we live in Romoland, CA. But our mailing address was Sun City, CA (and still is). But now this area officially became a city called Menifee on 10/01/08. So technically I can say that I live in 3 cities.

Now for some boring information on where I live:

The City of Menifee is located in southwestern Riverside County approximately 30 miles southeast of the City of Riverside. We are about 90 miles north of San Diego & about 90 miles east of Los Angeles. The city encompasses approximately 50 square miles with an overall population of approximately 60,000.

The City of Menifee includes the communities of Menifee, Sun City, Quail Valley and portions of Romoland. The city is generally bordered on the north, west, and south by the Cities of Perris, Canyon Lake, Lake Elsinore and Murrieta and on the southwest by the City of Wildomar. To the east and northeast, the city borders unincorporated county territory.

The area was originally inhabited by the Luiseno and Pechanga Indian Tribes, and in the 1700s, the area fell under the Spanish empire. The area was eventually annexed into the United States from Mexico in 1850 under California's statehood.

Farming activity beginning in the mid-1800s was concentrated in the Menifee area, and mining activity began in the early 1880s with the discovery of a significant quartz lode by miner Luther Menifee Wilson. Menifee derived its name from that mining operation.

Early development of the City of Menifee began with Sun City in the early 1960's as the concept of an active retirement community was envisioned by Del Webb, a major building contractor from Phoenix, Arizona. Sun City is centrally located within the City of Menifee with a mix of residential and commercial activity.

The Menifee area began to grow further in 1989 with the master-planned community of Menifee Lakes and continues to be one of the fastest growing communities in California. Quail Valley is a semi-rural residential community in the northwestern section of the city, and Romoland is a residential and commercial community located in the northeastern section of the city.

Elementary and middle school education in the City of Menifee is provided by the Menifee Union School District. High school education is provided by the Perris Union High School District. The City of Menifee is also home to Mount San Jacinto Community College, Menifee Campus which serves the Temecula, Murrieta and Menifee area.

On June 3, 2008, the residents of the communities encompassing the City of Menifee voted to incorporate into Riverside County's 26th city. The new City of Menifee was officially established on October 1, 2008.

If you haven't fallen asleep already, it's time for the photo part of our tour. First we have a photo of one of the churches in our city. Along with a huge American flag that flies over the local KFC/Taco Bell. And a C-17 airplane. March Air Reserve Base is located about 15 miles north of us. So we get these airplanes flying over our city every day.

You can click on any photo to enlarge


Next I will take you to what used to be down town Sun City. Now to live down town you have to be 55 or older. Those of us under the age of 55 have to live on the outskirts of town.

Here is the price of gas 6/30 at the local Chevron station, $2.99 a gallon. And here is the local thrift store that I love to shop at. My grocery store-Stater Brothers and finally the shopping area down town. Up until last November this was the only place we could shop locally. If we wanted to go to Walmart or a Home Depot, we had to drive about 15 minutes in any direction to find one.



More photos of down town Sun City. Seniors at the local country club playing either shuffleboard or lawn bowling. Next we have a funny swan shaped boat sitting in someones driveway. Since this is a senior community, there must be some golf courses. I wish I could have gotten a photo of one of the many golf carts that drive around town.

If we move south & east of down town Sun City we are in the area that was originally Menifee. The high school is called Paloma Valley High School. This is where my son just graduated. We also have a Junior College in town. The original Mt San Jacinto College campus is in San Jacinto, CA near Hemet. But the 2nd campus is located here in Menifee. It is small, but cute. The 2 buildings shown are at the Jr College.
Do you like to shop? Well I do. And we finally have a local shopping center. It's called Countryside Marketplace. Opened up last November. And it's only 2 miles from my house!!! I don't have to drive to another city to shop. I love this shopping center & will love it more when the TJ Maxx & Michael's opens up. At least it has a Super Target, Kohl's & Lowe's. Now if only we could get a Walmart closer than 20 minutes away, I would be in heaven.

And we finally have some good places to eat. And what is the number one place you want to eat if you come to California? Why In-N-Out of course. They have the best hamburgers. If you ever come to California, you must eat there. Another good place to eat is the new Red Robin restaurant. I love their fries!!! I haven't tried the new Chipotle or the Panda Express. Subway is always good too, but we already had a Subway in down town Sun City. A new restaurant called the Breakfast Club of Menifee is suppose to open up in the next month or so.
We can't forget our local heroes, the hunky firemen and police. We got our own police once we officially became a city. And we do have a local hospital. But there are rumors that you don't want to go there in an emergency. You might end up sicker or worse yet, dead. How about seeing some of the houses in our area. We have different types here depending on the area of town you live in & how old the house is. Here we have a new house in my area, a farm house & a typical California Ranch house in the countryside complete with horses (not pictured) and the typical 60's style house in down town Sun City. Did you notice no grass in the last house? Seniors don't like having to mow a lawn, so most of them have rocks instead of lawn. Which I guess is great now since we have a water shortage.

We do have a couple of apartment complexes in town & they are building a few more. I hope they don't build too many. The town I grew up in San Diego county was great until they built it up with apartments in the 70's & then everything went downhill. I don't want that to happen here. Next we have a typical California Mediterranean home, some manufactured homes and homes on the golf course. So you can see we have quite the variety of different style homes in our city.



And you can't visit southern California without seeing some palm trees.

Some more landscape photos. There are some man made lakes here in the city of Menifee. And there used to be orange groves everywhere. Now there is only a small area near the hospital. Lots of hills around us but not much grows there. So if we were to have a wild fire I'm not too worried as there isn't much to burn. And we do have some wild life. Saw this bunny tonight just up the street. And once we had a snake in our yard. We had a lovely sunset tonight.




And finally I will leave you with photos of my house. I have to warn you that our front yard needs lots of work. We have this huge willow tree that takes up most of our yard & hides the house. It grows so fast. Plus my son needs to mow the grass. We live in a Mediterranean style house. I wouldn't call it my dream home. I'd much rather live in a farm house or Victorian house. But not many of those here in southern California. So this one will do for now.

My back yard is much better. We spend all of our time back here. You can't live here without a pool as it gets hot, hot, hot in the summer. It's been in the triple digits for the past week. At least we don't get much humidity.

Well I hope that you enjoyed the tour of my current home town. If you ever get over this way, stop by & say "Hi". I'll even let you take a dip in my pool. Just bring your own towel.

12 comments:

  1. I love your town!! I have only been to California once - to Monterey and San Fran, and I was very impressed!! Your town...not sure which name to go by...hehehe...is so beautiful!
    ~angela @ peonypatch

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  2. Wow, you did a great job for doing it at the last minute. It sounds like a nice place to live, especially now that you have some place for retail therapy! Your back yard is amazing. We just put in a pool last summer but have NO landscaping around it yet!
    Dawn

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  3. I am still laughing at the Duck boat:)
    Joyce

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  5. Nice article, however the part about the schools was incorrect. I am a member of the Romoland School District Board of Education. The Romoland School District serves students K-8 in the northeastern section of the city. For more information about the Romoland School District visit http://www.romoland.k12.ca.us, or my pages at http://www.williamjamesgould.com - http://www.votebillgould.com. For local news and entertainment check out http://www.fullvaluereview.com.

    Have a good day!

    Bill Gould

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  6. My brother has lived in Lake Elsinore for at least thirty years and in my younger days I used to go skydiving in Perris, so I'm familiar with your area.

    You did an amazing job in such a short time, I am impressed. I have one question though, where can I get one of those Swan Boats?!

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  7. Beautiful...the tour was wonderful...my husband grew in So. Cal. and I've been there a couple of times...lllloooovvvveee the weather...so different from TN.

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  8. Wow, that was an amazing tour! Very complete, very interesting. thanks!

    I don't think I know all that much about our town -- I guess I should learn!
    Cass

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  9. so great to have a felllow menifee resident post..haha! what a small world. great post..so informative. i didn't even know half of that information! yes, in-n-out is an absolute must! ;) and when you get a chance, take a drive through wine country. you don't even have to stop..just the drive alone is a treat! and the plateau is definitely a must too! :)

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  10. Great tour! I love all the mosaics. The pictures of the palm trees are wonderful, they just scream California don't they. And your back yard looks like a wonderful retreat. The pool is beautiful and I love that clock. Thanks for sharing. Kathy

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  11. This is so fun getting to visit everyone's home town and we are seeing things we would not necessarily see if we were there.
    Cheri

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  12. Hello - thank you for sharing these great photos of your town! My family started out in Canyon Lake (Lake Elsinore) then moved to Menifee - off of Newport. Small world!

    Blessings,
    Marie
    http://emmacallsmemama.com

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