September 14, Apples and Wine

Since we were staying at the really awesome Arrowhead RV Park and Marina on the Mohawk River 2 nights, we had some tourist time to kill on Sunday. Thankfully, the weather was amazing, bright, and sunny and quite cool. We have not even opened windows in the coach at night, it is so cool! We will fire up the heater in the morning to warm things a bit, but that is it.

The Big Beast, back in the trees.

The Mohawk River from the RV park.

             

They put these benches out on a dock. How cool is that?

While we were wondering what to do all day, Jeff's running friend Diane Bolton called and invited us to breakfast. Of course, we went! We went to the Scotia Diner, and it was really good!

I wish someone had gotten the blackberry pancakes!

                     

They had an Elvis/Vegas theme. It was a cute diner.

                   

After breakfast, I decided I wanted to find some pick your own apples.While researching that, we discovered that there was an Apple and Wine Harvest Festival going on in Altamont, which was just about 15 miles away. Closer than the pick your own apples! So, we thought that sounded great. Wine for Jeff and apples for me! We arrived to find a ton of people, must have been the entire county! Not only was the parking lot full, but inside was a mad house!

             

We had a great time, although we had to fight the people. It was really mostly a craft fair, which didn't really interest us, but there was a wine tasting area complete with a logo glass! I actually did taste a couple of wines, although I thought I would not. There was one white ice wine that was out of this world! Jeff bought a couple of bottles, but not the ice wine....

I loved these lighted bottles! Didn't buy one.

We didn't buy any of this, either!

               

Jeff wanted a little pie, but didn't buy one.

                    

Too bad our HOA bans wind chimes. These were cute!

While Jeff was tasting more, Diane called to see what we were doing. She was going to come to the festival, at which I really had a hard time finding an actual apple for sale, but then she suggested we go to the Indian Ladder Apple Farm and pick our own. That was the other place I had found! So, we left the crowds at the wine tasting, and headed that way.

I was concerned about parking the RV, and ended up having to drive through a couple of dirt roads in a field to get to a place that wasn't so crowded I couldn't park it. But once we got parked, it was pretty fun! We found Diane and her friend Lisa really easily. As it turned out, you had to buy a huge bag of them to pick your own, and there were only 2 varieties that you could pick. The one I would have wanted was scratched off the white board at the orchard. So, we opted to buy a bag instead. I have discovered that I like a variety that I have never seen in Texas called Ginger Gold. And Honeycrisp. You can not go wrong with a Honey Crisp! Any way, we wandered around and took in all the sights. There was a petting zoo for kids, and an area that had some farm animals. There was a HUGE line to buy the apple cider donuts, which Jeff had already had at the festival. At one point, we wanted to get a picture of all of us by a loaded down apple tree, so we walked into a "closed" area (no picking going on, with a little sign) and found a tree to use. Picked up a couple of fallen apples to use, so that we could "pretend" to be picking. As we were taking our pics, a man driving a 4 wheeler with a few other people in it drove up. Turns out, he is the owner of the farm! He was the nicest guy! Said he still lives in the house he was born in and grew up in. Pretty amazing! He had a great operation there, so if you are ever in the Schenectady or Albany area, I highly recommend you check out the Indian Ladder Farm!

Owner of the farm!

            

Diane and Lisa. 

               

Other people's camera's have most of our pics.... hopefully they will upload them to Facebook so I can steal them!

We also stumbled upon the GE plant there in Schenectady. It is a huge complex! This sign looks better lit up at night, but oh well!

Afterwards, we went to a local brew pub/grill at a local golf course to eat dinner. It was really good! I can't remember the name, though. Ollie and Oliver? Then Diane invited us to dessert at her brothers house where they had cake for her mom's 75th birthday. They were very warm and welcoming! There are pics of that, also, but again, someone else took them.

All in all, we enjoyed the day.