Escondido

I've been doing a little digging around to find out more about Escondido, the city we now live in. We've had a few days/evenings of exploration around town, but mostly just driving to a particular store or restaurant we've located, and quickly reading as many signs as we could along the way to see what's between there and our house. :)

It may sound funny that we moved up here and don't know much about the place, but it's true. We knew it was not terribly far from work, and that housing prices were much more affordable than inside San Diego limits. We knew it was a decent area, with some pockets of not-as-nice neighborhoods right up alongside multi-million dollar neighborhoods, and everything in-between...somewhat like the Midtown/Downtown area of Memphis, but without the big downtown. So when met with a Realtor and found houses that we liked, we just set our minds on finding a place there.

We really like the house we bought and now that we're getting more settled, it's time to learn about the area. What I do know is the population of the city is about 140,000. We're about 20 miles north of the Mira Mesa area of San Diego where our work is, which makes us about 40 minutes to downtown and the airport. There's a light rail system that goes from Escondido to the coast (about 20 minutes west). We're just over an hour and a half drive to Disneyland, and add another 30 minutes or so to get to LA and Hollywood. To the northeast we've got the Palomar mountains, a few casinos and some nice open-land areas with plenty of orchards and wineries.

Escondido also has a nice "downtown" area, a fairly new entertainment complex, and lots of historical and cultural things to see and do. The Wild Animal Park is just a few minutes from our house, too.

I just found this great site: http://www.escondidoexperience.com/. As the weather gets nicer and we get the house all settled, hopefully we'll get out more and see the area and try to catch some of the events planned.

Also, there's the city website (http://www.ci.escondido.ca.us/), a Wiki entry, and the Chamber of Commerce.