Autumn is upon us here in Northern California. We can finally peel off the layers we’ve been wearing all foggy summer. The sun is shining, the air is sweet, and the temperatures are downright balmy.
Just like a year ago, I’ve been homesick for hot apple cider and thick scarves, crunchy leaves and fuzzy socks. And so my family humored me one Saturday, donning sweaters and reluctantly snuggling up to mugs of hot cocoa (and ignoring the blazing hot sun) at Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, CA.
Cool Patch Pumpkins also happens to boast the Guinness Book of World Record’s Largest Corn Maze. It is 45 acres of twists and turns, cruel pit traps, and fleeting glimpses of the finish line over yonder. We were all over it.
Taking on the World’s Largest Corn Maze and dinner at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse
Recommended Itinerary:
1. Drive to Dixon’s Cool Patch Pumpkins
2. Check out the Pumpkin Patch
3. Grab a Snack and Plot your Corn Maze Strategy
4. Take on the Corn Maze
5. Or, Don’t Take on the Corn Maze
6. Dinner at Cattlemen’s Steak House
What you’ll need:
1. Your inner zen
2. Sturdy shoes (the corn maze is bumpy)
3. A light jacket
1. Drive to Dixon’s Cool Patch Pumpkins
From San Francisco, you’ll be heading EAST over the Bay Bridge to I-80 East. It’s funny, to me, that I managed to write for this site for a year before leading y’all over the Bay Bridge. It’s a little scrappy compared to the Golden Gate Bridge, I’m not gonna lie. But, you get a pretty cool view of the container ships, cranes, and industrial whatsits of the Port of Oakland.
Pay attention as you’re maneuvering off the bridge, as there are 3 highways that merge here – keep following signs for I-80 East.
After you drive past the dense, urban landscapes of Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond, the highway spreads out into a very comfortable and flat drive through endless farmland. The sky in this part of California is huge, with nary a tree or building or hill to obstruct the horizon line.
I-80 got its start as a railroad line of the California Pacific Railroad – the first connection San Francisco had to the east. Back in the early 1850’s, gold prospectors traversed the road from San Francisco to Sacramento. One Elijah Slivey decided to set up a tavern at the halfway point, as a place for weary prospectors to rest and reload. The tavern soon begat Sliveyville, with churches and a general store.
When the California Pacific Railroad decided to run track from Sacramento to Oakland in the 1860s, it strong armed little towns to hand over free land. Sliveyville did not oblige, but Thomas Dickson did. He gave the railroad 10 acres of land roughly 3 miles away from Sliveyville. And so it was that the railroad built its Dixon Station just 3 miles from Sliveyville. Within a decade, Sliveyville was a ghost town. There are stories of people literally propping their homes, buildings, and churches on logs and rolling them over to Dixon. The railroad eventually folded, the train station shuttered, and a new interstate took over.
Take exit 66, roughly 65 miles from the Bay Bridge. Turn right onto CA-113 South, then a right onto Milk Farm Rd. You’ll see parking for the Cook Patch Pumpkin just ahead.
2. Check Out the Pumpkin Patch
I’m a bit of a pumpkin patch connoisseur, and this pumpkin patch is truly like nothing I’d ever seen before. Cool Patch Pumpkins has acres of pumpkin patches for you to walk through – orange pumpkins, white pumpkins, warty pumpkins. You can grab a wagon and even go pumpkin shopping if you’d like.
If you’d rather not pick your own, they do have mounds of pumpkins and hay bales near the snack bar.
3. Grab a snack and Plot your Corn Maze Strategy
After walking around the pumpkin patch, we decided to get some snacks and hang out at the picnic tables. This is really a delightful place to relax and people watch – the picnic tables are strategically located near the start and finish line to the Corn Maze.
Seeing all those poor, sun dazed folks wander out of it, worse for the wear and decidedly not on speaking terms with one another, helped us get into the right mindset. This was going to be a Challenge.
We also decided that we’d have to split up our group – this didn’t look like a Corn Maze you would take a toddler into. My brother and I would take on the Corn Maze while Dave and my sister-in-law would hang back.
4. Take on the Corn Maze
I don’t know about your family, but the competitive spirit runs deep in mine. Before we even entered the Maze, my brother and I had decided that we would win this sucker. I’m not really clear on what it means to “win” a Corn Maze now, after the fact. But at the time, we knew one thing, and that was that we were going to win it.
The Corn Maze is 45 acres, earning it the title of the Guinness Book of World Records’ Largest Corn Maze. This is a lot of corn mazing. Probably to keep marriages and friendships somewhat intact, and to keep tears to a minimum, Cool Patch gives you a map along with your tickets.
I suppose if we truly wanted to win the Maze, we would have kicked the map to the curb. Instead, we used it like stealth navigators, creating our own sibling language to effectively communicate which zig or zag to take. Whole families started following us. We were not unlike the Pied Piper. Or Seal Team 6.
Despite all of this, and despite never taking a wrong turn, it still took us roughly 45 minutes to walk through the whole maze. That’s a lot of time!
We ran out of there like the champions that we were, high fiving each other and regaling our spouses with stories: “So, there we were, right? With, like, FIVE possible left turns ahead of us, and he TOTALLY PICKED THE EXACT RIGHT TURNOFF POINT ON THE FIRST TRY – it was turn C6, even though this team behind us totally thought it was D11. It was awesome. YEAAAH! HIGH FIVE.” Their high-fives were a little reluctant, to be honest.
5. Or, Don’t Take on the Corn Maze
While we were in the Corn Maze, Dave and my sister-in-law found lots to do for the toddler in our group. They seemed as delighted with their adventures as we were with ours.
First, Cool Patch has a child-appropriate corn maze. I would heavily recommend this for any kid who might get bored with a one to two hour hunt through a 45 acre corn maze.
Second, and this was their favorite, Cool Patch has a corn kernels pool. It’s roughly 300 square feet and 3ft deep — it’s like the balls at a carnival, except it is composed of millions of corn kernels. Our toddler wasn’t quite sure what it was, but two minutes later, she was making snow angels with the best of them. They apparently had to pry her out of it. And they’re still finding corn kernels in their shoes, hair, pockets, backpacks.
6. Dinner at Cattlemen’s Steakhouse
[We actually ended up going to a different restaurant for dinner, but I don’t think it worked well with the rest of the day trip. Instead, I’m sending you to Cattlemen’s to keep the rural California vibe going for just a little longer…]
Cattlemen’s is a steak house right off 1-80, towards Davis. Although you can see it from the highway, you have to take a somewhat serpentine route on desolate roads to get there, making you feel like you’re approaching Elijah Silvey’s tavern itself.
Inside, the décor is old timey western saloon. The food is straightforward steakhouse, with a few seafood and chicken entrees.
After running among pumpkins and spraying the world with corn kernels, our daytripping toddler was none too happy to find herself confined to a table and high chair all of a sudden. In a vain attempt to keep all silverware on the table, straws in their glasses, and the restaurant shriek-free, we all obliged her commands that we whisper sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, complete with hand motions, until the food arrived. I think we also managed to entertain the waitstaff, owner, and the line cooks, who peaked out from the kitchen to see the show.
All of us were exhausted as we piled back into the car, on our way back home. This may not have been the folksy and precious pumpkin patches of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York (with pumpkins probably sourced from California). And, sure, our northern California Autumn is still seething hot. But, we’re creating new homes and new Fall traditions for ourselves and our new generation. It’s kind of what California is all about, right?
