Mission La Purisima was established in this area in 1787. Guadalupe California was incorporated as a city in May 1946.
The tight cluster of buildings is surrounded by agricultural land. I love walking through downtown and seeing the historic buildings. The Dunes Center is my favorite museum in town and has an excellent exhibit on the dunes. El Padrecito’s Ice Cream Shop has refreshing treats.
They are making good progress on restoring the Royal movie theatre.
Should open later this year. Maggie loves eating at 2 Brother’s pizza.
The drive to Guadalupe City winds through various farms and there are roadside stands where you can buy produce. When I was a kid there were many of them in San Diego but now they are hard to find.
I noticed one stand was selling mango, watermelon, and cantaloupe.
I stopped and was given a sample of watermelon and cantaloupe.
Watermelon was sweet and juicy with a firm texture. It was bursting with sweet watermelon flavor and one of the best tasting watermelons I’ve ever had.
I bought one for $10 and it was huge and delicious just like the sample. Cantaloupe was firm, juicy, and full of delicious flavor.
I love buying from roadside stands as you typically get perfectly ripe produce. I’m not a fan of grocery stores as fruit is picked before it’s ripe and left to ripen at the store and it doesn’t taste that good.
In San Diego multi-level housing and office buildings are replacing the old neighborhoods. Visiting Guadalupe it’s refreshing viewing the original buildings. There is a sense of time standing still. I wish I could have seen this town when it was new. I wrote about Guadalupe in 2018.
“I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us. All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.”
Alan Moore – The Watchmen
Guadalupe, CA
Coordinates: 34°57′56″N 120°34′23″W
Great pictures of the town! I’m still wishing I had some of that cantelope!
Thanks! We will have to visit again and buy some cantelope.
Everyone always complains about the traffic in San Diego’s south bay but I’d say the even greater tragedy is the lack of proximity to good, fresh produce. As I’ve said in the past, even the farmer’s markets are more like prepared food events and very slim pickings when it comes to fruits and vegetables.
Doh! You would love Guadalupe. You can get produce that was just picked from the fields. Next time I’ll bring saran wrap so I can properly store the watermelon.
If you think San Diego traffic is bad you gotta see downtown San Francisco on a weekday. Took us an hour to get on the freeway after I visited the fortune cookie factory at 4:30pm.