Busy at Lake Chelan

This morning we went to the Ranger Station we passed on our way into town yesterday.  I was hopeful that we could get the Jr. Ranger badge without having to go to Stehekin. All 7 of us on the Lady of the Lake is a bit cost prohibitive.  They were so nice, of course we can! They gave us the booklet to work on today. Not only will they get a badge but a patch also! They are doing the bear level.
From there we went to Blueberry Hills Farm. To see what the Upick item was. It might be blueberries or strawberries.  It was strawberries! They were almost going to spray for slugs, but since it was going to rain they held off. Lucky for us, so we got to pick some!  The buckets would hold 5 pounds. We told the kids not to fill up the whole bucket!

Checking out the grapes! If you look close you might be able to see the tiny new grapes growing.

Kids on a bench

The roses that were growing next to the blueberries

Picking only the best berries

The kids working together to get as many berries as we would let them

With buckets less than half full each, we walked back up the hill to the weighing machine.  The man behind the counter told us each kid picked two pounds. I think there may have been a two pound minimum.  They were two dollars a pound.

All that fresh air and berry picking made us all hungry! We went back to our lovely hotel room and got lunch. Lon ate his entire hot dog, then half a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich!  His milk was in the coffee cup. No coffee for him!

After a filling lunch we headed off to Orondo. We read about a cider mill out there. Since Lon had been to a cider mill in Connecticut (Clyde's in Old Mystic)  and seen how it worked, we wanted to see if this one was the same kind of set up.
But first we had to cross the Mighty Columbia!

There was a cool log truck out front that immediately  caught the attention of all the kids!

Watching the apple bits and pieces go into the trays. All the apple bits were wrapped up in a cloth, then another tray put on top. When they got enough trays stacked up to barely fit under the press they moved the stack down to the press and turned it on. An amazing amount of cider came out of the apple bits.

All the kids watching the work of apple pressing. The whole place smelled wonderful
They also had a machine that almost instantly made ice cream. Nitro ice cream. We would have tried it but at 3.95 per small cup, we gave it a pass this time. What we did try was the apple cider slushie. That was wonderful. We also all had apple cider doughnuts. Lon had two.

Back to the truck for a few minutes

Apple bins. When we were outside we saw a big truck with bins labeled with what kind of apples they were bringing in to the press. Magi was being pressed today.

Face in the hole!

Playing on the giant tire. There was a spider somewhere inside the tire which provided a good amount of screams and shouts.

There were goats! Four lovely goats. They were very friendly and so very cute. Tail wagging, happy bleating goats.  We love goats!!

More goats! The rusted iron sculptures!  (I am having trouble cropping right now, so I hope to be able to go back and fix these later)

Back to our hotel room for a little bit of rest before heading out to the Farmer's Market. We walked down there, it was not far from the hotel.  This mural is on the side of the Chamber of Commerce.

Petting the big cat statue downtown Lake Chelan

We had high hopes for the Market.

Sadly, there was not much to the market. It was some soaps, some jewelry, a couple of baked good placed offering very little. A wood fire pizza place. One lady offering strawberries, we had enough of those, so we told her they looked good and moved on. We saw the Orondo Cider Works were there. We had another sample of their wonderful cider and they gave me a shopping bag since I had been out there. Lon told them we were moving to South Carolina.  That was very nice of them. Lon also bought me a stone ring.  I was hoping for more fruits and vegetables!

We stopped at the Variety Store. I forgot tooth brushes for Lon and I.   They had inexpensive toothbrushes! And a fun T-shirt for Daddy!  Lon thought it would be good. I looked at a zippered hoodie for me, but gave it a pass.
We went back to our hotel and had a wonderful meal of rigatoni and pasta sauce. We bought some bread on the way home to have with it. Before our dessert all the kids finished their Jr.Ranger badge books. They are ready to turn them in tomorrow!  For our dessert we had fresh strawberries and cream over a brownie.  It was a good day. Even if it was a little rainy and over cast and we did not make it to the pool today.   We hope tomorrow's weather will be better for swimming. If not, we can find something good to do!