Lazy days, sweet reward

Sam, 13, takes it easy at Bailey's Palomar Resort, where his family traveled to pick apples, hike and play.

By Karin Klein

Sept. 26, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

My family used to go to Julian in apple season, and every year brought a new surprise. Once it was an honors system farm where we picked apples and pears and left our money in a basket. Another year, when we came past the prime season, a noncommercial orchard owner invited the kids to pick the remaining fruit on his trees for free — apples so sweet they tasted candied.

But in recent years, my husband, Amnon, and I have found less to love. The pick-it-yourself orchards have dwindled, the crowds and traffic have swelled, and the horse-drawn carriages and tchotchke shops give the town the artificial folksiness of Disneyland’s Main Street, not a taste of rural America.

It was time for a new apple-picking spot. An Internet search turned up Bailey’s Palomar Resort in a part of northern San Diego County unscathed by wildfires last year. The rustic property is run by descendants of pioneers who homesteaded the land in the 1800s. It sounded the opposite of touristy — no stores, no restaurants (which meant we had to bring all our food), no cute tours. Just woods, a stocked pond for fishing and a meadow with old apple trees that we could pick for 50 cents a pound. The place has facilities for tent or RV camping, plus the old Bailey House with seven bedrooms and three cabins for rent.

I chose the Cedars, a one-bedroom cabin with a sofa bed in the living room for our children, Sam, 13, and Aviva, 7. It had a full kitchen, a TV and a VCR. The rate for two adults was $125 a night; because Sam was considered an adult, he was $25 a night extra. As of press time, the resort’s website offered three nights for the price of two, a deal not available when I booked.

Owner Brad Bailey, who was going to be on vacation at the time of our visit, tried to talk me into coming to his place weeks early so he could show me the way to the cabin, set in the woods off a dirt road. But I wasn’t up for driving the extra 90-miles each way between Palomar Mountain and my home in Laguna Beach, and it turned out to be unnecessary. The cabin wasn’t that hard to find after all, and as darkness settled in the Friday evening of our arrival, Brad’s son Matt was there to show us the way.

The cabin was delightful. As promised, it was well equipped, with a washer and dryer, mismatched dinnerware that I loved, even scouring pads for pots. The space was cute enough to be fun, but not so cute as to be precious, decorated mostly in John Deere tractoriana down to the tractor nightlight.

We found games, puzzles and a beautiful antique piano in dreadful repair. That didn’t bother Aviva, who didn’t know how to play properly anyway. She happily sang and improvised her own accompaniment.

We quickly made dinner, discovering we had unnecessarily bought 20 pounds of charcoal. (The website incorrectly said the grill was charcoal. It was gas.)

A more pleasant surprise was the water out of the tap — cold and almost sweet, from the resort’s artesian wells.

Cooking in peace
In the morning, we discovered trees all around us. Steller’s jays — big, iridescent-blue birds with showy black crests — flew back and forth, chattering, and a woodpecker worked without rest. The air was clear and deliciously scented of pine and oak.

A swing, fashioned from a length of fat rope with a board inserted above a big knot, hung from a tree in a clearing. The idea was to grab the swing, carry it up nearby rocks, then take a leap of faith. That kept us amused for a while.

After breakfast we looked for the apple trees and pond. That proved almost too easy. Our cabin was just a few hundred feet from the heart of the property, where the meadow and old farmhouse are.

The campground — dotted with slightly seedy-looking trailers — was empty, and the big Bailey House was filled with women holding a scrapbooking retreat. They never seemed to venture farther than the front porch.

The meadow had about 10 apple trees — not exactly an orchard but plenty for us. The only thing that looked like it might be the pond, though — at least from the “No Boating or Swimming” signs around it — was dry. We had lugged fishing rods for nothing. What would we spend all our time doing?

We started with apple picking. The Delicious apples were red but from the somewhat bitter taste obviously not yet in season. A couple of larger, older-looking trees carried a rounder, smaller apple that looked and tasted like a good, tart McIntosh. The point, though, was simply rediscovering the fun of getting fruit from a tree instead of from a waxed stack at the supermarket, and both kids were eager choosers and pickers.

Afterward, we walked around the property collecting unusual feathers and fat acorns (Aviva wanted to grind them Native American-style) and watched a doe grazing in the meadow.

No one was at the office to weigh our apples, so we estimated them at a couple of pounds and went back to the cabin for lunch. I taught Aviva how to cook her first homemade applesauce — intensely flavored, nothing like the stuff in jars — and we stuck it in the refrigerator for dinner.

I took a book out to the porch swing while Amnon and Aviva played Yahtzee and Sam became absorbed in one of the cabin’s books, on famous gunslingers. I could have read the day away, sitting on that swing with sunlight dappling the trees and only jays breaking the silence.

The kids picked up on the theme of the trip and more often than not chose games, puzzles or books over the movie we had brought. But by midafternoon Saturday, after a game of Monopoly, they were antsy to go somewhere, see something.

I had seen signs for the Palomar Observatory, about seven miles away, so we drove to see the research telescope in its dazzling white dome. The little museum there didn’t impress me, but the kids were surprisingly intrigued and took turns hogging an interactive exhibit on the solar system. Then it was up to the gigantic Hale Telescope and its 200-inch disc. It was enough of an outing to satisfy the kids without taking too much away from our weekend in the woods.

On the way back, a couple of miles before reaching Bailey’s, we discovered a tiny general store and small but pleasant restaurant, Mother’s Kitchen, and stopped for frozen yogurt. We returned to the cabin around 4:30 p.m. The day was cooling off, and the sun gave the air a golden light. Perfect for a hike.

This time we turned away from the meadow and headed up the hills through woods. We never saw another person; it was as though we had the mountain and trees to ourselves.

An hour and a half later, we were back at the cabin and hungry for dinner: grilled Cornish game hens and our homemade applesauce.

Reading and swinging
We had to check out by noon Sunday. I stole some more reading time on the porch with my morning coffee while the kids played on the rope swing and worked on a jigsaw puzzle. Then, after my promise to make apple crisp back home, we walked to the meadow to pick more fruit.

Checkout may have been the most casual of my life. Though the scrapbookers were starting to say farewell at the farmhouse, no one was to be found in or around the office. So I left a note that asked Bailey’s to bill us and included our estimate of the apples we had picked.

On the way out we stopped to watch a doe and two fawns, which leapt away with amazingly high bounces. The rest of the drive back was leisurely, with stops at farm stands for huge avocados and ripe peaches.

We also drove into the Pala Indian Reservation, which required the barest detour off Highway 76. I wanted the children to see the mission here, dating to the mid-1800s. Small and simple, it always has been my favorite.

Restaurant pickings along 76 are slim. We ended up having lunch at Great Wok of China, a strip-mall fast-food place in Oceanside that served surprisingly good Chinese food.

We were back home by midafternoon, in time to peel and slice tiny apples for dessert.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Budget for four

Expenses for this trip:

Lodging

Bailey’s Palomar Resort,

two nights with tax $327.00

Apple picking $2.50

Snacks

Mother’s Kitchen $8.58

Lunch

Great Wok of China $18.45