My Town Monday: Tea Time in Julian, CA

Yesterday, my friend Christina, our BFF daughters and I headed about 50 miles northeast to Julian, CA for a tea party. We've been planning this day trip for a while now, but life kept getting in the way. When we set off this morning, we almost couldn't believe we'd managed to pull it off. Our reservation was for 11:30 a.m. And, yes, you definitely want to make a reservation. Here's the phone number: 866-765-0832

Here's an outside shot of the Julian Tea and Cottage Arts, 2124 Third Street, Julian, CA. This house was built in 1898 for Clarence King, the son of one of our famous gold miners, George Valentine King.

Here's the motely crew. Christina and I shared a bottomless pot of Yorkshire Gold tea while the girls sipped on Mango Ceylon black tea. We munched on a variety of finger sandwiches (my fave was the chicken curry), scones with cream and apricot marmelade or lemon curd, shortbread cookies and toffees.


The house is crammed with all kinds of items for sale (kitchen knickknacks, stationery supplies, tea paraphernalia, etc). I bought a box of PG Tips Special Blend tea bags, which I cracked open at breakfast time.

Of course, no trip to Julian is complete without a visit to the Julian Book House at 2230 Main Street. I picked up two mysteries by Rex Stout: TOO MANY COOKS and THE MOUNTAIN CAT MURDERS, pubbed 1938, 1939 respectively. I also picked up the owner's business card. Although primarily a rare and used bookstore, they'll often stock new books by local authors. I'll give him a call this week. Especially because I SO DON'T DO MYSTERIES takes place about 35 miles east of the bookstore at the Wild Animal Park.

On the way back home, we stopped at Dudley's Bakery in Santa Ysabel where I picked up a couple of loaves of bread and an apple-peach pie. The latter purchase thrilled Mr. Summy no end.

Click here for links to more My Town Monday posts. (Thanks Clare2e for hosting this week) Also, if you're even marginally thinking about writing a My-Town-Monday post, please do! Fair warning, though, it's addictive! Write your post, then leave a comment here. You'll be linked to.

Happy Monday!

More fun SoCal times with my sister et al!

Sorry for the absenteeism, but, as most of you know, my sister and her 3 daughters are down from Canada for a visit. So, I'm spending my days having buckets and buckets of Southern California touristy fun. DH and I don't have any family in SoCal, so I'm really enjoying watching my kids hang out with their cousins. And, of course, I'm getting to know my nieces better too.

Here's a taste of what we've been up to....

Our guests gave us bread-and-butter gifts. Yay! Gifts are great!


I introduced my sister to the hands-down, best Diet Coke in San Diego County. The cousins (her kids and mine) aren't averse to the slushies there either!


We drove up to Julian where we meandered through various shops; bought an apple pie; ate a grossly overpriced lunch; visited the wonderfully quaint used bookstore, The Julian Book House (2230 Main St., Julian, 92036. 760-765-1989) where I picked up a Perry Mason, a Nero Wolf and an Elmore Leonard. We also visited the gold mine. The above way over-exposed photo is our tour guide, Greg, holding up a cow's horn. Because this is what miners originally used for panning.

My camera was still acting wonky and letting in too much light even when squeezed till it squealed. But I found an eye glasses repair store. The guy working there tried several teeny tiny screws (of thousands!) and found two that held the metal plates firmly in place on the side of my camera. Fingers crossed, this will do the trick!

Back to Julian for a sec: I've posted a couple of My Town Mondays about Julian. Here's the link to the My Town Monday gold mine post.

My sister and I traipsed back to the beach in the dark to rummage through the trash cans. Why? She thought she'd accidentally thrown out her new video camera! We're smiling for the camera. But, uh, very gross! My disposable plastic gloves fetish came in handy.

Oh, did we find the video camera? Yes. THE NEXT MORNING BY THE BAR-B-QUE IN MY BACKYARD!!

Of course, I will never ever let her forget this incident. I will recount it every Christmas. In fact, I will remind her of it every time someone mentions the word "trash" or "garbage."

Hope you're all having a marvelous summer!

I leave you with one last photo taken inside the gold mine. This is the communication system for the miners lowered deep into the bowels. The pegboard was to keep track of the number of men down there at work. The bell was for a system involving up to four rings for instructions like "stop," "go slowly," etc. I tried to memorize the system, but it's all a muddle now. One of many reasons why I would've made a lousy gold miner!