Apple Picking at Martin Vineyards

The weekend after Labor Day, just as the first tinges of fall were beginning to show themselves in the trees and on the air, James and Anne and I drove down to Knotts Island, North Carolina, to do some apple picking. Martin Vineyards & Orchard has been open for apple-picking since July, but we really wanted to wait until it was almost autumn to go -- it just isn't the same, picking apples without that little crispness in the air.

Knotts Island in late summer is beautiful, with the green and gold fields and the tall brown marsh reeds against all that blue sea and blue sky. We stopped for lunch at Pearl's Bay Villa, the town's one restaurant, and then we drove on to the little vineyard and orchard on the shores of the bay, just across the water from the far northern North Carolina Outer Banks. As we bumped down the grassy road we could already see tons of ripe apples dotting the trees. We paid for our bushel bag, and then we got to picking.

The Granny Smiths were in season, so that was mostly what we got, but there were a few Pink Ladys and Galas dotting the very top branches, where most of the pickers couldn't reach. Luckily, we had a secret weapon

Anouk had an absolute blast -- she's an apple fiend, so she was pretty much in heaven. She swiped several apples from low-hanging branches and ate them as quick as she could. We had to stop her from sampling the ones that had fallen to the ground. The orchard echoed with her little cries of "yum, yum, yum, YUM!"





Once we'd filled our bags, we went to look out at the water for a while and then wandered around the shady paths. By the time we headed home, just as the sun was starting to get low in the sky, we felt like we'd gotten our fill of both apples and of pure coastal North Carolina beauty. I already want to go back -- I have a feeling a September visit to Martin's Vineyard is going to become an annual family tradition.

For more information on apple picking in the Hampton Roads area, check out My Active Child's post.

What are your favorite apples? More importantly, what are your favorite apple-based recipes? Send 'em over -- we could use them.

Pork, Peanut, and Pine Festival

J., A., and I were out of town for the majority of the weekend for a wedding (in which A. fulfilled all of her flower girl duties with aplomb, we are so proud). On the way home Sunday, we decided to be crazy and take a pretty significant detour so that we could stop by the annual Pork, Peanut, and Pine Festival at Chippokes Plantation State Park in Surry. We just weren't ready for the fun to be over, I guess.

For 38 years, the festival has been put on to celebrate the Southeastern VA region's natural resources. When you first come across it, the combination of pork, peanut, and pine sounds a little strange but after a little while it starts to make perfect sense. It turns out there is nothing quite like eating a BBQ sandwich after a handful of freshly-roasted peanuts while the sun glints on the carved wood crafts in the nearby booths. It all works together.

Besides the three main attractions, we also visited blacksmith and turner demonstrations, examined some antique farm equipment, made friends at a petting zoo, and danced to the Hard Knox bluegrass band.  We toured the antebellum mansion that gives the park its name and found some handmade art to take home. And maybe the highlight of it all, we had our very first taste of peanut pie.

It was a really fun end to a special weekend. I think the PP&P festival might become a family tradition.

Rosewell Plantation

Molly and I have been talking about taking the kids on a few day trips this summer, to get away from our comfort zone of library and splashpad and park, to explore some destinations a little further afield from Hampton Roads. Our first trip was to Rosewell, an 18th century plantation house in Gloucester, Virginia.

At one point in time, Rosewell was known as the most beautiful house in the American colonies. Built by the Page family in 1725, it encompassed over 12,000 square feet of living space plus several outbuildings. For almost 200 years, Rosewell hosted some of the country's most elaborate and luxurious parties and balls. Thomas Jefferson was a frequent guest, and actually wrote a draft of the Declaration of Independence while staying there.

The house burned down in 1916, and today, only ruins remain. Not much besides the four corner chimneys and some of the exterior walls are left standing, but we still found plenty to see while we were there. Unbeknownst to us, the ruins themselves are off-limits (there were no signs posted, so we just waltzed up the stairs and poked around inside -- oops), but two walking trails leading through the woods to nearby Carter Creek and to the old ice house are perfect for a kid-sized hike.

After exploring, we had a picnic lunch under the trees. The kids ran out some energy and had a mock swordfight or two on the grounds of the old Page family cemetery (nobody's buried there now -- the graves have been moved to a nearby churchyard). On the way out, we stopped by the small gift store and museum, which features artifacts found in and around the house during a recent archeological dig.

Bring boots (the grass isn't mowed), bring bug spray (ouch, is all I'll say), and watch out for poison ivy. But make the trip, it's worth it.

Happy weekend!

Road trip to Cape Charles

After visiting Kiptopeke State Park on Saturday, James and Anne and I set off on a little road trip. The toll to get over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore is pretty steep ($17 round-trip), and it seemed like a waste to drive right back without exploring a little more. We ended up spending a few hours poking around Cape Charles, and by the end of the day, decided we'd definitely gotten our money's worth.

(As an aside, I think I've decided that winter is one of my favorite times to visit beach towns. It's not crowded with tourists, which means the locals aren't sick of us yet, and that means we can spend more time talking to them and getting to know the ins and outs of the place. Also, you can have a good scope and find out the best spots -- that way if you do come back in summer, you'll already know just where to go to have a good time. And finally, the beach has a special kind of beauty in the winter -- the landscape is so austere, and without the distraction of sand toys and swimming and boogie boards and sunburn, you can appreciate its beauty a little more. Bonus: THERE ARE NO MOSQUITOES. The Eastern Shore has a little bit of a mosquito problem in summer... my mom likes to tell a story about visiting Wallop's Island for work and looking down to see her nude pantyhose BLACK with the little suckers. Shudder.)

We started off our Cape Charles adventure with lunch at Sting-Ray's restaurant in Capeville. Sting-Ray's is a quintessential stop if you're in the area, one of those places that should be featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (if it hasn't been already). From the outside, the restaurant doesn't look like much -- it's actually located inside of an Exxon station. But the food is amazing. Tons of fresh, local seafood, including oysters, crab, and fried drum, navy bean soup and clam chowder, and homemade pies for dessert.

After we ate, we took a turn down a long country road and found ourselves at the old site of Arlington plantation, home to the Custis family (Daniel Custis was the first husband of George Washington's wife, Martha). In it's day, Arlington was the most architecturally sophisticated house in the country and was an important location in Bacon's Rebellion, an important clash between the American colonists and their English governors. Unfortunately, Arlington is no longer standing, but the old foundation has been preserved, along with the family tomb (the O.G. Arlington cemetery) situated picturesquely by the bay.




From there, we headed down to the Cape Charles Historic District, and spent a while walking and viewing some of the town's old Victorian mansions. Did you know that Cape Charles has the highest concentration of Victorian buildings anywhere on the East Coast? The town was planned and built between the 1880s and 1920s, which means every single house we saw was loaded withgingerbread scrollwork, turret towers, and roof gables. We stopped for a while at Central Park and at the Cape Charles beach, which happens to be the only public bayside beach on the Eastern Shore. It was gorgeous, with a seawall and a sweet beach pavilion -- and even a few intrepid swimmers braving the cold, cold waves. We didn't -- we're not that adventurous. But we did promise we'd come back and test the waters when the weather is warmer.

We finished with a trip to Rayfield's Pharmacy, which features an old-fashioned soda fountain and jukebox, where we got chocolate malteds and watched Baby A. boogie down.

 

All in all, it was a rambly day, full of local flavor, new and interesting sights and sounds. The stuff the very best road trips are made of.

Have you ever been to Cape Charles? What are your favorite Eastern Shore destinations?