Things To Do In Escondido

Situated along the meandering Moosa Creek, the fairways of Castle Creek Country Club sweep gracefully through the foothills of Temecula Wine Country and located near three major casinos. The 1948 Jack Daray blueprint escorts players through a 6,688-yard labyrinth, hemmed in by oak-forest barriers and mottled with bunkers of white sand. After completing a testy front nine that includes the 624-yard par 5 sixth hole, players embark on the most difficult stretch of the course in holes 10, 11, and 12. These holes—a 450-yard par 4 followed by back-to-back par 5s—demand that players demonstrate an ability to hit the ball far, leaving many contestants exhausted, bleary-eyed, and swinging at golf balls that don’t exist.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 72 course
• Total length of 6,638 yards from the back tees
• Course rating of 72 from the back tees
• Course slope of 134 from the back tees
• Five sets of tees per hole
• Scorecard

Ayurveda, a holistic health system native to India, considers that each individual is born with a unique psychosomatic constitution, known as a dosha. Each person has a combination of three doshas—Vata, Pitta, and Kapha—and, according to Ayurvedic tradition, the dominant dosha can determine and affect the individual's appetite, body type, digestion, memory, and confidence to cry in public. Ayurvedic therapies—including massage, herbal oil treatments, detox programs, and meditation—all aim to boost a sense of overall well-being.

Monica Bhatia, an Ayurvedic practitioner and consultant at Ayurveda Yoga LLC, has studied the Ayurveda heritage extensively in India as well as the United States and is a cofounder of the San Diego College of Ayurveda. She taps into this vast background as she helps clients through energy medicine, meditation, and other healing practices.

Artist Rae Holton sees energy. The owner of Fire & Mud Studios and lifelong arts and nature enthusiast harnesses her inimitable sight of what she calls "the vein-like serpentine flow of atoms" to create offbeat works of art in a variety of mediums. Raised among artists and craftspeople, Holton has dabbled in jewelry making, photography, cooking, and ceramics, and cultivated a love for teaching after stints as a children's ski instructor and after-school program educator. Helming her pottery-focused studio, Holton helps others unleash their inner artists through classes and workshops as students learn the history of ceramics or how to remove the head off a classical sculpture with a hedge trimmer.

Escondido Country Club's 6,140-yard championship golf course rests in the rolling landscape of the long coastal mountain valley. Players can warm up swinging arms with range balls before heading out to the first tee. Designed by Harry and David Rainville, the rolling course has challenged generations of golfers since opening in 1963. After butting heads with sand traps and zooming a cart around the path, divot-diggers garbed in appropriate attire can imbibe frothy sips of draft beer or fizzy soda in the clubhouse. Golfers can complete their recharge by knocking back Angus beef burgers and telling longwinded tales of the hole-in-one that got away.

The 18-hole Reidy Creek Golf Course covers 2,582 yards in the rugged hills of Escondido, supplying guests with a scenic backdrop for club-based revelry. The rolling terrain of the par 54 course—intertwined with manmade obstacles such as sculpted bunkers, sinuous lakes, and wind—challenges golfers as they attempt holes-in-one. The distinctive course, designed by the notable engineers at Cal Olson Golf Architecture not to contain any two identical holes, contains a golf shop, café, and golf clinics taught by PGA professionals.