Traditional Fall Fun and Corn Maze

Since we've been married we have created our own little family fall traditions. One is that we always go to a corn maze. Over the past few years we have been to a few and I haven't been impressed. A few of our friends have told us about Barton Orchards in NY and how great it is. I was excited to find out they had an orchard as well as a corn maze and several other fun fall things. So last Saturday we made the one hour trip north to the orchard. It was a beautiful day! I can't believe how warm the weather has been for this time of year. At one point I was curing myself for wearing jeans.

There is a lot to do at the orchard and we got there a little past noon. We were both hungry so we went to look for food. I was shocked that so many people were there. I shouldn't have been though, it really was a gorgeous fall day and this is the place to be on a gorgeous day in the fall. We had to wait almost 45 min to get lunch. It was worth it to me because I got a pepper/onion sausage wedge with LOTS of spicy deli mustard, which is my new favorite. Honestly, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. We had out lunch while listening to a live band play some beach boys, the atmosphere was great.

After lunch we walked around and went to check out this family fun area. It did look like a lot of fun for kids, but for the two of us it wasn't that exciting. Maybe when our kids are a little older. Then we went to the corn maze. As mentioned we had done a few and none have presented a challenge. This one however was 5 ACRES... so we knew it would be a different story. They gave us a little packet with a word game in it. (You had to find all the word stations to find the missing letters in the mystery word. Then it had a section where you had to do 9 crayon rubbings that you would find in the maze. On the back was a map of the maze, but you could only see it when put under a viewing station found somewhere in the maze. I was very ambitious at first and wanted to find all the word, rubbing and look out stations in addition to finding our way out. It was clear after about 20 min that our objective was simply - find your way out. This maze was HUGE! We saw several people hold a flag up to signal they needed help, we were determined to at least do it on our own. I think we did pretty good. We applied some strategy and made in out in just over an hour or so. 

As we exited the maze we could smell the warm, homemade apple cider doughnuts. We had been waiting all day to get them. Our friends told us they were the best donuts (I never know which was way is the most socially accepted way to spell doughnuts) they had ever had. I had a hard time believing that, because donuts happen to be a weakness of mine, I've eaten my fair share of out of this world donuts. I wasn't sure how these would add up but I was excited to have one. They sold them in dozen, half dozen and single form. Our friends had asked us to get them a dozen. I even called to confirm that she really wanted a dozen donuts for two people. Mike and I were only getting a half dozen and one single to eat on the spot. I should have known by the size of the line that the donuts would be good and I should have gone with the irrational part of my mind that said "get a dozen." Oncortunanly, after 30 min of waiting in line I got half a dozen for us and the single. Since mike was waiting in line for a milkshake else where I had to walk over to meet him. The donuts I had gotten were still warm and I started to eat my half of the donut n the way to meet Mike. HOLY MOTHER of DONUT GOODNESS!! It was the best donut I had ever had. It was a cake donut, but still light and not to dense.  It almost melted in your mouth, if you had the will power to actually let it stay in your mouth before swallowing it all in one bite. So good. Mike might not have gotten his equal share, but I figured the baby needed her taste too ;) We debated getting more but didn't want to wait in the long line again. It was probably for the best though. I'm trying really hard to watch what I eat when it comes to junk food. 

Mike spent the next 35 min waiting in line for a milkshake that turned out to be less than mediocre. While he waited on his shake I checked out the orchard. I didn't like that they made you buy a bag and pick a minimum amount of apples, I only wanted a few so I decided to opt out of the apple picking part of our trip. Maybe next time. 

We headed home shorty after Mike finished his shake. I got some hot apple cider for the road, even though it was 75 and a cold bottle of water made much more since, it's all part of the experience. It was the picture perfect fall day. OSU was even kind enough to have a by that week so I didn't have to rush home to watch them. Seriously a great day. I love our little family traditions.