Pocono Talk

Shawnee Mountain has a variety of events throughout the year, one event that I wanted to get to but I’m just way too busy this weekend is the Timber & Balloon Festival.  This past week has been a mess weather wise – snow, rain, cold.  The festival ran from Friday night through Sunday, Saturday morning it was snowing so it probably would have been pretty miserable, but today seems like it would have been a nice day.  It’s definitely on the cold side with the wind, but it would be a nice day to get out before winter really sets in.

Adult tickets range from $8 in advance on Friday to $15 at the gate on Saturday & Sunday, and kids tickets range from $6 in advance on Friday to $12 at the gate on Saturday & Sunday. You can also purchase multi-day passes to save some money as well.

So what do they have?  It’s the Timber and Balloon Festival – the Timber part consists of “IRONJACK Timber Team Lumberjack Shows: As seen on OLN; Log Rolling, Pole Climbing, Axe and Chainsaw Competitions, Buck Sawing and More.” http://www.shawneemt.com/s_timberballoonfestival.html and the Balloon part consists of Hot Air Balloon Launches as well as Hot Air Balloon rides(limited availability purchase in advance).

I think for both kids and adults alike Hot Air Balloons are one of those hidden fascinations – seeing how large the balloons actually are, the logistics of how they operate, the thought of being up so high (or actually being one of those brave souls that take a ride) and the awe of their brilliant colors.  I hope to be able to go next year, and I definitely want to hit up the Garlic Festival at Shawnee as well(unfortunately we were sick this year and highly disappointed we didn’t get to go – but there’s always next year).

If one thing is for sure, there is never a shortage of fun and special things to do in the Poconos!

Monday was Columbus Day so we left work a little bit early to head out to do some pumpkin and apple picking.  The problem is I really couldn’t find anywhere that had both available.

PUMPKIN PICKING
When “pumpkin picking” you really need to be sure that you read the fine print so that if you’re actually expecting to pick pumpkins off the vine that they have it available.  Many “pick your own” places pre-pick the pumpkins then lay them out in a field for you to choose from.  It’s a fun step up from getting them out of a bin, but there is something great about being able to actually pick them off a vine.

Places I know of that you can actually pick them off a vine(please call them to make sure, late in the season they have them pre-picked).

OFF THE VINE
Klingels/Mazezilla: We took my son there with his preschool and they take you on an open hayride of sorts out to the patch to pick your own pumpkins:

http://www.mazezilla.com/patch.html they are probably the closest in the Poconos.

Donaldson Farms (NJ): Again, we took our son out there last year with his preschool, we actually got to walk in the field and pick out our pumpkins.  They also have flower picking early in the year(I really want to try that as well!)  http://www.donaldsonfarms.net

PUMPKIN PATCH
Strawberry Acres(near Allentown): They are available off the vine but for the rest of this season YOU CAN NOT GET THEM OFF THE VINE.  If you want to go there be sure to go early in the season. They have pumpkins available to choose from in a field.   http://www.strawberryacres.com/pumpkins.html

Old Homestead(in Leighton): They are also available in a field, there are farm animals, a pumpkin sling/shooter thing, they also have food stands. http://www.oldhomestead.com/ppatch.html

APPLE PICKING

Apple Picking

So I really really really wanted to go and pick apples this year.  I am constantly teaching my 6 year old son about where fruits/vegetables come from and it’s really cute to see his reaction of  “so carrots are in the ground?” or “bananas in trees?”.  I searched around and found that many places that normally have apple picking available do not have it this year due to the weather(I assume the rain).  I also wanted to combine that with pumpkin picking – but I unfortunately could not find a place that did both at this time of the year that was close.

So we headed down to Strawberry Acres which is right past the Allentown mall to do some apple picking.  Like many of the places we visit it had farm animals(I love llamas), a big “tube slide” for the kids(if you haven’t seen/tried one they’re a good laugh), pony rides, pumpkin picking(available off the vine usually, but we went to late in the season so they were in a field), a farmers market with Mums, fresh fruit, and of course APPLE PICKING!  We grabbed 2 boxes and hopped onto what I can only best describe as a school bus convertible…it’s like a hayride in a school bus, with the top off, minus the hay…you’d have to see it…and were taken a few minutes up the road to where the trees were.  I was slightly disappointed that the trees are so close to houses…it looses that “outdoor” feel that you get with being up here in the Poconos.  It is about an hour away though and should be expected, but it seems that their pear trees are a lot further out so if you went there to do pear picking(you can also do cherry picking and peach picking) it would seem a lot more rural.

Regardless, once you’re in a sea of apple trees everything else seems to fade away.  I’ve been apple picking before where you use baskets on a stick to collect them since the fruit is up so high.  In this case the trees were on the “small side” being that the apples went from almost the ground all the way up to about 20 feet or so.  It was great for my son since he could grab the apples himself and it really gave him a hands on feel.  Since there were a lot of riper apples up top my husband hoisted him up a few times to grab them off the trees which delighted him.  All in all we picked probably close to 40-50  apples which ended up costing us about $35.  more expensive then store bought but definitely worth it for the experience.

Needless to say I’ll be baking a lot of apple pies in the next couple of days…

Lastly, Christmas is quickly approaching so I thought I’d mention that if you’re looking for a place to cut your own Christmas Tree in the Poconos   that Old Homestead Tree Farm has tree cutting available:  http://www.oldhomestead.com/xmas.html I have yet to cut my own Christmas tree so maybe we’ll try it this year!

Apple picking, pumpkin picking, cutting your own Christmas tree…they’re all great ways to get some quality family time together and to create some lasting memories.  It takes a lot more time and money then the pre-cut/picked stuff, but it’s well worth it!

Last weekend was unusually warm for March in the Poconos (above 60 degrees) and after being holed up inside all winter we were more then ready to get out for some weekend fun.  My son was dying to play outside but the warm weather had caused all the snow to melt making our yard and the local parks one big mudfest.  My husband and I decided some indoor fun might be a better choice and after some thoughts we decided we would see what local factories would be open for the day for tours.  We considered a candle factory, which we’ve visited before, but decided on Callie’s Candy Kitchen and Pretzel Factories which would be both new and yummy.

Located in Mountainhome, PA it was a short trip for us and although it might be a bit of a drive for some it was definitely a fun time.  We visited the Pretzel factory first – having visited the Snyders factory in the past I had invisioned some huge building and wasn’t disappointed but semi-surprised that the pretzel factory was on such a smaller scale.  We walked in and you could see the pretzel making process right there – we went at about 11am so there was no one there but us.  My 5 year old was really excited to see the pretzels enter the oven and kept running around and coming back to see if they had finished cooking(they were slowing cooking on a conveyor belt).

They had a section of “left handed gifts” like a left handed spiral notebook for people like my husband who are always complaining “you right handed people have no idea how difficult it is to write in a spiral notebook”.   They had a large variety of pretzels(of course) both hard and soft and every color & flavor of popcorn that you could imagine (my son got the tutti frutti that is show in the picture).  One of the employees showed us how all of the different pretzels were made – he some dough and made a standard pretzel, their pretzel on a stick, and a funnel cake pretzel.  On our way out we all bought our choice of pretzels – I went with the soft pretzel on a stick(it just looked fun), my son got the funnel cake pretzel, and my husband got a standard soft preztel all of which tasted great.

We headed up the street to Callie’s Candy Kitchen which was about 5 minutes away.  They had your standard variety of candy, chocolate, fudge, holiday candy, etc. but they also had a huge variety of different candies as well.  There was a wall of chocolate molds you could buy (the ones you melt discs into) in probably 100+ varieties – so if you’re looking for a ski boot/skis mold or something for a special occasion like a baptism you’re sure to find it there.  There were premade chocolates from molds in all the current kids characters like spongebob, transformers, hannah montana, etc.

After walking around for a bit we spoke with Mr. Callie who said he would be doing a presentation in a bit.  Callie’s Candy Kitchen was established in 1952 and it’s amazing to see that he still is so passionate about candy all these years later.  Mr. Callie not only explained how the candy and chocolates are made – but about the simplicity of business and marketing.  How many different types of chocolate are there? 1.  How many different types of Ice Cream are there? 1.  It’s Ice Cream…not Ice CreamS.  That all probably makes no sense, but if you sit down with “The Candyman” he will be sure to tell you all about it.

Oh…and there were samples in the store and a bunch after the presentation – needless to say I had my fill by the time we got out of there!  So if you’re looking for an inexpensive(or even free if you don’t buy anything) trip this year be sure to stop by Callie’s – it’s definitely “old school” but unique, true to the Poconos and most importantly yummy!