Saturday, July 2, 2011

Peaches

Today my best friend May invited me to go peach picking with her family.  I was really excited to go with them and was excited by the idea of picking my own peaches.  We were also considering the idea of stopping at a wild flower farm which was close to the peach farm that we had chosen.  The area where the peach farm was located was home to several other peach farms as well and May had called around yesterday to try to find out the best place to go. Her first choice was labeled as "by appointment only" and she tried multiple times to call them but to no avail.  Her second choice had posted on their website that they were low on peaches and advised customers not to come.  So we had picked place three and planned our trip.

We left around 9am to trek out to the peach farm about an hour and a half away.  Two hours later we thought we had found the place where the peach farm should have been but after driving up and down the same stretch of highway at least three times we had to admit that we were completely and utterly lost in the middle of nowhere.  To make matters worse we were all also in desperate need of a bathroom.  Thinking that the wild flower farm was only a little farther down the same road we drove another half hour trying to figure out where in the world we were.  We had not brought my GPS device as May had decided we didn't need it and had said that "getting lost was part of the adventure."  Her poor hubby was driving the car and seemed to be bordering on the edge of losing his patience.  Their five year old wanted to know why we hadn't found peaches yet and their 4 month old baby was starting to get hungry.  We tried to look up directions on May's phone but of course she had no Internet service.

Finally we found a small shop that said Library and Resale and did not look totally sketchy.  We decided that this might be an OK place to use the restroom and feed the baby.  Out of desperation to find out where in the world we were and where we were supposed to be going I decided to call my younger sister for a favor.  I barely had any bars on my phone since we were literally out in the middle of no where but managed to get a call out to her.  When she picked up the phone I asked her if by any chance she was home and near a computer.  We were in luck.  Even though she lives literally several states away she logged onto her computer and called up google maps to find out where we were.  Twenty minutes later she informed us that we had literally driven an hour and half in the wrong direction.  If we had only driven the opposite way we would have found all of the farms and the wildflower farm.  Thank God for little sisters who are willing to help a big sister out!  She gave us directions via text messages so that we could follow them and good naturedly told us to let her know if we needed her to google us home. 

We all used the restroom and May bought a few items in the shop.  By this time we were starving so following my sister's directions we got back on the highway and started back towards the peach farm.  We stopped when we got to the main town for lunch which proved to be interesting since May was allergic to practically everything on the menu.  Poor May. She ended up eating bread and cheese.

After lunch we piled back into the car and continued our trek.  Finally we began to see peach farms.  First we passed May's first choice farm (the one that had not answered the phone to make an appointment) but we continued on.  A short while later we FINALLY arrived at the peach farm that we had originally intended to visit (choice 3).  Only problem was they didn't look like they were letting anyone pick the peaches.  It looked like they were only selling them.  May and I looked at each other and sent her hubby out to check on the situation.  He spent over five minutes talking to the clerk at the stand and May and I could tell that the news was not going to be good.  He finally came back to the car holding a pamphlet about peach farms containing a map.  "You guys are not going to believe this" he said.  "They were letting people pick peaches last week but just this week they bulldozed their peach orchard so that they could plant new trees."  May and I looked at him with disbelief.  "THEY BULLDOZED THEIR ORCHARD?"  What are the odds?  not only that, but the clerk had informed May's hubby that our first choice farm had not been allowing customers to pick their own peaches for several years.  Go figure.  2-2 This was not going well.  

We started the car back up disappointed but not totally crushed because we had been told that choice 2 farm was still allowing pick your own peaches and we had also passed the wildflower farm on the way to farm 3 so we were excited to go there.  While May's hubby drove to the wildflower farm May called peach farm 2 to see if they really were running low on peaches as their website had claimed.    She was told that they did have some peaches but not a ton.  The pamphlet given to us by farm 3 told us that farm 2 was open until 6pm so we decided to stop at the wildflower farm first and then go there on the way home.

bellinis and Alex, May's five year old had some peach ice cream. 

An hour or so later our spirits were renewed and we got back in the car to visit the last peach farm before they closed.  After all we still wanted peaches since that had been our original plan.  Following the map from the pamphlet we made our way.  At 4:50pm we arrived at the peach farm.  But guess what?  The farm was closing... in two minutes.  I couldn't believe our luck.  The farm's owner informed us that they had not been open until 6pm for several years and that the info on the pamphlet was far out of date.  3-3.  I couldn't believe it.

Fully disappointed we piled back into the car for the last time and headed towards home.  The baby seemed to sense our frustration and began to fuss.  Alex fell asleep and May, her husband, and I commiserated on our bad luck.  I mean seriously... what are the odds? We finally arrived home around 6pm.  Although our quest for peaches was a complete and total bust we agreed to consider the day a good one since the wildflower farm had been fun and since we had really enjoyed each other's company.  May's husband wants to retry farm 2 that had been closing when we arrived next weekend but May and I are not yet sure if we are up for Quest for Peaches 2.0.  After all... even though picking your own is fun... the grocery store sells peaches for 88 cents a pound with no long disappointing trek required.

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