Apple Orchard Trip

I wanted us to take a fun fall trip to get some apples. Ellijay is a town in North Georgia that is well-known for its apple orchards. I looked around online and found Hillcrest Orchards, which sounded like it would have some cheesy family fun, in addition to apples. My brother, Tim, came with us, even though he had to wake up early. We started out petting a cow when we realized the batteries in the camera were dead. My wonderful husband went to a local store and bought some overpriced batteries so we could preserve our memories.

We went on a tractor-drawn wagon ride. Supposedly, had we come in September, the wagon would have been pulled by mules.

This was probably the biggest hit of all... a huge slide on the side of a hill! After going down it in a lap, Caroline wanted to do it herself, again and again! Chris, Tim, and I thought it was fun, too!

There was a wgole playground area with slides and tire horse swings. After playing for awhile, it was on to the pig races!

Well, they were supposed to do pig races... but first, they asked for some volunteers. Tim got himself selected. He and the other volunteers competed in a stick horse race to warm up the crowd. He came in first place and won a sickeningly-sweet candy apple.

Here's Caroline and me waiting for the pig races to begin. I had gotten a pumpkin painted on my face to show Caroline what face=painting was like. She was unconvinced, as you can see by her bare cheeks.

And here are the pigsin one of the three races. They get cookies when they win.

Oh, and we got some apples, too!

Afterwards, we went to Colonel Poole's BBQ restaurant for lunch. It is famous for the hill of pigs behind it... customers can pay to have their names put on a wooden pig cutout that is placed on the hill. Quite a sight!