Last year a friend told me about the Maple Festival over in Highland County which is about 1 hour and 45 minutes from here. We weren't able to make it last year and this year I put it on the calendar and convinced Mark it would be worth the drive. We were originally planning on going the week after my race with the option to go the day of but I checked the weather for the following Saturday and it showed rain so we decided to go the same day as my race. I got home, got ready for the day and then we left around 11:30. We knew there were pancake breakfasts, syrup farms we could tour lots of maple BBQ and fresh maple donuts. A teacher at Mark's school had mentioned the donuts and told Mark we should not mis them even if there was a long line so we were determined to find them. We had hoped we could meet up with this teacher and his family and as I was waiting in the 30 degree, frigid wind chill weather I saw him leave with his dozen donuts! So I knew we had found the right spot. We did not end up meeting up with them but did run into our friends the Farnsworth's which was fun. We knew they were going but weren't sure if we were so didn't plan on meeting up. We ended up waiting in line for the donuts for about 30 minutes and it was so worth it. I did the first 20 minutes while Mark parked (fortunately he found a spot right by the trailer where the donuts were cooked/sold) and waited in the car with Jared and Lydia. They came out and we switched places so I could go warm up. It was so cold! But the donuts were amazing. So warm and fluffy. After we secured our donuts we went over to the local elementary school and enjoyed a pancake breakfast. This area is up in the mountains and has a very different feel from Charlottesville. I saw this advertisement at the school and sot of chuckled. Not your typical fundraiser, in my experience.
The pancakes were fine, they had buckwheat (which I liked more) and original and it's a good fundraiser but I think next time we go maybe in like 2 years we would skip it and just get the donuts! Mark got a Maple BBQ pork sand which was was yummy too. After checking out the booths we headed down the road to MCDowell to the "Country store" and had a little lesson on how Maple syrup is collected and graded. Next time I would hope to tour an actual farm but it was so cold and it was getting late. There also happened to be Civil War Re-enactors (Re-enactors always make me think of Gilmore Girls) near the store and Jared was so happy to check out their campsite. It was a fun outing. I just love festivals like this. It's not something we would do every year but maybe every 2 years or so. It turned out to be a beautiful day yesterday, perfect to be at such a festival but we are glad we went when we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment