Whenever it's someones birthday, we always do something fun with the 5 of us.
Since my birthday was this week, i decided we should go apple picking. (like we do each year on my birthday)
Apple picking can be done anywhere of course, but "our spot" is all the way out in the Berkshires, in Williamstown. It's a bit of a drive, but such a beautiful one!
We take all the scenic routes, and make a long day out of it.
So, thursday started good, Kel got the kids dancing in the kitchen, while I got dressed. Then we headed over to Barstow's to have breakfast. Kel and I go here every grocery day, but the kids also love the breakfast sandwiches, so we all had one there. Great start on a cool day! They also each got to pick out a sugar pumpkin to take home, and we brought a bag of cookies for on the road.
Then we headed up route 116, probably one of my favorite and most traveled routes, north, through Hadley, Sunderland, Deerfield, Ashfield into the Berkshires.
The leaves are starting to show their colors, especially once you get further into the hills.
And, even the kids behaved pretty good during the drive.
We decided to take a cookie break somewhere between Adams and Savoy, right by this lake (I think it was the Adams reservoir). After that, we headed further toward Route 7 on the way to hopefully Mount Greylock. Hopefully, because the mountain road has been closed for the past 2 years orso. We got to check it out once a few years ago, but then it got closed for a few years because they had to fix the roads. Well, it was done at last, and they did do a fantastic job
First we stopped by the Mt Greylock visitors center to stamp our park passports.
This is a free passport you can get through the DCR Massachusetts, where they have put in information on all the fun state parks there are. When you visit these parks, you will find a stamp box, unlock it with a code, and stamp the stamp. The idea is really to collect them all. We are Big lovers of the Mass parks, so we love this!
Anyway, it turned out the visitors center was quite fun, they had taxidermy animals there, to the excitement of the kids, and a model of the mount Greylock range, great views and other fun stuff. And, it was warm!
After all, it was a rather chilly day, but being in the mountains made it even colder.
We made a few stops on our way up the mountain, to enjoy the view, and every time we got out, it got colder. Luckily, i brought plenty of sweaters and jackets, scarves and even gloves for the kids. (i learned from the past, Raul is always cold.)
When we reached the summit, we bundled up, and enjoyed ourselves, we even climbed the tower, which i now still feel in my legs! Ouch! It shows I don't exercise!
After a good half our on the summit, my hands were freezing (i didn't bring grown up gloves) and so were Kel's, so we decided to check out Bascom Lodge, remembering from our last visit the crackling fireplaces they had.
When we walked in, it was like getting a warm blanket thrown around you. Such a cozy place, with 2 loudly crackling fireplaces, and a small cafeteria with warm food!
We ordered some soup for Robin, grilled cheese for the boys, and sirloin burgers for us, and had lunch with a view. Raul nearly crawled into the fireplaces, being the coziness loving kid that he is, and decided he should live at The lodge.
After we we warmed up well, we headed back out to the car, and down the mountain on our way to the final stop, Green river farms , our apple picking place.
Quinn was in apple heaven, eating sometimes 2 apples at a time, and we filled up our apple bag pretty quick. The kids then played in the fabulous playground for a while, where there's a huge playhouse, and a big wooden pirate ship play structure, then they went inside the petting farm for a while.
We headed back home over the Mohawk trail, stopped along the way because Robin claimed she felt sick (but turned out fine), so we took a little walk. There turned out to be a small old burial ground which Raul really wanted to check out, so we did. Most graves were from people who died in the late 1700's early 1800's, so it was quite interesting.
Raul is really into zombies these days, so he wanted to know some things, and all this of course spiked Robin's interest, so we ended up talking about zombies, death and Angels for a while. We hit another stamp box as well, the one for the Mohawk trail, so Raul and I got stamping for a a while, and then we really headed home.
We got home around 7.00 pm, the kids showered, and I made some apple cinnamon pancakes for dinner.
Needless to say, everyone fell asleep rather quick at bedtime, it was a great day!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment