About 2 hours from Los Angeles is a small mountain town called Oak Glen… My sister, the kids and I visited for the first time yesterday. OH MY WORD! I want to move there! If you are in Southern California I highly recommend taking this day trip.
Oak Glen is described as “New England in SoCal”. The temperature is usually 20 degrees cooler than the valley, so with this hundred plus heat we ran away looking for easier weather:) The entirety of Oak Glen is basically covered in every kind of apple tree imaginable! Orchards cover the mountains…it is beautiful. They also grow pretty much everything else as well!
Our first stop was Riley’s Farm. It felt like we had gone back in time! The farm was originally built in 1880 and it still holds that charm.
We started the morning with an apple tasting, deciding our favorites before going out picking. (Although if you’re going to visit and go picking I’d go to Snow-Line farm a few miles down the road, because Riley’s is so popular and the ripe fruit is stripped before the other farms) They have a few stores on the 760 acres that sell the YUMMIEST jams and apple butters, colonial themed everything, old wooden toys, bonnets, candy and they make their own historical movies that are sold there as well! They have many demonstrations going on as you stroll, how to press cider, candle dipping, ink and quill lessons etc.
We ended our trip to Riley’s with a sit down dinner at Hawk’s Head Public house. There is live music and all the servers sing! My sister and I decided we wanted to live in Oak Glen and work here:)
We stopped at a few of the country stores along the stretch, each neat in it’s own way. There were apple stands everywhere. We stopped at Snow-Line before heading home. I had read online that they make fresh apple donuts. We grew up next to a cider mill in Franklin Michigan and the smell of apple donuts is one of our favorite earliest memories. So we HAD to stop and eat some with the kids! I ordered 2 dozen mini’s and we ate them all within minutes!!
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| Outside one of the stores on the property |
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| Isn’t this land beautiful?!! |
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| After running and picking all day these babies crashed!! |
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| Hawk’s Head Public House |
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| The Armory Band in the BBQ restaurant |
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| Just singing under trees |
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| Our Lunch |
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| My sister Ashley |
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| My sis and Saylor, a server lighting the candle chandeliers and the musicians |
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| Raimy enjoying fresh pressed cider |
We will return often…it was a wonderful trip. Can’t wait until fall when the weather cools and they start selling pumpkins:)
