A few weekends ago Daniel and I went apple picking! I was excited to take Daniel because he had never been before, poor guy. I was also stoked because while I have been before (grew up in Maine, after all), I hadn’t been in probably over 5 years (thanks to living in LA).
I did a little research and found three options: Draper Girls Country Farm, Sherwood Orchards, and Mountain View Orchards.
Sherwood Orchards was tempting because it was only 30 minutes away, but it looked a little small. Mountain View Orchards looked like it had a lot of activities in addition to apple picking, but it was the furthest and Daniel didn’t seem too keen on driving that far.
I ultimately chose Draper Girls because it had a beautiful view, they made their own fresh apple cider, and it was the 2nd closest to us.
Draper Girls also gave us the chance to visit Hood River, which we wanted to do before it got too cold.
We stopped in a super cute town for lunch, and ate at the Hood River British Pub. Mainly because they had a large patio, and since the sun was shining we wanted to soak it up before winter comes. I had the fish and chips and Daniel had the fish tacos, both were delicious and just the right amount of food. The service was painfully slow though, mostly because they had lost a lot of their seasonal help. But it still might deter us from returning.
We also got dessert at Mike’s Ice Cream. We shared a scoop of raspberry chocolate truffle, and it was the tastiest flavor I’ve had in a long time!
We weren’t able to stay too long, but we definitely want to go back and explore more. It looked like there were a lot of great places to eat and drink!
While the drive was a little over an hour outside of Portland, the view of Mt. Hood alone was well worth it. Take a look!
We arrived at the orchard to find there was a huge amount of variety. They even had pears to pick!
In Maine, typically you choose from a variety of different sized bags, or have the apples weighed at the end to determine the cost.
I’m not sure if it was just this farm or if it’s an Oregon thing, but we had to use a HUGE bucket. And the minimum was filling it just to the top, which equaled about 20 lbs. of apples. Yikes! We were a little wary, since how were we possibly going to eat so many apples?
Challenge accepted. We decided when we got home we were going to look up a variety of recipes, both sweet and savory, and incorporate apples into pretty much every meal. So look out for a series of apple recipe posts in the near future!
As you can see from the pictures below, we had a lot of fun while apple picking!
Daniel was braver than I was… I got on the ladder and immediately was like “nope!”
When we were done filling the humongous bucket, we paid for our apples (and a few pears) and bought some apple cider in their little country store. Tip: If you ask for apple cider at the register, be sure to ask about sizes. We didn’t and were automatically brought a gallon jug, which for the two of us is a bit too much. We did appreciate that it also came frozen though, since we had a drive back and were thinking of stopping for dinner.
After that we ventured toward the front of the property, where there was this awesome tree swing! There were also picnic tables, and the day we were there they were selling BBQ and beer. Too bad we had already eaten!
Remember I had mentioned choosing this orchard because of the view? Well, here it is!
This is the view of Mt. Hood from the picnic/swing area, but we caught glimpses of it throughout the day. All in all we had a great time, and we were very happy choosing Draper Girls Farm for our Apple Picking adventure!
Bonus: There are goats on the farm. Specifically, this goat.
