Today I’m taking you out of the city. Way way waaaaaaaay out of the city to an area called Washington, New Jersey. You’re not alone – before my cousins moved there, I hadn’t heard of it either!
Once a year about this time in October we make our annual visit. Between our families there are lots of birthdays in September and October so we get together to celebrate them all at once.
As we’re driving further and further west, deeper into New Jersey, the familiar scenery of crowds and skyscrapers quickly fades changing into open fields, rolling hills and cornfields.
Yes folks, we are definitely not in the city anymore!
On our visit this time they decided to take us to a pumpkin patch. In the past when I’ve been to pumpkin patches, the pumpkins are all neatly arranged by size. You select the ones you want, and check the price chart to see how much you owe – usually they are priced by size. Even when we lived in Florida, we would go to a pumpkin patch and do the same thing. It definitely had a different vibe though since we were usually STILL in shorts, a tank and sweating like there’s no tomorrow. The calendar said October, but it still felt like summer.
This was a completely different experience for us! Maybe not to some of you out there, but to us city folk, we were in awe!
The place we went to was called West Portal Pumpkin Patch – actually a bit out of Washington into another town called Asbury.
As far as your eye can see (and even further) there were pumpkins. And they were still on the vine!
You literally needed to “pick” off anything you wanted. Besides pumpkins, there were other members of the squash family.
I think my girls wanted these as pets!
One of the things that was great about this place was it provided a perfect backdrop for some Autumn inspired photographs! I didn’t do much picking, but I certainly did a lot of clicking!
My nephew,
my little one,
I forget what she was mad at – probably me and my camera!
A group shot of the cousins
and more picking!
There was even a haystack maze! Super fun for the kids!
Instead of a sand pit they had a corn pit filled with corn kernels for the kids to dig around in,
a hay ride
and a blow up haunted house.
There were plenty of wagons to cart our pumpkins around in.
This is the stash we ended up with…
At 55 cents a pound, you couldn’t go wrong!
It was time to pack up and head on back to the city.
Definitely a fun activity for the whole family.
I made the butternut squash this week – came out really good!
The hubbs said “these sweet potatoes taste amazing! What’d you do differently?”
“I turned them into squash.”
Have you gone pumpkin picking yet? Do you have any fun Fall traditions?
Oh my gosh that looks like fun! We have the same pumpkin patches here in LA that you had in Florida, and the same weather usually too! but to get out of the sprawl takes hours, so no "real" pumpkin patches for us. We just get pumpkins from the store, carve them, decorate for halloween and trick or treat of course.
hi.. love the pictures of the family fun… we take pride in what we do here at the WPPP and love the feedback if u have any ? please dont hesitate to email us nikki14311@yahoo.com
love the family at west portal pumpkin patch
Thanks! We had a great time there and hope to visit again next Fall.