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.:A Desert Lifestyle Article:.
Oak Glen Apple Orchards
By: Lala K. Bevilacqua
Less than two hours away from base is a little town called Oak Glen. Tourist season here doesn’t begin until the leaves change color and the summer heat gives way to the crisp, cool autumn air. A straight shot off the I-10 but seemingly worlds away from the dry, open lands of the Hi-Desert, Oak Glen is nestled in lush green mountains where trees thrive, birds chirp, winds rustle the orchestra of leaves and bright, shiny apples dangle from sturdy branches ready for picking.
The Oak Glen Apple Growers Association lists four different orchards where visitors can pick their own apples including such well-known varieties as Granny Smith, Fuji, Red Delicious, Gala and Macintosh just to name a few. The harvest season runs from late August to the end of November, depending on the orchard and apple variety. The greatest selection is available from late September to early October. Several of the orchards also boast a variety of berries for picking and some have pumpkin patches where you can add a little personal touch to your holiday festivities by picking your own pumpkin.
Riley’s Farm, located at the beginning of Oak Glen as you approach from I-10, offers a strawberry patch where visitors can pick strawberries by the pint or more. The current crop is a little small so it’s first come, first pick but with the growing popularity among off-season pickers, future plans includes an expansion of their strawberry field. Pickers will notice that there is something strangely satisfying about washing away a little bit of dirt from a personally selected, dewy, sweet-ripened strawberry before popping it into your mouth that you won’t feel with eating the plastic contained strawberries piled high for display in a local supermarket.
Riley’s Farm also offers you a unique opportunity to travel back in time and immerse yourself in the colonial period. Their
living history programs offer seven different tours located throughout the sprawling 760 acres of picturesque land the farm encompasses. The tours are hands-on and participants take part in activities like butter making, candle making or cider pressing with the help of Riley’s Farm guides in full colonial garb. For a truly unique, active immersion tour, check out the Revolutionary War Adventure and progress through the colonial period leading to the Stamp Act and a raid on St. George’s Tavern. Choose your side, colonial or British, and take arms with wooden sticks and gun stocks in a Revolutionary War battle reenactment. The tours offer a great opportunity for adults and children alike to see colonial life first-hand and actively learn America’s history, a task too often relegated to words and pictures in dusty history books.
Reenactments aren’t the only bit of history Oak Glen offers. The Oak Glen School House and Museum is a one room stone schoolhouse built in 1927, replacing a wooden community school built in 1888, for the few children of Oak Glen. The small school house is now home to a museum of school artifacts from the 1870s to the 1950s, offering a glimpse into the history of education and a deeper insight into the childhood of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. The school sits in a quiet clearing shaded by swaying trees and a beautiful green lawn where visitors can kick off their shoes and feel the soft blades of grass between their toes. In this setting, one cannot help but appreciate the gentle architecture of the stones still emanating the joyful days of the children it once accommodated. The schoolhouse is closed on weekdays, tours are available by appointment.
Farther on the loop of Oak Glen Road is Riley’s Los Rios Rancho, which was founded by Howard L. Rivers in 1906 as a national (and later global) apple distribution orchard. The operation was expanded in the 1950s to offer more activities for visitors including a picnic area, bakery and a farm store. Currently, Los Rios Rancho offers visitors apple and pumpkin picking in the fall, as well as picnic areas with the towering Yucaipa Ridge as a backdrop and a farm store selling locally produced jarred preserves, jellies and butters of every imaginable source. As is customary to the many stores dotting Oak Glen, visitors with a sweet-tooth can purchase creamy candied apples and honey-sticks in a variety of flavors, as well as jars of the less common, pickled white eggs and jalapeno jam. The Los Rios Rancho bakery and attached deli offers massive, mound-shaped apple pies baked in-house and available whole or by slice. Go with a la mode and you have a meal in itself and a heavenly one at that. Like many Oak Glen eateries, Los Rios Rancho also offers fresh pressed apple cider by the cup (and by gallon jars in the farm store). There is live entertainment throughout the year, including the Hometown Jamboree and Gospel Nights. On weekends, Los Rios Rancho also hosts an old-time BBQ with slow-roasted tri-tip sandwiches and all the fixins of good ol’ cowboy style cooking.
In 1995, Los Rios Rancho was purchased by The Wildlands Conservancy in an effort to preserve some of the land’s natural habitat while developing and improving nature trails to educate visitors on the wildlife unique to Oak Glen. A trailhead, open on weekends, leads from a parking lot located next to the store and into the San Gorgonio wilderness. During the spring months, the Oak Glen Preserve is an explosion of greenery, blooming flowers and fluttering butterflies. The winter months bring a snowy landscape with trees and brush adorned in sparkling white snowflakes that create a winter wonderland visage rivaling that of any New England scenery.
If shopping is in your genes, head to the Oak Tree Village located at the tip of the Oak Glen Road loop. Family fun abounds with 14 acres of shops and activities including petting zoos, animal parks, pony rides, trout ponds and musical entertainment. A favorite of the young and young at heart, the Village Candy Kitchen has an extensive assortment of goodies able to make anyone’s mouth water. Window shop the glass counters and marvel at the variety of candied apples, fudges, chocolate pieces and dime-store candies you won’t be able to resist. Although Oak Tree Village is open year round, weekends are the best time to experience this bustling merchant community. As you stroll, take note of warning signs about unexpected grizzly visitors and the painted yellow bear tracks leading throughout the village. You might even run into a few exotic inhabitants, like the elegant peacock I saw strolling along the path, oblivious to the snapping cameras and “oohs” and “aahs” of curious on-lookers.
Oak Glen is a town that seeks to entertain while keeping in tune with the majestic wilderness in which it is snugly nestled. Whether your family consists of two or 20, Oak Glen offers something for everyone and it will undoubtedly bring out the kid in you. Maybe it’s biting into a giant, glossy apple soaked in gooey caramel and decorated with generous sprinkles of chocolaty goodness that blends into a sweet, golden harmony in your mouth. Maybe it’s the crisp air flowing through the trees, the fresh smell of the gentle, green grass and the happy chirps of birds serenading the towering mountains. Or maybe it’s that longing we all inherently possess for our childhood days and far simpler times. Whatever the case, Oak Glen is a different world located so close you can almost reach out and grab that shiny, red apple dangling and ready for picking.