Slept in a little bit, me more so than Keith. But when i came downstairs Keith has this wonderful slideshow ready for me. Brought tears to our eyes watching it! After breakfast we got ready and headed up to Backbone state park to hit the oldest geocache in Iowa! Along the way we stopped in a little town to grab our 499th one which was a Cars themed, pretty lame, quick park and grab in a tree that happened to be covered in box elder bugs! YUCK! Keith made that grab! Back in the car to get to the park. Got there and drove around for a few miles it seemed trying to find the closest "parking". The cache was at the top of the "mountain", seriously there was drop off cliffs! The parking lot was over a half mile away, and it was downhill. So we ended up finding a little pull off at the top that made us about .35 miles away. Not bad, and not much climbing to do! Walk down the road and we are able to get within .20, so in we go! I was surprised at how little brush there was to bushwack though! And yes we all wore pants!! Got to ground zero and the gps units are bouncing all over due to the heavy tree cover. There is some pretty big drop offs nearby so we tell the kids to take a seat or find a tree to hug and stay up towards the top, not down where we were searching. Keith is over looking at one spot by a cliff and I hear him jump and start falling down it! OMG! Thankfully he didn't hit a super steep spot and was able to stop. But then I was worried about injuries. He walked away with only a bloody thumb! His excuse was he was halfway down the cliff and didn't want to climb back up and walk around the safe way. UGG! I gave him a good talking to for that one! There was a gorgeous column of rocks by a drop off that you could see coming in. I commented on it once I saw it, but we didn't look too good there and the units were pointing elsewhere (although they were pointing everywhere too) We searched for a good 30-45 minutes and guess where Keith found the cache?? Yup by that gorgeous column of rocks! We let the boys come down for pictures and to check it out. Then climb back up the hill without falling! We did find some cool turkey feathers that Salem kept. Keith found some for us all, and then we picked up a few more.
After getting back to the car we picked all the burrs off us and headed to have a picnic by the playground. That was very short lived! Anyone know what happens when it's harvest season??? All the "lady bugs" (fake ones) that live in the corn and soybeans come out to annoy the people! We could not enjoy our lunch due to the swarm of lady bugs that was invading us! And then the bees came out to play as well. I had to keep laughing as Kaden was totally freaking out about them all. I was too, but trying to keep my cool. Keith kept on eating, but we finally gave up and packed our lunch up. The kids went to play on the playground, but it too had the bugs. So off we went! Going back though the park was a scenic outlook spot we stopped at. Great view of the trees and valley and the river! There was turkey vultures flying around and some guy said there was an eagle too, but we didn't see it. Didn't get to enjoy it too much as the "lady bugs" were there too! Man that park had it in for us! Not going to visit unless it's winter!Since we were semi close we made a pit stop at Strawberry Point to see the largest strawberry!! It's a fake one and hokey, but something to say you've done! As I was talking pictures the kids had great ideas on how I could photoshop them sitting at the top of the strawberry or climbing up it. They don't realize I stink at PS! I guess I need to learn! The strawberry was a quick stop...although no "lady bugs" were there.
Back on the road down towards home for a bathroom break then onto Swisher for an apple orchard! On our honeymoon we stopped at a really neat orchard and last year we found one, so thought it might be cool to take the kids to one this year. We found a pick your own orchard! Really cool, and fun it was! Keith LOVED the apple picking stick! Kaden and Salem thought it was too cool they were able to eat all the apples they wanted out in the fields for free! We wandered all over the orchard! UP and down each row checking out the trees, I think we even wandered into some rows we weren't supposed to, but oh well. At the front of each row had signs stating what kind of apples were there so it was easy to navigate, but you had to go back to the front each time to see the next row. We ended up going by sight and guessing the apples. Kaden was bummed the golden delicious crop was so bad this year. Lots of apples, but covered in bad spots and worms and such. Mommy loved the McIntosh trees, lots of them! Salem went for the red delicious ones and Keith again was happy with his apple picking stick! The boys each had a basket to carry apples and we got a ton! Not as many as I thought, but I think close to 11 pounds. It was $1.50 per pound to pick your own. Not much cheaper than the grocery store, but WAY more fun! Salem said he wished he lived across the street from the orchard so he could come over every day and pick apples.
After that we headed down to Iowa City area to another orchard. I had read good things about this one online, so thought we'd hit it as well. I have to say I was disappointed in this one, but we still had fun!! The orchard was HUGE and I mean HUGE!!! It was HUGE enough that you are allowed to drive your car around the orchard!!! They give you a map and if you're looking for certain apples they mark it for you. Yeah HUGE! The main road into the orchard is called the runway...it sure looks like a runway! We were goofy and put our arms out the window to look like a plane, lol! Noone was around, so it was all cool with everyone! Oh but back to the start, they have a barn you go get your basket from. They also have certain trees you can pick off, the ones with orange flags. The apples they grow are REALLY strange names! Like they don't have empire or red delicious or McIntosh or those normal kinds, no they have suncrisp (which we ended up getting a bunch of) and jonfree and cox orange pippen kind or what about a pinata. And song of September, what kind of apple is that??? We got a list of them and wow, they were strange! I'm sure they are very good, but I don't know what to do with them, so we stuck with the suncrisp which was a mix of golden delicious and the orange kind and something else. Tasted pretty good. We had fun driving around looking for orange flags to check the tree name. The apple selection was pretty slim, not many good ones left at all. The best part in the kids...and Keith's eye...okay I thought it was pretty cool too had nothing to do with apples. It was the road heading to the back of the orchard you had to cross a creek. Now we figured there was a little bridge...nope, you drove through the water!! Man had a blast with that!!! Car got a nice underwash...twice! I got the video camera out and taped it even, lol. But driving around that orchard was weird, just seemed not nature-ish, but it was nice not to have to walk all over it!Back at the barn we got our apples and got suckered into some apple turnovers too. Oh man they smelled SO good!! They didn't taste all that great I thought, but they were yummy, once they cooled down.
It was getting late and dark and we needed to get dinner. I had a ham at home, but it was too late to cook that. We ended up at Ruby Tuesday's, hadn't been there in ages!! Keith had some steak and shrimp, lots of shrimp! I had sirloin and yummy mashed potatoes. Salem had chicken breast and broccoli (no he didn't eat any of it) and Kaden had mini hamburgers and fries. Oh Keith and I also had the salad bar which consisted of little lettuce, lots of bacon bits and ham for me and same but with tons of cheese for Keith. We did get some greens in there though. We saved dessert for home and the kids had "saturdaes".
We all conked out early, the day wore us out! But it was a blast!!! We're definitely going to hit the orchard next year...maybe a couple times! It was a great anniversary, lots of happenings and some nice quality time the family spent together!
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