Wow...Julian!

Paul and I decided we wanted to celebrate our first year anniversary by going up to fun-filled Julian! We took last Friday off and left in the afternoon. It was such a pretty drive...and when we arrived I was ecstatic to see some mountains...small...but they were still mountains! I was thrilled, one thing I do miss about home are the mountains, I guess growing up I always felt they were a great shield of protection...kind of weird, but true at the same time.

We stayed at the original Julian Gold Rush Hotel in a cute little cottage. The lobby looked like I had jumped back 100 years they had a lot of great antiques that helped capture the heart of the old west. I was kind of surprised when we arrived to our little cottage, I took a virtual tour of the room we were going to stay in before and I was expecting the interior of the cottage to have pale blue vintage striped walls with a blue couch, paintings, and flowers. Instead the room had white walls with taupe stripes on the walls, a white couch, no flowers, and different paintings. All in all I still loved it! One of my favorite accents in the room was a vintage warm white vanity...it was so sweet!

Paul and I strolled down the fun streets of Julian...it kind of felt like a ghost town. Across the street from the hotel was a cute shop had all types of goodies. They had so many crazy jams I was surprised to see this jalapeno jam...I guess it would be a good wake-up call in the morning with your toast. Surprisingly the fun little shops closed down around 4:30. While we were strolling I was taking one picture and then I tried to take another and the lens gave out...so this posting will sadly be mostly pictureless :( Later on in the night we went to a to enjoy some fine barbequeing. Paul ordered the buffalo steak and I ordered the Teriyaki chicken. My favorite part of the meal would definitely have to go to the splendid mashed potatoes. Crazy story this particular saloon was not allowed to sell alcohol because of a past incident when they sold alcohol to a minor which resulted in a fatality...so sad.

Early on Saturday morning Paul and I woke up to go eat breakfast at the hotel. They served the best granola I have ever had...it had such a sweet, tangy taste, I am craving it just thinking about it! The main course of the meal was the potato pancakes, they were so scrumptious...loved them. For those of you who don't know much about Julian they are famous for their apple pies...or apple anything for that matter.

Paul and I then headed off near Lake Cucuyamca to go on a hike, it was a nice little loop. Paul kept on talking about how much fun it would be to mountain bike down the trail. It kind of looked a little frightening to me because of the crazy ridgy rocks everywhere, Paul is a lot braver than I am that is for sure! When we had finished hiking Paul freaked me out by telling me I had ticks all over my back. I was super nervous...turns out they were just small little black nats who seemed to be very attracted to my white t-shirt. Paul was super nervous thinking he might have had ticks on the back of his t-shirt but thankfully we were tickless...yikes!

The last portion of our trip was the best! We saw a little girl was wearing a swim-suit and we asked her if there was water nearby...she told us there were some waterfalls. One of the forest patrolman told us how to get there. I wasn't expecting too much...but then we saw the first waterfall and it was super small but beautiful the water cascaded gently over the granite rock and the water was so clear you could easily see down to the bottom. We followed the falls further down, we probably passed five waterfalls. Along the way there were small pools of water we waded in. It was so picturesque I absolutely loved it!

One of Paul's favorite things about the trip was testing out his new shoes called Sanuks. The crazy thing about this shoe is it is really a sandle with light fabic which covers the foot, with two small holes in each shoe for drainage purposes. He wore them on the hike and waded with them through the water and passed them on as the coolest shoes he has ever had. Another great thing about Sanuk's is you can wash them in the washer because they are super flexible.

The end...sorry so long:)