How do you like them apples?

Friends J and S and their kids L and E invited us to go apple-picking this weekend, at the same place where Z took his first bite of an actual non-sliced-up fruit about three years ago. Meh unfortunately had to work, but I got the kids into the car with snacks and road trip music (it's about an 80-minute drive to the U-Pick apple orchard) in hand. O promptly conked out, so Z and I chatted about all of the fun things that we saw -- there was a parked classic steam locomotive, a building that looked like a crane (it was, appropriately enough, a crane supply/rental shop -- a ton of them were parked behind it), a car repair shop with a tiny old Fiat up on the room, the largest telephone pole either of us had ever seen, and an alarmingly large collection of drydocked boats spanning several miles of the highway.

O had perfect nap timing, waking up as we pulled into the farm. It was much the way we remembered it -- the boys even played on the same pink toy tractor that Z had on our last visit. (Despite the suggestion from the picture, O was not particularly unhappy about Z's turn; he was just waking up.) Then it was time to pick some apples!

The weather was glorious -- 75 degrees in October? The kids got a ride in the cart (which we promptly dumped at the first row of the orchard), and Z helped push. It's a bit later in the season this time, so some of the apple trees were already bare. Others had dropped *lots* of fruit, and what I thought might be a couple of flies turned out to be giant swarms of very happy bees. We gingerly stepped through and found apples to eat and to bring home for snacks and lunches (I put one in the boys' lunch today). Z found one particular apple that he was sampling for the better part of an hour. Then there was a hay ride. Well, the hay wagon part anyway; I think they do rides around Halloween. The boys had a great time; it took forever to coax them back out to help us pick out a pumpkin to bring home.

To wrap things up, they were pouring glasses of fresh apple cider; O was thrilled to sip one ("It's like apple juice. Only warmer.") on the walk back to the car. As we got into the car and buckled up, I told O about all of the fun stuff Z and I had seen on the drive up. He didn't believe me that he'd fallen asleep and taken a nap through it all, so I had to basically call out all of the landmarks in reverse as we drove home. He'd excitedly say "Oh! I *do* see that!", then immediately demanded I let him know what the next thing was that we'd see. Tourist.

More pics here.