Saturday, April 11, 2009

Nova's Excellent Adventure - The Orchard at Altapass

After a long nap, Mom took me for a short drive down the Parkway to visit the Orchard at Altapass, which is run by her Aunt Judy and Uncle Bill. This is a historic orchard that is over 100 years old. Several years ago, the Orchard went out of business and was for sale. Mom's Uncle Bill had visited the orchard when he was little, and together with his sister, they decided to buy the Orchard and restore it as a popular destination for locals and tourists along the Parkway.

Mom says that they have done a wonderful job, and it is a great place to visit. The Orchard doesn't officially open until May 1, but there are lots of things going on there all summer long. Things like live mountain music and dancing, fruit for sale along with fudge, ice cream and lots of foods made by locals, a gift shop with cool things made my local mountain craftsmen, hayrides through the orchard (where Uncle Bill tells interesting stories about the history of the Orchard and the area), and much, much more. If you are ever on the Parkway and want to visit, it's at Milepost 328.3. And you can read all about it at http://www.altapassorchard.com/.

Anyway, it was such a beautiful day that Mom stopped at a few overlooks to take pictures of me. This was at the Table Rock overlook:


You can see Table Rock way out there in the distance, jutting up from the mountains:


This was my first look at the Orchard, from the overlook up on the parkway. It looked pretty cool:


Mom kept snapping away with her camera. Behold the beauty of the mountains!


And behold the beauty of the Great Dane!


We drove down the Orchard road off the Parkway and walked together among the budding apple trees.


I hear some of these trees are over 100 years old!


Sniffin' the wonderful Spring air!


We walked around for quite awhile:



Mom just wouldn't stop with that camera!



She was so glad to see me so healthy and hoppy!




Mom is so crazy about pictures of me, I think she must be putting together a daily "Year of Nova" calendar:


Some cars were slowing down up on the Parkway to look at me:



These are the signs directing drivers to the Orchard. They even have Monarch butterflies there:



It had been a long photo session, so I was ready to go back to the cabin for a nap!

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