La Marisoul is the front lady of Los Angeles’ La Santa Cecilia. Los Cenzontles are doing the important work of preserving and promoting Mexican roots music from their base, which includes an academy, in San Pablo, CA. Los Lobos need no introduction, of course.
(2 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
Loading... Let’s depart from the coast and head inland to Fallbrook, where we’ll start to wind north-northeast through the avocado & citrus groves and vineyards of De Luz Canyon, curving up into the Santa Ana Mountains on a private road along Sandia Creek. When we reach Temecula we join CA-79 to head out to the desert via Winchester and Hemet, and finally get onto I-10 at Beaumont. We head east into San Gorgonio Pass, the valley between the southern edge of the San Bernardino Mountains and Mt. San Jacinto, both of which climb from the pass floor to 9,000-foot peaks.
Here we find the climate transitions from one supporting Mediterranean-style agricultural crops into the Mojave desert. It gets hotter with each passing mile, but keep your window down and the A/C on your feet to help acclimatize. We’ll pull off at Cabazon to see the dinosaurs, of course. There’s plenty of wind — and due to that, the San Gogonio Pass wind farm sprawls across the open land on both sides of the freeway, the rows of wind turbines spilling out nearly to the horizon like enormous, rotating mecha-sunflowers.
What better than a tune with some big, gusty brass to push us from the pounding surf through the pass and into the beautiful, treacherous wastes? We get three trumpets, a trombone, and a flugelhorn-wielding accordionist on a ripping hot track. Pair it with some nopales, grilled onion, & charred corn tacos slathered with an extra picante chile guisado & lime crema. Just be careful despising that cactus…
(Oh, right; Sergio Mendoza’s other band is Calexico.)
(2 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)Loading... And that’s the way we start CH Week. My theme this week is music that formed my soundtrack to my recent trip to a conference in San Diego, which I followed with five days out in the Mojave & Sonoran deserts.
Let’s start with a sonic tribute to the drive I took up the coast from UCSD in La Jolla to Colima’s Mexican Food Oceanside. Surf rock is just what we need — we’ll pass three locations mentioned in “Surfin’ U.S.A.” — but let’s make it Latin-inflected in honor of the destination. The route runs straight along the coast, formerly the southernmost portion of Old US-101, now variously called County Route S21, N Torrey Pines Road, Camino del Mar, Highway 101, and North Coast Highway. It’s a beautiful drive — easily worth the extra 15 minutes it’ll take compared to a run up the Five.
Colima’s was the first place I think I can say I had “real” Mexican food, unless we count items made for family meals by dishwashers and prep cooks in various kitchens across the Cities. The Chicano guys in my unit preferred Colima’s to all other local options, and revisiting the hefty Baja and carnitas tacos confirmed they are every bit as delicious as they were sixteen years ago. ¡Gracias por la comida, amigos!
(2 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)Loading...