Manhattan Chowder, Back in the Big Apple: It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Sunday, October 01, 2006

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

"Let's go apple picking!" my boyfriend Scott suggested earlier this week. Sure, why not? We've spent the last couple of weekends in town and there are about a million apple picking-type farms out where my parents live in western Jersey. Easy enough, I thought.

The forecast for the weather this weekend said sunny and cool for Saturday and a chance of showers on Sunday. Easy. Let's go on Saturday. It was beautiful in the city yesterday if you didn't count the traffic clogging the Henry Hudson Parkway up the West Side to the GW Bridge. No problem, we'll take Riverside Drive all the way up. It's a prettier ride anyway.

We cross the bridge on the lower level (less pretty but less traffic, too) and head into Jersey. I miss a turn, but know Jersey well enough to get us back on track with an alternate route. We fight about whose iPod to play in the car--Scott wins. He usually does. We get all the way out to the right exit off I-80 and it starts to rain. Perfect. I can hardly wait to go climbing over hill and dale in the mud picking freakin' apples. We stop for lunch and do some shopping to let the rain pass. It does, but leaves gloomy clouds behind.

We get to one of the aforementioned farms and about 900 families have had the same idea. Children everywhere. Great. We discover it's too early for apple picking at this particular farm, but pumpkins are in season. We head toward the pumpkin patch which is at least a five mile hike. We get halfway there, turn around and decide to buy one pre-picked up front. When we get there, Scott decides any pumpkin we buy now will be moldy in our New York apartments by Halloween and of course he's right. So we snap a few pictures and call it a day.

Below are some photos from our outing.

Children everywhere.