Apple Rush

I went looking for fruit last weekend and got annoyed by the prices at the local grocery store. They sold only one variety of apple that cost less than one dollar per pound, and they were completely out of it. We hopped in the car and drove to the historic gold-mining town of Julian, CA and discovered their annual Apple Festival.

The town was transformed into one giant parking lot. Tourists lined the sidewalks, waiting to buy apple pie. We could have driven all the way home and baked a pie in the time it would have taken to get served a slice. We opted to duck into an out-of-the-way bakery and buy white chocolate cranberry cookies instead. They were the size of our heads and loaded with brown sugar and butter.

Since it's so near to Halloween, we felt compelled to climb to the top of the Pioneer Cemetery.



It was created during the turbulent Gold Rush, due to an urgent need for an impromptu cemetery. Here’s a view of the little mining town from the top of the hill:



We also stopped by this little soda shop and drug store. The basement of the store consists of a “candy cave”, where you can find unusual treats like violet flavored pastilles and crunchy barbeque flavored caterpillars:



If you’ve ever passed someone spritzing perfume while your mouth was open, you know the taste of violet candy. I declined to try the caterpillars because crunchy caterpillar legs look scary.

On the way home we stopped at an apple orchard and filled a big bag with pesticide-free apples for five bucks. They were so good I didn’t even bother to weigh them to see what kind of deal we got.