Virginia Is For Lovers

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deckroad

November 23, 2009 at 12:56 pm | #1

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Apple Picking. Virginia-style. (disclaimer: I’ve only visited one orchard.)

You drive out into the beautiful rolling foothills of the Shenandoahs, turn off the highway onto a little farmy side road and follow the apple signs. Sounds familiar to my New England experiences. Until you get to the main barn-house place. There’s a line of cars waiting to get into what one may assume is the parking lot. As you pass the house and pick up your bag and orchard map without getting out of the car, you realize there is something very different. This is drive-in apple picking. The map is a road map, not a foot map. Yet the “roads” are footpaths, or no wider than a tractor trail. Hundreds (seriously) of cars from Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and DC are crawling along these paths, exhaust puffing into the apple trees. You drive right up to the tree you like, and pick from it. The markings on the trees are terrible, so that Gala tree might really be a Stayman (local VA variety). And there are still dozens of cars everywhere. You spot some Galas on the map, still searching for that perfect apple, and drive up the hill to the Gala row. More cars. And a family has pulled out the tailgate party, parked in one of the rows. They’ve got chairs, beers, a picnic. And the kids have wasted the apple harvest by painstakingly lining up apples across the “road” so that cars run over them. Perfect apples, crushed. And kids giggling. After settling for some suspect Granny Smith apples, you slam your car doors, and drive down the lanes, narrowly avoiding rude VA drivers who think these are actual roads with 25 mph speed limits. Back to the barn where you pay (at least it was cheap) and put in your order for caramel apples and cider through your rolled-down window. Back out on the highway. Isn’t fall lovely?