West Coast Frisbees: Day Trip to Julian

Jim and I have been saying we should take a trip out to Julian for years now, I think even before Ben was born! But it just never happened. We either waited too long and missed the season or we would just forget about it. Then we would hear it's not that great and not worth the drive, so we were hesitant to go at all. Well, we finally went last weekend and I'm so glad we went and really glad we waited until Ben was in the picture and old enough to particiate and enjoy it too. We didn't have any expectations really, other than to pick some apples, walk around town, grab some lunch and eat a slice of apple pie. And that's exactly what we did. :)

We started our day at O'Dell's Organic Orchard, which is actually just pear trees. But we read great reviews about it, they have a ton of trees, and it is owned by an older couple who really encourage kids to come, so we decided to start there. This place did not disappoint. We sampled a bunch of pears and they were delicious. The trees had a ton of pears on them to choose from and Ben was still calling them "apples" anyway. :) They also have an old fire truck kids can climb onto, and horses, goats, and chickens to look at. We would definitely return to O'Dell's again.

Time to start picking pears!

Getting some of the hard-to-reach ones!

Gorgeous grounds

Ben thought this was hilarious, that the pear had "hair" on it :)

Me and Ben (I think I'm sampling in every picture!)

Jim and Ben (of course we forgot to get a whole family picture)

Petting the horses

Visiting the goats

Checking out the old firetruck

After filling up our bag at O'Dell's, we headed into the town of Julian to grab some lunch and find a Christmas ornamant to add to our collection (we try to get one every time we visit a new place). The town is really small and so quaint, with lots of shops, touristy shops, a big population of bikers, little pony trolleys driving people around town, and of course apple pie shops.

Where we ate lunch

After lunch, Ben said he still wanted to do more apple picking, so we decided to try an apple orchard too, since we had made the trip. We weren't sure where to go and ended up at Apple Starr Orchard - we probably would not return to this one - it was $25 for a bag (O'Dell's was $10) and the trees were totally picked over already. I guess that's not really their fault, but we definitely didn't have as much fun at this one. It took some searching, but we found some yummy Gala, Delicious, and Granny apples to take home. Of course, we did a lot of sampling here too (after checking for bugs!).