Friday, October 4, 2013

0755, Fri, 100413.  Rocklin, CA.

 

The alarm went off late and we were in a hurry, so something had to give, the log.  It was our morning to walk Max to school.  We ran around, woofed down a quick breakfast and were out of here in record time, in fact we were early.

It was another beautiful morning with the crispness in the air and clear skies although the predicted winds were getting started with a real cool breeze.  Karissa had a big decision to make, she wanted to walk instead of riding in the stroller but she also wanted to bring a half dozen toys to play with, one or the other.  She finally decided it was more important to have the toys and headed for the stroller.

After our walk Sue and I were off for a little road trip.  We went by the Ophir Rd property once more but still could decipher its location, so we went on.  Our destination was an area around Placerville called Apple Hill and it is now apple season.  We decided to take the scenic route along the back roads of Highway 49 and really enjoyed the scenery.  Once in Apple Hill we stopped at a couple of places, the first with quite a show with everything from hay rides to pumpkin patches.  It is kind of fun to see something like this that grew over the years rather than being all planned out ahead of time and presto, built.  You can almost read the minds of the entrepreneurs, maybe it would be fun to add bales of hay making a giant maze, maybe some booths where the neighbors could sell their home made trinkets.  Of course there was a lunching spot complete with all sorts of apple treats from pies to cobblers and of course lots of things to buy that didn't have a thing to do with apples, ha.

One of our stops was a quiet place complete with Grammar running the show.  She directed us to the ten minute walk through the orchard complete with a pamphlet telling you what kind of apples you were passing, where to keep an eye out for the deer and even a bit of logging history, the flat roadbed where the narrow gauge RR used to run the logs down the hill.  We did spot a couple of deer by the way.  Getting back to the store (barn) there were big boxes full of a dozen or more kinds of apples all the same price.  We filled a box, 20 lbs worth, of Mutsu and Golden Delicious.  I had never heard of Mutsu and it just so happened the lady had one on the counter and gave us a sample, delicious.  It is a green apple, not too sweet, but oh so fresh.  We were sold. 

Our trip back was more the traveled route through via freeway and town with a stop at Play It Again Sports.  We are looking for bikes and thought this might be a good starting point.  We were disappointed.  Two bikes, one in the five hundred dollar price range the other a racing style with drop bars.  Not what we were after.  The place is filled with exercise machines taking up 90% of the floor space with other odds and ends around the periphery.

We were pretty pooped by the time we got home, crashed into our big comfy chairs and took it easy for the eve….more later..