It sounded like a good idea. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and apparently, so is the road to the blueberry farm. Our innocent little day trip turned out to be an epic fail worthy of a national lampoons screenplay.
When Bill's sister invited us to join them on a berry hunting excursion on Saturday I eagerly accepted, visions of homemade blueberry pie dancing in my head. Being the city slickers that we are, our only knowledge of blueberries was that they came in a little plastic carton at the grocery store. We had no idea of the labor-intensive swooping and bending that is involved in gathering the little buggers. And to make matters worse, I had taken my very first step aerobics class at the gym the day before, and awoke on Saturday morning to every single muscle in my legs screaming in agony. EPIC BERRY FAIL #1. So I popped a few Advils and we all loaded into the car and set out on our journey.
The second mistake was choosing to meet Bill's brother and sister and spouses/kids at Cracker Barrell for breakfast before voyaging out to the farm. Don't get me wrong, the hash brown casserole was delicious, but it meant that we didn't arrive at the farm till about 10:30. EPIC FAIL #2: it was already 87465827 degrees outside. EPIC FAIL #3: Being 10:30, this meant every single other person within the entire city of Houston had beat us to the farm. I kid not. This was the scene that greeted us upon arrival.
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| This would rival rush hour in the Houston Galleria. |
Not a good sign when your fun-filled family produce gathering journey could be mistaken for the parking lot of Disneyworld. We thought surely they must be running some kind of 'buy 1 pound of berries, get 10 pounds free!' special. But no. This was just blueberry picking season in Texas.
So we parked on the side of the road behind the other cars lined up, loaded up the kids and strollers and hats and sippy cups and sunscreen and baby carriers, and started trekking to the entrance gate. After we'd been walking 10 minutes in the sweltering sun we began to question how much further the entrance gate would be. 15 minutes into the walk people who were driving out of the facility were rolling down their car windows and telling us how there was ample parking up by the entrance gate. 20 minutes into the walk and we were audibly cursing Justin for his choice of parking locations. After twenty-two minutes of schlepping along the hot dusty road we finally arrived at the entrance. And lo and behold, there were more open parking spots than you could shake a blueberry stick at. So Justin and Bill decided to take one for the team and walk alllll the way back to the cars and move them into one of the closer spots. EPIC FAIL #3: After they'd been gone about 5 minutes Kristen realized she had the keys to their car. So Jeff picked up the relay torch and grabbed the keys to go bring them to Justin.
So the 2 Kristens and I and the kids finally rounded the corner at the entrance gate, ready to get our berry hunting on. And this is what we saw when we walked in.
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| Nothing says 'family fun' like sweating in line for 30 minutes with 875 other sweaty folks. |
EPIC FAIL #4: a line of people as far as the eye could see, waiting to pay for their blueberry bounties. We made a unanimous decision that when the boys returned from moving the cars they should automatically jump into line and start the waiting process. Do not pass go, do not collect any blueberries. Just stand in the heat so we and the kids don't have to.
We huffed our way past the never-ending line, growing all the more fearful of how my husband would react when he realized his fate. (Patience is not his strong suit. Patience in the 900 degree sweltering heat, even less so.) We strolled past color-coded signs, presumably indicating different types of blueberries but we had no idea what they were, so we just settled on the first bush that looked like it had a fair amount of berries available.
Cousin Riley was somewhat skilled in the berry-hunting department, being able to distinguish the ripe blueberries from the pink un-ripe ones. So she happily tackled her task and gathered a respectable (for a 2 year old) amount of berries. Baby Caroline on the other hand was not interested in searching for berries. She was much more interested in running and roaming and wandering off out of sight. So my berry hunting consisted of whatever I could grab as I was dashing off to catch her.
We decided to take turns waiting in the line, so eventually Bill made his way back to the berry hunters. After, oh, 15 minutes of intensive gathering (one of us gathering berries, the other one gathering the runaway child) we were the very definition of HOT MESS. Surely this is where the phrase originated. Luckily the line seemed to be moving faster than we thought so it was time to go join the spot-holders and pay for our berries. Justin and I stood in line to pay, while the others went straight to the cars to cool off and load up the kids.
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| smile and say 'immigrant labor!' |
As we were waiting in line I couldn't help but notice that most people's buckets looked like this.
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| we decided that this guy, and everyone else, had been gathering berries since approximately 4:30 am. |
And after all our efforts, with 6 adults and 2 kids, our bucket looked like this.
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| is this even enough to make a pie?? |
EPIC FAIL #5: we probably wasted more money in gas getting to the farm than we would have just buying a carton of blueberries at the store. But as the great Clark Griswold says, "It's all part of the experience, Russ." Except we were more in danger of heat exhaustion than hypothermia, but the principle remains the same. Extreme physical discomfort is the only way to develop greater appreciation for the convenience of store bought items. Another good reason to say in school, kids!
Being utterly sweat-soaked and exhausted from our little adventure, we all decided that a dip in the pool at Kristen and Justin's house is just what the doctor ordered. So we drove all the way back to their house, suited up, and hopped in the pool. And then came EPIC FAIL #6: Because Caroline has decided that pool = swim lessons, she cried the ENTIRE time we were in the pool. Whereas before swim lessons she would happily splash and play in the pool, this time she just cried cried cried. I was cursing myself up and down for ever embarking on that bright idea.
So we finally had to cut our losses and hop out of the pool, which was the only way to make her stop crying. This does not bode well for our pool-centered beach vacation next month. I have no idea what we're going to spend our time doing if she spends 5 days eating sand on the beach and crying at the pool. Looks like there might be a lot of mini-golf and souvenir shopping in our future....
So stay tuned for the next fun-filled family adventure next month. I have no doubt we'll be making the Griswolds look good again.
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