A Drive on an Autumn Afternoon

With a lovely fall day ahead of us, M. and I decided on a Sunday afternoon drive yesterday after lunch.  I packed a cooler of drinks and M. promptly went out to the apple tree to pick a few, telling me that we must have apples on an autumn drive.  With apples on the brain, I suggested we drive down towards the Maryland line to try and find the old apple orchard I used to visit as a child. 

With a hodge-podge of grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, we would head to the same apple orchard every autumn.  On a beautiful Sunday afternoon we would sip samples of apple cider from the big barrel that jutted right out of the wall and buy bags of apples for the ride home.  We would walk across the country road to the barn where they sold gourds and enjoy the displays that were created of cartoon characters made from pumpkins.  Several of the orange globes and warty gourds would find their way into the trunk to decorate our homes. 

M. and I found the orchard yesterday.  Unfortunately, it was out of business.  The warehouse where we bought the apples and the barn that featured the pumpkins looked old and forlorn.  It made me a little sad.

But fortunately, the day was too lovely to be sad for long.  The apples and autumn air were both crisp and delicious.  And we kept driving - down roads of stone, past huge fields of almost-ready-to-be-harvested corn, past a little pond covered with water lilies where a man sat on a dock painting a bench.  We stopped at a tiny fish hatchery and peeked in the tanks to see the piles of beautiful speckled trout. 

M. and I made new memories yesterday, and some day they will be old memories.  I'm just thankful for them all.