 |
| We've got apples, apples and more apples! |
As is often the case, our drive from Point A to Point B was about twice as long as was shown on google maps. Yesterday Point A was Wellsboro, PA and Point B was Slippery Rock, PA. Driving it straight through should take a little over three and a half hours. With stops for hiking the Pine Creek Rail Trail, lunch, an orchard and a produce stand we made it in just a little over six hours.
 |
| After biking the Pine Creek Rail Trail the previous day, we enjoyed a hike along part of the trail before leaving the Wellsboro area |
 |
| One of the displays in Serenity Glass Park, Port Allegany, PA |
One of the things we were searching for along our drive was the illusive Honeycrisp apple. These apples were developed by the University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension service in 1974. They were patented in 1998 and released for sale to the public in 1991. I'm not near as picky when it comes to apples as Beth. I do prefer a red apple over a green apple and one that is more sweet than tart. The honeycrisp has been described as the apple with perfect firmness, sweetness and tartness for eating raw. It's Beth's favorite apple and based on the scarcity of them around this part of the world, it's the favorite apple of a whole bunch of people. I'm not a biblical scholar, but I'm reasonably sure that although the University of Minnesota holds the patent, this was the type of apple Eve tempted Adam with in the Garden of Eden.
We'd been on the lookout for them ever since we realized it was "apple season" up here. We had made a couple of stops at produce stands on our way from Pittsburgh to Wellsboro, but every place was sold out. Not wanting to go away empty handed, we settled for purchasing Cortland apples. These are good apples, but according to Beth, they aren't as good as honeycrisp apples.
We looked around Wellsboro during our three days in that area, but again, no luck.
Although our hopes of finding these illusive tasty fruits was diminishing, we weren't going to give up easily. We slowed down at every produce stand we passed to see if they were advertising honeycrisp apples, but no luck. We took a slight detour down some scenic back roads so we could stop at Rocky Ridge Orchard. The nice lady and gentlemen working in the store seemed genuinely sad to tell us they had sold out of honeycrisp apples in just a few days. They did encourage us to look around and try any apples we might be interested in. He said "if you see one you think you might like, just pick it up and take a bite". We did, and we ended up with a bag of about a dozen nice Cortland apples, but no honeycrisp apples.
 |
| A great place to stop...…...even if they were sold out of honeycrisp apples! |
Rocky Ridge Orchards
Finally, in Leeper, PA (pop,. 1,604) at a produce stand we had stopped at just a few days earlier...…..there they were...……..the mother of all apples...……..the honeycrisp apple! We bought a decent size basket (it's the picture at the top of the blog) of these tasty treats and we each chomped into one as we were pulling out of the parking lot.
I just did a quick count. On Ben's counter right now there are over forty apples, more than half of them are honeycrisp apples. We're making sure they stay separated from the others and we're also making sure to lock his house when we leave. Those things are rare and valuable!
Below are a few pictures from around the area where Ben lives:
 |
| Mural on the side of the Guthrie Theater in downtown Grove City |
 |
| Street Art along Broad Street in Grove City |
 |
| Moraine State Park is about 15 miles from Ben's house. It has a huge lake and lots of hiking trails |
 |
| Moraine State Park |
