Palomar Mountain News

Tuesday morning I went down to the South Grade Road improvement job site. Took a few pix for you. I’d been concerned about the signage that didn’t seem to make sense.  It was perfect timing. I was introduced to a sharp guy, Aaron Aguinaldo who is the Resident Engineer.  He wanted to make it right and went with me to see the signs.  He had a thick stack of paper on his lap. We got to the top of the mountain and I suggested drawing the correct road names on a piece of paper. He opened his stack of paper and – ta da! It was a huge collection of county maps that they used for the signage placement. One glance at the map and we figured out what caused the confusion pretty quick.   

When the South Grade was built to bring the mirror up in the 1930’s, it was originally named ‘South Grade Road’ all the way to the Observatory.  Decades ago, the part of the Grade from the Summit to the Observatory was changed to ‘Canfield Road’.  Aaron rode with me as we drove around to the construction company’s signs posted in some puzzling and pretty creative places. We were smiling and shaking our heads seeing those old maps and the current street signs. Aaron made the corrections on his historic map printed with road names from nearly 100 years ago.

He notified CalTrans and they got the Message Board moved to the top of the South Grade, facing down hill.  Some signs might still covered as they are not needed. Aaron also mentioned that they are planning for a wait time of no more than about 10 minutes, Monday through Friday and only during the day.

When I was at the job site, I gave a big ‘thumbs up’ to the workers arriving for the day. One man posed for us, Alfred Ortiz. He is one of the brave crew that suit up with all their gear for their day way up in their ‘cubicle’. They scale the huge cut above the road, securing themselves to climb high on that steep bank to dislodge dangerous boulders. The huge pile of rocks and boulders are then trucked away with all the heavy equipment. Thanks to Sandrine Miller-Montgomery for the photo with two of the workers circled in red. Wow!!! They have been doing an amazing job in this 90+ degree heat to help create a safer Highway to the Stars!

Thanks to ALL, from the people of Palomar!

Bonnie Phelps

760-533-1742