Vacation: Day Three: Brunching and Appling

Our vacation was so fun and so full that I didn't take the time I planned to blog about it. Now that it is over, I'm dedicating some time to share it with you.

So, day three: oh what a fun day this was. We had sweet Deb over for a birthday brunch - Deb's birthday was the week before and Mum's would be the week after. Michele and I made the blueberry stuffed french toast recipe I'd made for my birthday brunch, but this time we used apple and golden raisin bread and plums instead of blueberries for a taste of fall - oh how wonderful it was!

Wonderful women enjoying a wonderful brunch - who could ask for more?

We then went appling - I think I made up that word! - or apple picking - at the prettiest orchard I've ever seen!

We couldn't have asked for a lovelier day or a lovelier orchard!
Doesn't Michele look great amongst those pumpkins!

We started the day with an applesauce tasting to see which apples we'd be sure to pick since we planned on making applesauce. All four of us fell in love with the Rhode Island Greenings, so we drove out to that orchard and started looking for them . . .and looking . . .and looking! We couldn't find them anywhere, so we decided to head farther into the orchard - driving as they'd directed us to do - and I got the car stuck in the mud! A crazy mess indeed!

Millions of apples on hundreds of trees and of course
the shortest of us wants the highest apple!

Well and truly stuck! We tried adding items from the car to provide traction:
paper, Wegman's bags, plywood, Deb even volunteered her coat - all with no success!

A lovely tractor driver pulled the car out of the orchard - and informed us that they'd been out of RI Greenings for quite some time! - and we went on our way to fill our baskets with other apples. We got massive amounts of apples and wore ourselves out on this lovely day! It was just a perfect day - getting stuck in the mud not withstanding!

Hey, is this what they mean by a "tractor-pull"??

After all the stuck-in-the-mud drama, we were tired, but we
still had a ball picking beautiful - and yummy - apples!
These three ladies were great sports - though they all became backseat drivers
everytime I came within feet of anything that even vaguely resembled mud!