Charming Julian, CA and Cuyamaca Rancho State Park

What a glorious day we had today taking the girls to Julian, California.  Each Saturday, we're trying to explore something fun and exciting around where we are and today we chose historic Julian, California, which is in the heart of the San Diego Cuyamaca mountains.  Scott and I have been to Julian a couple times before when we lived in San Diego about 30 years ago, but today we decided to drive out and bring home a gallon of their world-famous apple cider.  

As we headed out I-8, I always get a kick out of the Sea Level sign.  Yes, El Centro is at sea-level.  The Salton Sea, 58 miles northwest of us is actually 235 feel below sea level and we'll be taking a trip out there in the coming weeks.  But, how often do you see a sea-level elevation sign when reading signs on the freeway?

We took Hwy 79 into Julian and went through Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and past Lake Cuyamaca.  We also passed some people on horseback.  While the road is very windy in places there are also places to pull over and just enjoy the scenery.  We had to stop the car for a couple minutes to take care of Chanel in the back seat of the car where the windy road left her breakfastless...hmm.  Is that another new word for the dictionary?  At any rate, the leaves were changing everywhere and it was like we got a second opportunity to enjoy the fall colors!

Once in the charming town of Julian (where they have a 24/7 webcam that is located on top of the Town Hall), you'll find that it's very easy to walk the streets.  There's really only one main street - appropriately, called Main Street 😜 - and a couple of shops along the cross streets, especially Washington Street.  The shops are all very nice - nothing cheesy to them at all - so you get a nice variety of shops to peruse.  You even have to look fairly hard to find a Julian t-shirt or sweatshirt!  They have Minnetonka moccasins, leather vests and jackets, household items, and some pretty cool and unique stuff all over town!  I was in love with a fur lined cape to die for, but I didn't get it...maybe next visit.

Decked out for Christmas...the town was putting up Christmas yesterday.

Historically, Julian was once a gold rush town in 1870.  The town was named after Mike Julian, a Georgian confederate who discovered it along with his confederate friend Drew Bailey.  In 1870, cattleman Fred Coleman, found the first fleck of gold in a creek and miners flocked the area until about 1900.  After the hype of the gold rush in San Diego ended, a few people stayed to farm the land and brought in 21 select varieties of apple trees to the area.

The town is a four-season town with blossoms and flowers of daffodils and lilacs in the spring, summer star-gazing opportunities, fall apple harvest and landscape filled with fall color...even roses that I photographed today, and in winter it actually snows there!  It's never too hot in Julian.  Today, on November 18th was between 60-64 degrees...perfect for walking or sitting in the sun without being cold, but chilly when sitting in the shade.

We parked our car right in front of large green Stonewall Stores building that has a good number of shops in it on the one end of town.  We started of taking all three dogs with us, but after a block, Chanel was getting skittish from all the people and dogs around her so we took Coco and Chanel back to the car and got them situated with open windows, the shades pulled up so they would be comfortable.  Then, we took Roxy and went to a few stores including the Julian Import shop where they had the most adorable clothes ever!  I could have bought one of everything in the store!

We continued our tour and had lunch at Apple Alley Bakery where I had a Vegetarian Sandwich on Gluten-free sourdough bread with home-made chicken noodle soup (so home-made that even the noodles were hand done as well as the bread, I might add) and a slice of pumpkin pie...I know, it wasn't apple pie, but it had less sugar and since I don't eat sugar, I could do a pumpkin pie.  Scott had a Turkey and Swiss sandwich with the soup and a piece of apple pie with - get this - CINNAMON ice-cream.  YUM!  I took a couple spoonfuls of it.  SO GOOD!  Scott said the pie was great, especially the crust.

After we ate, Scott went back to check on Coco and Chanel while Roxy and I waited on the corner where the Miners Diner is located across from the Julian City Hall.  On this corner, and a few others in town, they have the cutest white picket signs with the names of there each store in town is located.  How cute it that?!  When Scott came back we walked over to the Candied Apple Pastry Company and the Julian Pie Company (are you seeing a theme yet?) where a ton of people were eating pie.  We also walked by the Pioneer Museum, Pioneer Park and the Rong Branch Restaurant and Gifts shop.

We also stopped in at the Oakwood Creek Antiques and Gifts, which I was TOTALLY in love with! The shop had the cutest things and smelled so sweet of fresh handmade soaps of all kinds!  They stores proprietor loved Roxy and gave her such a HUGE bone that we brought it back to the car and shared it between all three dogs!  She even had a small bakery in her shop.  I enjoyed her shop so much I even took 2 little videos for you to enjoy.  Even her decor was amazingly beautiful in her shop.

We crossed the street and went to the Antique Boutique that was a cute house redone as an antique shop with gorgeous stone arbors outside and wrought iron fencing.  I bet it looked beautiful in the spring and summer with the vines.  After that we walked to the Book House and I toured inside while Scott and Roxy chatted with a couple from San Diego outside while sitting on the patio furniture.

After this we started on the other side of the street and by far, the largest shop of the whole town was The Warm Hearth of Julian.  My, my...what a shop.  EVERYTHING you could think of was in that shop - upstairs and downstairs...the shop never ended!  Scott didn't even go inside.  Instead, he wanted to put Roxy in the car so we could go to the Julian Cider Mill to get our cider and so I only could spend a few minutes inside.  I'm sure I could have easily spent over an hour in that store alone looking at everything!

As I walked to meet Scott at the Cider Mill, I passed Mom's Apple Pie shop where people were lined all the way down the street for a piece of pie!  My, my.  Once inside the Julian Cider Mill, the place was absolutely packed with people.  You could hardly move and while the store was itty-bitty, teeny-weeny inside, there were plenty of people mulling around.  Scott was in a long line - probably 20 people deep to pay for his cider.

Notice it's $16.95 per gallon of apple cider!  WHEW!

While Scott wait to pay for the cider, I headed back to the car at the Stonewall Stores (the large green building - we parked right under the flag pole in the photo) to check on the dogs and passed a few more cute shops on the way.  One of the shops was a really cute yarn store right above where the car was parked.  We really do need to revisit this town again when it is a weekday since the crowds were really packed in today.  They can we browse in our leisure and not worry about the pooches as much.  We took one last look at Julian and we were on our way back home.

As we headed home and drove along Hwy 78 from Julian toward I-8, we passed through the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and 6th Grade School Camp area so we stopped to take a few photos of the interesting scenery there.  I couldn't stop on the way to Julian, but I wanted to stop and take a few photos on the way home.  It was quite an intriguing place with hills, rocks, trees and thousands dead trees dotting the scenery along the road, which were strikingly beautiful.  Actually, all the landscape between El Centro and San Diego is quite interesting...rich farmlands of El Centro to 20 miles west billions on tiny rocks dotting hillsides with no foliage at all...to 10 miles later rectangular and oval rocks and boulders...to 10 miles further west to total desert and the viola San Diego filled with palm trees, seascapes, ranch houses, etc. and then today to be up in the pines of Julian.  So much to see.  We really do live in a beautiful world.

While driving home we decided we'll be going to Tucson next weekend since Scott has a 4-day weekend.  We'll have Thanksgiving dinner here at the RV park with our friends and then head out early Friday morning.  We're still debating whether to take the RV or just rent a space at the Voyager RV Park in Tucson.  Check out this fun video Voyager posted on their website.  I can't wait to explore it!...looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G...stay tuned.