Not Quite a 50 for 50 -- Apple Picking in Oak Glen

Now, see, this one could have been a 50 for 50, in that "berry picking" was actually on the list.  But Jacob took it and it was sweet and fun, so this was just a bonus trip with a group of friends.  (The fact I've been trying to sneak in a 50 for 50 with them, and there aren't a whole lot of options left on the list, is the bit that gets me.  The fact that "Old Timey Photo" IS on the list -- and that Oak Glen has Old Timey Pretty Much Everything Else -- was frustrating.)

ANYWAY, this was actually Val's plan -- Val wants to do more fun stuff with friends in SoCal, and I totally get it.  I mean, in general, I get wanting to do more fun stuff.  But this seems sort of akin to my Project Buy Happiness of a decade ago -- when my job was super stressful and I was unable to sell the condo (because of the mold, and the association wasn't repairing it quickly, and the way the market was going, I was losing out on thousands of dollars with every delay, and, and, and...) and YEAH, I get it, when you're in a stressful unhappy place, you need to forcibly DO SHIT to bring yourself a little joy.  And Val wanted to road trip out to Oak Glen to pick apples, and I've never been out to Oak Glen, and the whole thing seemed like a fun idea.

And when the day actually rolled around, waking up early to drive out there seemed like a lot more of a pain in the ass, but I figured I had signed up for this and I might as well get my butt off the couch on a Saturday and do stuff with this group of people.  Most of whom were somewhere between "friend" and "friend of a friend," and all of whom seemed decent enough to get to know better.  Over fruit.

A coupla text messages later, I was carpooling out to Oak Glen with Val and her mom.  (I thought this might be a nice chance to learn something about her mom, but Val and I ended up dominating conversation on the road.  I'm going to find myself at New York Comic Con in a coupla weeks, and Val has done that Con quite a bit, so I was pumping her for info.)

We planned to meet up with some friends for brunch at Apple Annie's at 11:00 before moving on to the actual apple picking part of the day.  There were two main flaws with this plan:  (1)  no damn cell phone reception, so coordinating with the other folks was problematic; and (2)  they stopped serving breakfast at 11:00, and we're stuck with the lunch menu of sandwiches when we had all been in the "apple pancake" mindset.

Val's mom had reception, even though Val didn't.  (Insert here Val's mom stepping away for a moment and her phone locking.  Val gets the password on the first guess.  Insert here memories of me, at an internet cafe in Italy, needing Facebook for something, and not having a Facebook account, so breaking into my mom's account with a good first guess at her password and a just-barely-good-enough effort at the facial-recognition-of-her-friends thing.  Clearly, knowing your parents well enough to guess their passwords is a Thing.)  So we got enough text messages through on AT&T to get all of us together at a nice big table at Apple Annie's.

If you haven't been to Oak Glen (I hadn't), Apple Annie's gives you a pretty good indication of what you're in for.  The portions are massive.  Massive.  They have signs up about offering "free seconds" so you don't leave hungry, but most of us couldn't even finish our "firsts."  There was nothing healthy on the menu.  (It was the sort of place which might offer a "diet plate" of cottage cheese and fruit, but didn't.  But you COULD swap out your french fries for mashed potatoes and gravy.  The gravy looked really good.)  Yeah, massive portions and gravy, is what I'm saying.  The restroom is two single-stall units which are non-gender-specific.  Pretty sure this was a change in accordance with recent state law and not, like, an affirmative attempt to be open to their trans guests.

(Wikipedia tells me that, according to the 2010 census, there are 638 people who actually call Oak Glen home.  Of the 190 households, two are same-sex partnerships.)

The shops right around Apple Annie's include the bakery (pies were ordered), a General Store, a turquise shop, an Old Timey Candy Store, and a bunch of craft faire type tents selling jams, wood craft things (many crosses), tea towels with ducks or geese on them, and pretty much any fabric thing you might want with the logo of your favorite NFL team on it.  And a little tent selling interchangeable jewelry with an "as seen on Shark Tank" sign -- and I'm thinking, "You didn't get a deal on Shark Tank, did you?"  (They did not.)

I'd read that Oak Glen was pretty conservative.  One of the dudes who runs one of the farms tweeted some pretty racist, misogynistic crap in the context of being Pro-Trump.  Whereas one of the other guys, in trying to distance himself from the first guy, said that he keeps his politics to himself and prefers to just spread "a Christ-like love to all."  (Which is a nice sentiment, to be sure, but, as a Jew, I sort of notice when your statement of inclusiveness invokes Christ -- because we ALL love Jesus, right?  RIGHT??)  So, I mean, I was sort of expecting this to be a trip into MAGA-land.

Mostly, it wasn't.  I mean, sure, there was a bit more pro-military stuff than I generally see on a daily basis.  Ditto that baseline of Christianity.  (I didn't even see a small corner of products "for our Jewish friends.")  But, mostly, it was just that down-homey, big portions, extra gravy, General Store, we-love-football type of America.  Everyone asks how "you folks" are doing.  The woman who sells you your U-Pick apples is a bespectacled white older woman with red curls, who looks like Central Casting sent her after Oak Glen requested a "Grandma."  It's THAT America.

We drove over to Riley's Los Rios for apple pickin.  They also had a shop (and free hard cider tasting!) and a restaurant and hayrides and a corn maze.  But first, the restroom.  Separate building, men's room on one side, women on the other.  HUGE line for the women -- not just because women take longer, but because about half the women in line had kids in tow, and were cramming multiple people into those stalls.  The first stall had run out of toilet paper, and the women leaving that stall were all warning the people in line:  "There's no toilet paper in there, but you can use the seat covers."  And, at first, I thought this was part of the whole friendly spirit of the place -- warning people about the dangers of the situation and providing advice on how to deal with it.  But later, I was puzzled as to why NOBODY in any of the other stalls was sharing a little TP.  Seriously, man, each stall had two rolls in it -- like you couldn't spare one and share it with the stall that didn't have any?! 

Probably too close to socialism.

I digress.  (Frequently.)  Over at Los Rios, we tasted cider, checked out the shop to plan our purchases later in the day, and taste tested apples, so that we'd know which variety we'd want to pick.  Of course, the U-Pick for our favorite was across the street.  And up the hill.  (The closest were Red Delicious.  Who the hell eats Red Delicious anymore?)  We hiked over to the U-Pick area, got our little pickin' bags, and further hiked up to the Jonagolds.  (A cross between Jonathan and Golden Delicious.  Good for eatin'.)  The orchard was pretty well picked.  (I would've settled for Galas, because they were closer, but the trees were just covered with tiny little ones that weren't ripe yet.)  But I found a nice tree of Jonagolds and filled my bag from it.  I even ran into some friends who took the obligatory apple picking photo for me.

Then we all posed for the TRULY obligatory selfie.

Then we trudged back down the hill to pick some raspberries.  It was at this point that my knee started objecting.  Going uphill I just get winded, but going downhill, it puts too much pressure on my knee and there's actual pain and stuff.  (The fact that I CONSISTENTLY go uphill anyway, finding myself trapped in a place I can't easily get down from, is probably why I get along so well with cats.)  We also had to walk on the sloped dirt by the side of the road, in order to get out of the way of farm vehicles.  And at THIS point, I thought that maybe walking downhill on uneven surfaces was precisely the WORST thing I could do for the recently re-sprained ankle, and maybe I should have just bought the damn pre-bagged apples in the shop.  Because, seriously, we were paying MORE for the privilege of picking them ourselves, and after a half hour of this sort of fun, I'm pretty certain that whatever we (as a society) pay the (probably undocumented) people to stand out in the hot sun and do this for us is totally inadequate.

We stopped to pick raspberries on the way back.  They, too, had been pretty much picked over.  I was happy to just take a break in the downhill progress and walk along the relatively flat raspberry rows, but when I'd see, like, a single ripe red berry dangling from the bottom of a vine -- particularly if a bee was nearby -- I questioned whether it was worth bending down to get it.

I'm old, is what I'm saying.

I ended up with a smallish tray of raspberries.  When we were out there not finding too many berries, I wondered aloud to one of my friends exactly how few berries I'd have to have in my bag for them to say, "oh just take 'em" without charge.  Turns out I had precisely that amount of berries, and the nice grandma just let me take 'em.

Across from the weighing/paying station, they were selling kettle corn and Old Timey sodas.  (No fructose; sugar all the way!)  I downed a black cherry soda in the time it took to wait in line to weigh my apples -- Val had suggested I looked a little dehydrated and she was totally right on that.  32 ounces of sugary goodness took care of that problem right quick.

Back to the store to buy stuff.  (I got a big bottle of a dry-ish hard cider.  Who wants to get buzzed on apples with me?)  Snacked on some corn-on-the-cob at an outdoor table.  (Discovered that one of Val's friends is as skittish around bees as I am, which was kind of comforting because I'd thought grown-ups had to hide that.)  Then back to the bakery to pick up the pre-ordered pies, and the Old Timey candy shop.  I had planned on getting an apple cider float, but was too full of black cherry soda and corn-on-the-cob, so had to take a pass on that.  Looked nummy, though.

Came home, rinsed my berries and tasted them.  Oh, so sweet!  There is nothing like a fresh raspberry.  I mean, seriously, I buy berries all the damn time, and they're bigger and probably more colorful (and perhaps covered in pesticides), but these were so much better.  I understand why we paid more for the U-Pick fruit, now.  Fuck me, these berries were good.  I downed the bowl in record time, and super crashed on the couch.