Mike and Cher Zeman and Jamie and Deanna Slack
With apples on their heads, oranges in their mouths and olives on their fingers PebbleCreek’s RV Club, Rovin’ Pebbles, kicked off their first fall caravan with an apples and edibles theme. We spent over a week camping at the Yucaipa Regional Park near Oak Glen, California with the apple harvest as our inspiration.
Our first stop was at the Graber Olive House in Ontario. We saw where olives are still graded, cured and canned on their nearly 100-year-old equipment. Our next stop was the Kimberly Crest Mansion, the former home of a Kimberly Clark paper products company founder. Then we toured Fender Guitar’s manufacturing facility in Corona where work is still done by hand.
We took advantage of our camping location at Yucaipa Regional Park to take the short drive up the hill to the cooler temps of Oak Glen where apples are the economic staple and a treasure trove for tourists to enjoy. We made our own apple cider and toured an apple processing facility. We watched the school groups become colonial soldiers. We shopped the roadside stands and ventured into the numerous shops.
We spent some time checking out both manufactured and park model homes before touring Silvercrest Homes’ manufacturing facility. Who knew mobile homes ceased being made in the 1970’s? That terminology is frequently used in error to describe a motor home. The docent explained the difference between the no longer manufactured mobile homes and today’s manufactured homes, park model and, the latest craze, the tiny house.
Continuing with our edibles theme, we ventured over to the California Citrus State Historic Park where we learned the history of the citrus industry and its effect on California. We got to taste several citrus products grown in the park. We squeezed oil from a Buddha’s Hand, a very unusual looking member of the citron family.
To wrap up we celebrated with an apple theme party. The wagon masters made BBQ while the rest of the club supplemented the meal with a wonderful array of apple dishes. We catapulted apples, tossed apple shaped bean bags and had a longest apple peel competition. We guessed our answers to an apple trivia game, did a Johnny Appleseed crossword puzzle and tried to figure out which name was not the name of an apple variety.
And every day we met up for happy hour to socialize and find out what others did during their free time. Some went up to Big Bear while others ventured over to the Reagan Library and some just relaxed. That’s the way it is with the RV Club. We can have fun doing all sorts of things or nothing at all because the company we keep is what it’s all about.
If you have an RV, come join us the first Wednesday of the month at 3:00 p.m. in the Eagle’s Nest Ballroom from October through May with the exception of December when we have our holiday party.