A Trip To Apple Country

I don't know about everyone else but I would rather take short Day Trips than go on a true vacation. For one thing your money spending is spread out, meaning we are more likely to be able to stop and look around if I see a good Yarn Shop or touristy place. Also each season has it's activity, at least to me. It's nice to go to the beach but if you have to drive more than 3 hours It's gonna cost ya (gas, hotel, food) which for us means fewer trips. I like to go only about 2 hours or less on our Mini-Vacations. Get off at 1 exit and both side of the road are littered with the Apple Orchard signs. We call this place Apple Valley because it's up in the Mountains of Western North Carolina


This Trip was to Hendersonville for some apple picking. There's this site I go to that lists a lot of Pick-Your-Own Farms. I have a garden and a tiny Postage Stamp Orchard but nothing is quite like going to a nice big orchard and exploring all the different varieties of apples (or any other P-Y-O produce). Rows upon rows of colors, flavors, and textures.

Last time we went apple pickin' (2 years ago at Coston Farm) I made homemade Jelly and Concentrated Apple Juice and a little bit of Dried Apples for baking and such. The jelly was good, the juice was perfect for taking on camping trips because I canned it in little half pint jars so it made a nice big glass of apple juice, just add water-style but the dried apples went awful fast around here.

See what I mean about variety! Some for eatin', some for Homemade Apple Pie Filling (recipe later) and the rest for Dried Apple Bits. I am kinda realistic about our fruit habits around here. Only got about 18 or so for eating and Gala is totally the winner there. All-in-all I think we picked 6 varieties (that big one doesn't count it's just decoration).

I want at least 4 pint jars of dried apple bits. We love having Hot Apple-Cinnamon-Brown Sugar Oatmeal especially come Winter. Sounds bad for you with the brown sugar but "Midget" likes to see me sprinkle a bit on, it's mostly for show since I  only put a Tbls in the pot while I'm cooking everyones breakfast.


The place we went this year was Grandad's Apple Orchard. It was awesome! They had a corn maze (I didn't get any pics of that because of the misty drizzle coming down) and some animals to feed and even a few scary Dinosaurs. Here's a cute pic of the hungry critters.

You can just see the tail of the Triceratops? dinosaur in the top corner :) and the Raptor in the other top corner.

One of my favorite kind of trips is just driving around until you reach a small town and then discovering everything it has to offer. All the little shops in Town and country roads leading to who knows where.

After all that excitement I got to stop by a Yarn Shop too! Got some fuel for my new Sock addiction. I get a little bored going up the foot (toe-up) but once I get to the heel I fall in love with socks all over again (thank you Sweet Tomato Heel and Cat Bordhi). Plus some nice black yarn, so black it gets red hints when the light hits it just right and some black with silver twined in. That's it for this post folks. If anyone from Ravelry-Yop is reading this "Hello from the other half of my life : )".