No Apples at the Orchard

Today we took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Skytop Orchard in Flat Rock, NC. It was, again, a beautiful fall day and it was a short and pretty drive up to Flat Rock. About 3/4 of the way there, it dawned on us to check and see if SkyTop takes credit cards. I checked their website with my iPhone (best Christmas gift ever) and discovered that, alas, they do not take credit or debit cards. Of course Chris and I had $1 between us, due to our boiled peanut purchase yesterday, so we decided to just "swing by" an ATM when we reached Flat Rock. I still haven't figured out how people in that town shop, because we couldn't find a bank or an ATM anywhere, so we gave up and went to meet our friends who were already there, in hopes that they would loan us some cash.

So we finally got parked and onto the orchard premises, which were CRAWLING with people. Apparently Oct. 17th is "Visit an Apple Orchard" Day and we didn't know it. We met up with our friends at the picnic area and proceeded to start the trip off right with some YUMMY apple donuts. Well, I had one. Chris had an apple that he found lying around...





I'm not sure the Apple Orchard was exactly what I had pictured. So instead of what we did do, here is a list of the top 5 things we did NOT do at the orchard:

1. We did NOT pick any apples. Apparently, according to a sign in the store, there were no apples left on the trees. Which is ok, because Max doesn't have teeth.
2. We did NOT go on a hay ride. Apparently there was no hay on the hay ride anyway, so I think that might have been a rip-off. :)

3. We did NOT buy a pumpkin. There were pumpkins there, but they were just in a pile at the entrance to the store, and we can probably just pick one out of a pile at Bi-Lo for half the price.
4. We did NOT spend any money. We had borrowed $30 from our friends, but it turned out that we didn't need it.
5. We did NOT make it past the bamboo forest to the barnyard area where there were apparently sheep, goats, chickens, and turkeys. This would have been my favorite part; I"m not sure why we didn't go there. Oh well. Next time :)

Apples or not, it was great to get out of the house and do something different, and it was fun to hang out with friends.

On our way home, we stopped at Mema and PapaBob's for a visit.



Max was being a pretty good sport, despite the long day. He did have a minor incident which required an outfit change, but luckily I have finally learned to carry a spare set of clothes!


We finally made it home from our busy and fun day, and this is the scene at our house right now...