Gallavanting around the north shore

I gave Mellif a good 3 days to write about last Saturday's excursion, but she hasn't gotten around to it, so here we go.

The weather finally chilled out and we decided to go out apple-picking and pumpkining. Ever since we got the new horseless carriage, we've been aching to go on drives. Let me tell you something, sir: Massachusetts's North Shore is a beautiful place, that's for shore. Ha!

First stop: Russell Farm in Ipswich. We battled my arch nemesis Route 1A to arrive at the oh-so-scenic farm sitch-ee-ated about 100 hops, skips, and jumps away from the ocean, if you're the world-record holder in the triple jump. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was Russell Farm a place to find apples and pumpkins, it also housed the largest pig I dared ever to lay eyes on! This pig's floppy ears were bigger than my head, and the sucker weighed 1000 pounds. He just sat there like a lazy lummox until I yelled at him to justify his existence and come out from the depths and put away the cottage cheeseries and mow the lawn. Which he did. Promptly.

Also seen at Russell Farm: A mini hoss, a regular-sized hoss, 4 Charlie Browns (goats), lambs (no lions), a few rabbits, a quite large turkey, and chickens with Large Talons. However, we looked and looked and so no sign of Russell! Russell has quite the reputation for shirking, and it was only noonish, so I'm sure he was just barely crawling out of bed to begin his 6-hour piano practicing.

After admiring the animals, we took a hayride, which I had never done. It was enjoyable, although "hayride" is a bit of a misnomer, it's more of a ride in a wagon and you sit on a bale of hay while the kids on the wagon take pictures of you. It pretty much just cruised around the orchard. We weren't allowed to pick apples, because they had already mostly been picked, although I did see some major dabstances left behind on the trees. I think it funny that I used to HATE picking apples, especially at the Church Welfare farms (not nearly as much as I hated picking cherries, especially in the Goodwin's backyard), but now I was bummed that I couldn't pick apples.

The big theme of the day was "appreciation". I definitely appreciate going out to the country a lot more now and I try to soak in the beauty as much as I can. I am also trying to appreciate our hossless carriage, seeing as it's the nicest car (by far!) that I've ever owned and I'm trying to take care of it. My biggest appreciation is my wife: I try to appreciate her every second of every day, because I am extremely lucky to have her.

Anyway, that's enough of THAT. Back to the tomfoolery. Russell Farm has an extensive market with all sorts of apple-related products like cider and sauce and even apple donuts (deliciousness!), but the only thing NOT overpriced were the apples (and the hayride-only 1 dollar!). As my siblings will agree, you get used to paying a lot more for inferior products (technical term: getting ripped-off) out in the East, so seeing something that's NOT a rip-off is quite a pleasant surprise. So we grabbed a couple dozen apples and a half-dozen donuts and even picked up 1/6-dozen pumpkins. The pumpkins were like me: huge, intelligent, and funny. I won't mention that I had a pretty hard time carrying them out to the car. Pretend I didn't mention that.

After leaving Russell Farm, we headed out on my arch-ally, Route 127. Route 127 is a little windy road that passes lots of scenic stuff and has no traffic lights, unlike Route 1A, which is the route of all evil, hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Wooo! Anyway, that landed us right at Gloucester Harbor (pronounced Glou-steh hah-bah), which looked cool enough, so we parked right there next to the statue and went for a walk.

What started as a pleasant walk next to the harbor ended as we walked right into the middle of a worldwide cyclocross competition. This competition had a little of everything: off-road, on-road, sandpits, tight turns, long stretches, uphill, downhill, even a part where you have to carry your bike up a hill. It was the coolest course I have EVER seen. We watched it until the winner finished and headed home.


These dudes totally almost ran us over. Like, totally.


Here is the course that winds through the park and such.


The lovely Mellif mocking the duck. Poor duck.


Can you find Kent? Huh, can you? He looks just like the pumpkins!

And now, the obligatory web cartoon, reminding me of Jo's experience at the Texas State Fair.