finding fall

On Saturday we drove almost two hours east of LA in a daring attempt find that elusive season known as "fall." IT WAS AMAZING. There's a little town with ugly suburban houses called Yucaipa, and if you drive up in the hills beyond it you find a little town called Oak Glen with... APPLE ORCHARDS GALORE. Bre and Jake and I met Matt and Letia at the top of a hill at Los Rios Rancho Apple Farm, and we bought bags for picking, and went wild. It was an absolutely perfect fall day- 55 degrees and sunny. There were even some leaves that had started changing.

The last time I went apple picking was with David and Jessica in the fall of my freshman year at Northwestern-- we drove into Indiana and found a good old fashioned midwestern farm. Then they dropped me and my backpack full of apples at the Landmark Theater in Chicago and I met just about half of CRC for a double feature of Waking Life and Mulholland Drive at the Chicago International Film Festival, and on the way home Marc Lummis declared he knew a "shortcut" back to the El and I ended up walking like two miles to the Red Line with an extremely heavy backpack of apples on my back. That part sucked.

Anyway.

Pictures!


Bre in a tree!


Letia and Bre and me


Jake and Matt-- I'm not quite sure why they took their shirts off


Jake got something stuck in his foot... and I think this picture is funny


I don't know who those people are, but that's the view out over the valley. Isn't it pretty?


Letia directed a "movie" about me picking apples...


...and then Letia and Bre pretended they were in Children of the Corn


After picking apples we drove down the hill a bit to a fair sort of thing near a restaurant and candy store. It was one of those awesome general stores that sells canned things and caramel apples and maple candy and all sorts of autumnal goodness-- like Quig's near the Illinois/Wisconsin border.



The fair part was fun. There were pony rides (we were too old) and strange goods for sale and goats and llamas being led around. We got cider and I accidentally snuck into the petting zoo. There were ostriches! Not to pet, really, but to ogle!



THEN we drove even farther down the hill, back near the freeway exit, and went to a giant pick-your-own-pumpkin patch. It was way fun... I would have picked a million but I have no money, so I only got one. They had wheelbarrows for loading with pumpkins and sunflowers going to seed and the whole thing was just very lovely and... fall.


Faster, woman!









Bottom line: I need to go again next year... if not again this year. I wonder what happens in Oak Glen at Christmas?? Might be worth another trip...

HALLOWEEN IS SO SOON YAY!