Apple Hill + a birthday

We can’t go through a fall season here in CA without a trip to Apple Hill. Everybody knows that. Last year was special because I got to spend a day there with my Mom. Just me and her. I never get that anymore.

This year, we decided to make the trip for J’s birthday. Ok, well, his birthday was during the week, so we postponed the trip to the weekend. 

We headed up into the Foothills in the early afternoon. Traffic was not too bad, luckily, but Apple Hill was busy – which was to be expected. We still had no problem finding parking.

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First, we checked out the pumpkin patch. Obviously.

Then we were going to get an apple fritter, but the lines were insanely long and so we talked ourselves out of the necessity to have something super-sweet and sugary the size of our heads (kinda ridiculous, I agree).

We walked around instead, looked at all the different things you can make from apples, and did some apple tasting. There is only a handful of varieties that you’ll find at the supermarket, but there were so many new ones to try… have you heard of ‘Pippin’, ‘Honeycrisp’, or ‘Goldrush’?

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We then drove over to Placerville and walked around this old mining town. It was nice, because part of the main street was blocked off from traffic for a wine and art festival that night, so we were able to walk around freely on the street. We got some coffee at a little coffee shop and then later grabbed dinner at the Buttercup Pantry. It’s a similar place to Mary Callendar’s, not anything fancy, but we have good memories of going there for breakfast a few years ago.

Dinner was good. They had a great soup + salad bar that I got to enjoy.

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It was a beautiful fall day and I am so glad we got out for a few hours!

Did you do something fun this weekend?

  1. I want to go on an adventure with you guys. You have so much fun! I need to find a way to get an apple cider donut. From a pumpkin patch or an apple orchard. But we have no car, and I’m on crutches.DAMMIT

    1. Should I send you an apple cider donut from Apple Hill, lovely? It bothers me that you can’t go anywhere right now…

  2. Honey Crisp Apples are my FAVORITE! Did you get to try it?

    1. Yes! It’s one of my favorites, too!

  3. They developed the Honeycrisp Apple here in Minnesota at the University of MN! They are so good! Looks like it was a fun time and a neat place! I love the town you walked around too! A soup and salad bar for dinner sounds amazing!

    1. I had no idea they developped the Honeycrips apple in Minnesota. It’s definitely one of my favorites! :)

  4. Oh, this looks so amazing. And makes me miss California so much! Even though I’m out in a rural town (where you would think they’d have fun pumpkin patches and stuff like this!), we don’t have things like this!

    1. Oh, you don’t have pumpkin patches or apple orchards? That’s a bummer especially during this fun time of the year! California has an abundance luckily!

  5. Honeycrisp apples are so gooooood. What a fun fall adventure!

    1. I am so happy to hear that so many of you know and love Honeycrips! They’re one of my favorites now!

  6. What a wonderful day! The pumpkin patch looks like a lot of fun :)

    1. It was a beautiful and fun day!

  7. Sounds like a great weekend! I LOVE Honeycrisp apples. Those are seriously the best.

    -Lauren

    1. So happy that you all know and love Honeycrisps as much as I do!

  8. Looks like a great day! What a fun place, and those apples sound fantastic. Great pictures!

    1. Thank you, it was a really fun fall day!

  9. This looks like such a fun place! There’s nothing like a great fall day like that :) Happy birthday to J!

    1. Thanks for the birthday wishes – I’ll pass them along :) and yes, it was a beautiful fall day. I love fall!

  10. Apple Hill looks like an awesome place to visit! I love going apple picking during the Fall – it’s always so much fun.

    1. I love having the apple orchards so close!

  11. We have honeycrisp apples here! I am not a big fan of apples, but I do enjoy a honeycrisp one every now and then. :)

    I had a little impromptu lunch adventure with my mom this weekend that was pretty fun!

    1. I guess, even if you aren’t an apple fan, Honeycrisps will get you : )

  12. Honeycrisp apples are our favorite. As someone already mentioned, they were bred in Minnesota. When I was at the market in Seattle back in 2010, they had honeycrisps and I told the vendor they were bred in MN and he laughed and said every Minnesotan tells him this. What can I say, we are proud of our apples! I alos love SweeTangos, which is another MN breed of apples. We have an extensive ag program at the U of M so they often create apple breeds that become very successful!

    Last weekend was a quiet weekend for us which was AMAZING. My favorite part was spending so much time with Phil on Saturday. We hung out in the afternoon, went to a friend’s bday party at a brewery, went to mass at the church where we got married, had dinner at our favorite taqueria, and then watched “The Big Sick” while i worked on my crochet project. It was BLISSFUL!

    1. I love that you love Honeycrips! And yes, someone mentioned that they were bred in MN… I had no idea! Such a fun fact to learn!

      So happy to hear that you had such a lovely weekend with Phil and friends!

  13. HOW FUN! this looks like a great day. also — my mind is blown that brussel sprouts grow like this. LOL

    1. Ha! You didn’t know that brussel sprouts grew that way, did you? ;)

  14. Brussel sprouts are so weird! I love them so much and when I learned how they grew I loved them even more.

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