Right before Steve made his departure we made our way to the apple orchard. The previous weekend was frigid and miserable, but we lucked out with some beautiful weather. It was even a little on the warm side. We had been to this particular orchard just one other time, when my mom had come to visit over two years ago when Hunter was just one week old and I had been craving their caramel apple dip ever since.
We started the morning with some apple cider doughnuts. They really are a little slice of heaven. And although there was just the four of us, Steve walked back with a dozen! A dozen! How could we possibly need a dozen doughnuts for our small family. Steve explained that they only sell them in dozen bags. The marketing people over there are genius!!
We got on the tractor which took us around to the back side of the farm where we were able to choose from a wide variety of apples to pick. We spent some time scoping out the best trees.
Picked our favorite varieties and our 1/2 bushel basket was only half full.
So we then opted for the cheater version of picking apples where they have huge bins of pre-picked apples you can pull from! We topped off our basket and hopped back on the tractor. We bought some lunch while we were there and grabbed a caramel apple pie baked in a brown bag for the road. (It really is the best pie you’ll come across!)
I become nostalgic as I realized our time in Wisconsin was ending. In the back of my mind I kept telling myself that some of the traditions could be carried on wherever we lived, until Steve brought that dream crashing down by saying, “There are no apple orchards in Phoenix, this will probably be our last time for a long while!”
Seriously?
We go every year to an apple orchard. I suppose people in Arizona buy their apples at the store. Perhaps we could carry on the tradition with orange groves…it just doesn’t sound as cool.
It was good thing we had a good go around this last time!
