A Happy Saturday

1. Breakfast at Douceur de France

2. Hiking at Leita Thompson Park
3. Dinner at Olive Garden (we haven't been there in years!)

Fall in the Mountains

The Professor and I set out this morning with plans to "do something fun", but we didn't know what it would be. We headed north because north is where the fall color is, and eventually we thought of Brasstown Bald in the mountains.

We wound up the steep mountains, enjoying the beautiful colors, sparkling against the sunny sky. At Brasstown Bald we had a choice of hiking the 1/2 mile to the visitor center at the top of the mountain, or taking the shuttle. Not feeling particularly lazy today, we opted for the very steep hike. We saw more color that way.
We heard rumors that someone famous was also hiking today.
If you go, you can skip the movie in the theater. Take our word for it.

Later, as the afternoon waned, we looked for someplace interesting to eat dinner. We stopped at an apple orchard, but they only had a deli. Next to the deli I spied a tourist brochure rack, where a riverside restaurant was advertised. Off we went, following the brochure's directions. On and on we drove, deeper into the forest. It was beginning to look a little hopeless, when suddenly we saw cars parked all over both sides of the narrow road. It must be trailhead parking, I thought, but no, there was a a funky old mountain building on the side of the road. It turned out to be a very good restaurant specializing in mountain trout. Sadly, it was beginning to get dark and cold, so we didn't sit on the deck overlooking the river. Next time maybe.

Operation Christmas Child

The Professor and I decided to get into the holiday spirit last night by doing our shopping for Operation Christmas Child. Our tradition is to begin the season this way. This year we put together four boxes (four, because we already had four stuffed animals, four packages of pencils, and four bandanna scarves for wrapping.) We crawled the aisles at Wally World and we had so much fun buying toys, caps and sunglasses, school supplies, and hair fancies.

Apple Picking

The Professor and I drove up to the mountains on Saturday to check out the "Apple Highway", and perhaps buy a bag of apples. We hadn't been up there for over 10 years, so we really didn't know what to expect.

It was a beautiful, warm and sunny fall day. At the first orchard, we bought a half-bushel of Rome Beauty apples so I could make applesauce. At the second orchard we bought a bag of Stayman Winesap apples, just for eating. After that, we decided to stop at every orchard along the highway, and buy something different at each one. Soon we had tried apple cider doughnuts, fried apple pies, dried cinnamon apples, and many varieties of fresh pressed cider.

At BJ Reece Orchards we saw a sign for picking apples. How fun! Soon we were roaming the hillsides, picking a few of one variety here and a few of another variety there, until we had our full weight of 10 pounds.On Sunday I baked an apple pie, and on Monday I turned the Rome Beauty apples into 10 pints of unsweetened applesauce.