When I drove out of the Sands RV Resort at 9:30am yesterday, with co-pilots Molly and Rylie, it was already 70F and forecast to get a lot warmer as the day wore on. I was dressed for it though with my usual t-shirt, shorts and sandals. It never occurred to me for a second that Julian, where I was headed, would be quite a bit cooler given it’s 4,000 ft. above sea level.
From the desert floor all the way up to 4,000 ft just for this!
My mission for yesterday was to do what everyone does when visiting Julian, the ‘Pie Capital of California’, and that was to pick up a few of their absolutely delicious Apple Pies – probably the best Paulette and I have ever tasted. As for Paulette, she was also on a mission of a different kind as she - a Shop Hop with about a dozen of her quilting friends qto eight Quilt stores from Palm Springs all the way to Corona. They left the park at 8am!
No sense driving all that way just for one Apple Pie
To get to Julian, I drove east on I-10 out past Indio to Coachella where I turned south on the 86 Expressway all the way down to Hwy. 78. There, I turned west on the road that would take me all the way to Julian. It’s a 2 hour drive and quite a change in scenery along the way as I started out mostly in desert with lots of Palm Trees but as I drove higher into the mountains the Palms turned to Pines.
Another thing I noticed as I approached the 3,000 ft. marker on the highway was that the temperature was dropping very quickly. In fact, by the time I pulled into Julian’s Main St. (all of 3 blocks or so) it was a cool, crisp 56F and I didn’t see a soul on the streets wearing a t-shirt, shorts and sandals. Oh well, I wasn’t planning on staying long, and besides, the sun was shining brightly so I was o.k.
As for Julian, it’s pretty much a tourist town now with the pie shops and some specialty stores being the main attraction. The main industry used to be the Gold Mines up in the hills but today it’s tourism. Julian is located approximately an hour east of San Diego and is now the premier mountain retreat in the county and is unique in that it has four seasons – I can vouch for one of them (cold!).
There are many different pie shops to choose from but our favourite is Mom’s. It was exactly as I remembered it from our last visit with all the various types of pies piled up in boxes on the shelves in front of the ovens – they just keep making them! While there are some berry pies, the most common type of pie is Apple for which the town of Julian is famous for.
I got out of town before they nabbed me!
Since I’d driven 2 hours to get to Julian, I sure didn’t want to go home empty-handed nor did I want to go home and find myself wishing later that I should have bought more than just 1 pie. So, I bought 4 at $15.95 each – that’s over $60 worth of pies. Heck, I figured that was nothing compared to what Paulette was racking up in those 3 quilt stores.
After leaving Mom’s with my valuable packages, I locked them in the truck and I went for a stroll along Main St. to give Molly and Rylie a stretch and to keep myself moving so I didn’t freeze. There were still piles of snow stacked up on the corners of the street – that didn’t help me feel any warmer at all.
After a quick walk up and down both sides of Main St., I hustled Molly and Rylie back into the truck for our trip down the mountain where I took a bit of a different route that would take me through another little town in the desert – Borrego Springs. I’ll talk about that in another blog – maybe tomorrow!
It was 3pm by the time I pulled into the Sands RV Resort and back at our rig there was no sign of Paulette or the other quilters. It was a balmy 80F! They finally rolled in at 5:30pm with Paulette carrying two huge bags of material and who knows what else. All I know is that it was a heck of a lot more than the cost of 4 of Mom’s Apple Pies!!
Have a great Friday, and thanks again for visiting!
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