Bringing the City Boy to the Country

September and October are prime apple pickin' season here in California.

So what better thing than city folk to go out to the country and pick us some apples?

Seriously, Mr. P knows that fruits and vegetables don't magically appear in the grocery stores. He knows that they come from trees or plants or vines or whatever. But I got it in my head that I really wanted him to see it firsthand.

There is a place called Oak Glen about an hour away from us, and I was determined to go. There were a couple U-pick apple farms and when I told Mr. P that we were going, he was extremely excited.

Oak Glen is in a different county, and once you get up into those mountains and foothills, it might as well be a different country altogether.

It was a beautiful day, the high temp hovering around 72. Oak Glen is one of those places that strives really hard to give a type of folksy, down-home experience. And what better way to be down home than to eat at Apple Dumplin's Restaurant? There I had an apple, bacon and cheddar cheese sandwich that was one of the yummiest things I've had in a very long time. Sounds horrible, doesn' it? Oh no, it was a tiny slice of heaven, that sandwich.

We were up about five thousand feet and Oak Glen has been known to get a dusting of snow in the winter. It was hilarious because Mr. P kept walking around and exclaiming, "Ahhh, the country!" and "I am so happy to be out in the country, I never knew it was so pretty!"

And it was indeed so pretty. And green. And air that was crisp and fresh. This city girl does love her doses of country. At one point we were standing there, looking down into a wide valley, watching rain clouds roll in thousands of feet below us. Dude, it was so cool.

Even better, I've got a half a peck of Granny Smith apples plucked right off the tree, waiting for me to make something out of them. Caramel apples, perhaps? Or maybe a pie?

It depends on how ambitious I'm feeling, but the odds go to the pie.