Today’s post is more pictorial than blog, and therefore good for those of you who buy magazines for the pictures, and not the stories.

Uh hem.

Once again this week I tried to go on the whale watching cruise. You know, so I can provide you all with something OTHER than my old drinking stories, brushes with the law, pigeon porn, or visits to the brothels to read the menus.

Which you probably prefer anyway.

This time the whale watching cruises were canceled due to really choppy water and big winds.

Probably best for me, and you…

I get seasick.

It wouldn’t have been very funny. Or maybe it would have.

But we’ll never know.

Instead, I went to Casa de Something For Everyone, in Hollister, California. It’s in the middle of Nowhere. Really pretty Nowhere, with lots of green farms separated by green farms.

Ok, it’s really called Casa de Fruta. It’s got a small amusement area with carousel and train rides, a restaurant, a sweet shop, and much more. They’ve also got what is likely the world’s largest indoor fruit stand. On second thought, it’s a lot like a supermarket. Actually, it’s exactly like a supermarket that sells fruit, and pickled things.

There’s also a lot of wine.

It’s a great place to bring the kids, or go wine tasting.

Or go wine tasting with the kids. I hear parenting is easier when you’re inebriated.

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I went alone. Kind of.

I took my inner five year old.

We didn’t drink. My inner five year old doesn’t have a fake ID. Yet.

We didn’t ride the rides either. My inner five-year-old was too tall for them.

(Not really that last part, I just didn’t want to look any weirder than I already did walking around without a kid, taking pictures of everything. If they even knew about this blog they would have escorted me off the property.)

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But I did pan for gemstones! It’s like panning for gold. But with gemstones.

It was totally fun! You buy bags of sluice (read: mud) that have been pre-seeded with gemstones or bear claws and sharks teeth. You take the bags over to the water mill, where they have screens and a trough to sift your bag of muddy treasure.

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Seeing as how this trip was essentially the whim of my inner five-year-old, we opted to skip the real food in the restaurant and head right to the sweet shop.

The sweet shop is a sugar-holics dream! I got chocolate covered strawberries, among other things. I’d have a picture of those for you, too, but I ate them. Fast.

If this isn’t the first post of mine you’ve read, you know I’m a sugar addict. Pepperidge Farm is just wasting ink putting expiration dates on my cookie packages.

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I did go in the fruit store…

The displays were beautifully designed – true works of art. This truck was one of them. The wine and pickled goods (a few pictures above) were in the same store.

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I highly recommend taking a real five-year-old if you can find one. Or just let your inner child out, which is even better because now you have the money to buy pretty much whatever you want, and the desires of a five-year-old: candy, rides, and panning for gemstones.