Change of Plans to Our Camping Weekend {Eagles Nest Winery in Julian}

Recently my hubby has brought up the idea of camping a couple of times. He’s a Marine and is definitely the rugged type. I, on the other hand, would not necessarily describe myself as rugged. However, I do consider myself to be open-minded and adventurous, and since I had never been camping before, I decided that I can’t knock it until I try it. With that, camping became the center of our weekend agenda!

In order to get my full approval to go camping, I had a few requirements that Adam agreed to:

1.) We must incorporate apple picking into the trip.

2.) Wine drinking must be on the agenda.

The plan was for Adam, Harley, and me to head out to Julian, a town we recently visited for a grape stomping event. Before going to the campgrounds, we decided to go wine tasting at Eagles Nest Winery, a vineyard we have gone to a couple times before. They’re a little boutique place with great wine, and we planned to hang out for a bit and pick up a bottle for our night of camping.

To make a long story short, the winery owners, Dennis and Julie, wound up graciously inviting us to have dinner with them, then stay at their rental cottage for the night. We took them up on their offer, and so instead of sleeping in a tent, I slept in an awesome cottage with this view:

Our night of camping didn’t turn out as planned, but we had a great time! It was fun having Harley with us, and it was actually the first time we’ve brought her along when staying away from home overnight. Julie & Dennis have a bunch of dogs and sheep, and I think that Harley was totally out of her element being able to run free outdoors with other animals. Usually the only time she’s able to do that is when we go to the park or beach for a bit, but this was a totally different experience for our city dog! 😉

A few other shots from our Saturday:

This morning before heading home, we went apple picking at a Julian orchard:

I just love fall! This afternoon I used some of the apples we picked to make one of my favorite autumn snacks – apple chips. I make them by simply sprinkling cinnamon & sugar on top of apple slices, then baking them in the oven until browned:

It’s an easy and yummy snack, and I’ll probably be making them again this week with some more of our Julian apples.

Stay tuned for camping attempt #2 in the near future!