Last weekend we had a great family weekend for the first time in forever. I just delivered my second thesis film, and while it has not yet been approved, it is a huge step and only a few small details remain. By the end of next week, I should officially have all my work completed and be eagerly awaiting receipt of my diploma some time in December. So, for the first time almost ever, the Sheehan family had some quiet time to do whatever they wanted, together!
So last weekend we drove up into the moutains of Riverside County for some apple picking. Genevieve had actually never been apple picking. For the Sheehan family, it was an annual event for the whole family. Albany, my home town, is nestled 'midst the Helderberg mountains which are liberally festooned with apple orchards. Autumn always brought with it the lovely feeling of being outside amidst trees on a chilly but sunny day, loading apples into baskets secure in the knowledge that about 30% of the approximately 20 gross of apples you were bringing home would actually be eaten, whilst the rest would slowly grow kind of soft and brown and gushy on the porch or in the laundry room, filling the house with the sweet, autumnal and not unpleasant smell of uneaten, rotting and elderly fruit.
Anyway the apples were plentiful, as were the cider donuts, chubby little confections made with cider and dusted with cinammon and sugar -- a lovely little handful of crispy, doughy delight. I am not often in the Northeast at apple time so I am always sure to secure a supply when I happen to be in that neck of the woods. My Mom oh so sweetly sent me a care package of them this year and they were devoured more or less instantly.
So it was with memories of autumn leaves crunching underfoot, a bucolic kind of peacefulness amidst the trees, a handful of hot doughnut, and an abundance of crisp red apples of all kinds that we set off for the mountains northwest of us. We had researched the apple scene thoroughly on the internet and found a stretch of orchards in Oak Glen, including a couple of large "U-Pick 'Em" concerns which had web pages promising all manner of fruity fall delights.
We arrived at one such location, following the signs for "U-Pick 'Em" and "BBQ." We had come for apples, but our long drive had us all famished, so the idea of some delicious BBQ made us ravenous, even Jack. We noticed that approximately half the population of the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area had joined us today, and the air was filled with the chatter of many people as well as a thick cloud of brown dust from the dirt of the parking lot. A man drove up in a tractor, bearing a trailer full of hay upon which were perched a number of supremely disinterested teenagers and their camera-snapping parents.
The smells of chicken and brisket reached us, so salivating enthusiastically we hotfooted it to the BBQ. A young man dressed as some kind of Twainian midwestern hick apologized -- the BBQ closed at 3:00, he said. I pointed out that it was 2:50 but he wasn't having any, but said we might be able to get something at the bakery down in the "Revolutionary War village" elsewhere on the property. We decided to go there, but first, having come for the apples, we wanted to find out where we would go to pick 'em.
We consulted a large bulletin board which listed the varieties of apples on the premises, and which ones were available for pickin'. Fujis, Winesaps, the list went on and on. And next to each and every variety was a little sticker that said "Next year!" This meant the apple trees in question had been picked clean. In short there wasn't an apple hanging off a branch anywhere on the property.
We decided to have a look in the gift shop to see if there was anything edible within. We found only peanut brittle, jam that looked homemade but seemed to have been canned in Virginia and the usual selection of odd and utterly un-fun-to-play-with Ye Olde Funne Folke Toyes.
A woman was complaining to Ye Olde Fatte Wenche Behinde Ye Countere about one of these items -- which appeared to be a series of flat pieces of wood connected with leather into a long strip. The Funne, apparently, was to be derived by holding up one end of the strip and watching the pieces flip over once. The woman was complaining that the flipping process was stopping 3/5ths of the way down.
A zesty discussion and troubleshooting session ensued while I marvelled at how starved for amusement the children of yore must have been, that a bit of wood flapping back and forth would hold them spellbound. A red wagon or rubber ball would have made their little heads explode, I should think.
Having had no luck finding lunch at the Shoppe, we wandered down to the "Revolutionary War Village" which actually turned out to be one colonial-style farmhouse, a brace of sheds, and a rather sad-looking middle-aged geek in an ill-fitting powdered wig explaining the highlights of greater Oak Glen to a girl scout troop leader. However, there was a small take-out window in the house that held the promise of lunch. There was also said to be a bakery in the vicinity, where we hoped to find some cider donuts.
The sign at the takeout window promised only lame sandwiches. Their main product, as it turned out, seemed to be a vast number of enormous wasps which flew about the place, rendering any approach to the window a deadly proposition.
I asked Ye Olde Revolutionary Putze where the bakery was.
"Right over there," he said, gesturing toward the window we'd just come from. You could dimly make out its outline through the cloud of wasps. "But at this hour the pickin's will be a little slim."
I was going to feebly protest that there weren't any baked goods on the menu, just ham and cheese sandwiches, when I realized how fruitless that would be. (The Monty Python fans among you are already thinking, "Not much of a cheese shop, is it?") And besides, why should I expect a place which must do this every year to be prepared to feed customers who have the temerity to come to the premises to pick non-existent fruit in mid-afternoon?
I mean, here we were at an apple orchard that didn't have any apples, where there was a BBQ restaurant without any BBQ and a bakery that didn't sell baked goods. I was curious as to what other conundrums this place might offer but reflected that at least I hadn't asked where the rest room was; I wasn't certain what it would provide but I was pretty sure it would not offer rest.
All of this had fatigued us so we finally drove up the road to a place that had a sign indicating you could buy food, where you could actually buy food. We ate an OK lunch and chose to actually buy some bagged apples as the price for the "u-pick 'em" that we finally located was something like an absurd $20 a pound. We bought a giant sack of pre-graded, pre-picked fresh and delicious apples for $11, a fresh-baked apple pie and took a walk through the paths, snapping the pictures below. Sadly, the only cider donuts to be found anywhere in the state appear to be mini-donuts about the size of a nickel, made by two sullen teens at the apple place we visited, using a tiny little miniature deep-fat fryer. Not the same thing at all.
But for all my kvetching, Jack had a GREAT time, and so did Mommy and Daddy actually. We were laughing pretty hard at each peculiar twist of our day. Jack ran around a lot and so many people took pictures of him. He is such a little ham that a lot of total strangers have pictures of him on their cameras. He is always playing it cute and lots of people we'll never know snap photos of him all the time.
We ended our night by finding a really great BBQ joint in Riverside, which turned out to be a nice little community, if remote. We had a delicious meal which satisfied the craving the BBQ signs at the orchard had stirred, and we had a nice walk afterwards, an altogether great day. Sunday was the first day in recent memory when we had a good old fashioned lazy day, complete with family nap in the afternoon. Marvelous, simple, wonderful pleasures.
Responses to "where's that funny face?"
The haze in the distance is the result of deadly wildfires off in the mountains south of Riverside.
One of Jack's big expressions now is
"Wher'd GO!?" "All GO?!?" when something he has been playing with or looking at goes somewhere else. It is accompanied by this dramatic hand gesture.
Just a quick post of Jack's big day. I'll have lots and lots of photos from the last month and especially Christmas festivities, including some horror shots of our many Santa visits which were challenging this year. For some reason Jack can be practically tossed around the room by any number of giant rodents, ducks and assorted woodland creatures at Disneyland, but Santa this year? Horrifying. Contrast even this acceptable Santa pic with last year's and you'll see a big difference.
