Snow Blows Business Into Mountain Town of Julian

Holding a loosely packed snowball in each hand, 15-year-old Dana Resor swung his arms and hurled the cold and wet projectiles. One fell on the head of his mother, Sarah, and one on Chris Bones, a family friend visiting from London.

“I’m just going to have to send a post card back from California: Snowed In,” Bones laughed. “They’re never going to believe it!”

But anyone who was in the mountain town of Julian on Thursday certainly will. There, winter arrived a day early, bringing several inches of snow and driving winds that pushed the wind-chill factor below zero.

Julian residents and visitors expressed strong feelings about the storm. They either loved it or hated it.

Cassidy Eversull, 19, said he drove from Escondido to play in the snow. “Some people load up their trucks with snow,” he said while inside the Julian Market & Deli. “I plan on doing that, then drive back to have snowball fights with my friends.”

His friend, Jim Hillyard, 18, appeared less prepared for the snow. He walked into the market in bright green shorts and sporting a tan gained from five months in Florida. “It’s all I’ve got right now,” he said, dismissing the chill outside and inside the store.

“I hate it,” said Kristen Nelms, 22, a market employee. “It does bring in the tourists, though.”

Business also was booming on the other side of Main Street, a stretch of several blocks that makes up Julian’s downtown. Customers formed a long line inside Mom’s Pies, one of several establishments in town specializing in apple pies made from local orchards.

Cinnamon and apple aromas filled the large restaurant as several customers held their hands over a wood-burning stove.

Mom’s averages 300 apple pies a day, but the record is 1,000 in one day, said Kathy Goddard, who prepared one of the 14 ready-to-be baked pies that lined Mom’s window. “It picks up when it snows,” she said.

For fun, a driver plowed his dark blue pickup through the 2-foot drift that formed a center divider along Main Street. He stopped briefly, as if stuck, but then roared forward.

Two women down the street were not so lucky, as a stranger stopped to push their car out of the ice.

“We called up here and asked if we needed to bring a change of warm clothing,” said Mae Hackney, pointing to a small hotel on the strip.

“They said absolutely not,” she said, huddling against a fierce wind.

“Most Southern Californians don’t know how to drive in the snow, but I’m from Missouri,” she said. Her companion’s car had been stuck 20 minutes, she said.

Several visitors said they came to Julian because of the snow, and several said they wanted to experience the charm of the small town.

A plaque outside the Julian Market and Deli says the store was built in 1895 and was originally called Coleman’s. You could buy groceries, boots, shovels, picks, harness, ladies bustles, coffins or a shot of red eye at Coleman’s, according to the plaque.

Russ Johnson, 49, seemed unimpressed with the town’s quaint atmosphere as well as the weather.

A United Parcel Service driver from Oceanside, Johnson said it took him about 40 minutes to put chains on his truck, and some of the stores he tried to make deliveries to were closed.

“I can’t get down some of the roads, so I have to ask people to pick up their packages,” he said. “Snow’s no fun if you’re working.”