Crazy Amount of Berries

Northern State Recreation Area is a creepy ghost town that is home to the abandoned remains of the Northern State Mental Hospital. What a lovely place to have a hike.

While we were likely to soon be murdered by vengeful ghosts I was distracted by the absolute blackberry bonanza that was happening on the trails.

I ate so many berries I thought I might be sick.

Berry overdose is pretty high on my list of preferred death methods. In many places the bushes were taller than myself.

There were plenty of spooky buildings full of crazy ghosts. Lydia got startled.

These slugs are lucky I was already full from all the berries.

The mountain was out. It's fun to see Rainier on the highway because there are little pictures of it on everyone's license plates.

I like the concept of a charcuterie board but in practice filling the board generally involves buying enough food for a medium sized military base.

The Evans Are Not What They Seem

Evan was familiar enough with the magic that is Twin Peaks that he agreed to let us drag him out to North Bend, Washington to see all of the filming locations.

We ate at Twede's Cafe.

The Xs in the Spanish... no gracias.

We checked out Ronette's Bridge and it's apparently quite the cool kid beach hangout. We saw several chillens jump right of the bridge into the water.

One location that I hadn't yet checked off my list was the Twin Peaks Police Department. It is now DirtFish Rally School where they teach you to Tokyo drift in the dust.

They even had a Twin Peaks police car out front.

The colors are now hideous but the exterior is largely the same otherwise.

It was closed but a peek through the window revealed Lucy's receptionist desk looks pretty intact as well on the left there.

This little guy was the Bookhouse in the show, where Twin Peaks’ secret society “The Bookhouse Boys” have their meetings.

Bang Bang Bar, more commonly known to Twin Peaks residents only as the Roadhouse

While we were creeping around the Roadhouse exterior we found a good patch of blackberries and had to take a foraging break.

Peach Pickin' at Eckert's

A visit to Eckert's Belleville Country Store & Farms was another one of those pesky activities that we just could never seem to find time for during the school year. Summer is a magical place where chocolate factory tours and peach trees are possible.

It's interesting that the vegetables were sold by volume but the fruits by weight.

When I heard the farm we'd be heading to was in Belleville, Illinois I did a quick flip through my mental contact book to think of anyone we knew in the area who'd like to join... Katie G came to mind and she was game. Hurray! We grabbed our pickin' boxes and headed over to the shuttle waiting area.

I thought the tractor pulling us in a trailer was pretty good country fun.

It was pretty sunny and I hadn't thought to bring a hat.

There were a lot of sweat bees around.

First we started picking some peaches. They were a bit hard so they weren't super exciting. I knew I could pick them now and then let them sit on the kitchen counter but I didn't want to wait that long! I'd say we took home like 10. You might say I'm pretty picky. Do you get it? It's a funny joke because I was there picking fruit but I was also very selective about which fruits I wanted. 

I'd say we ate about as much as we bought. I needed my box as a hat anyway.

Next we hopped on the next tractor that came by and then hit the blackberries. They were ripe so we grabbed more of these than peaches. The thing is, they are small so it took a lot more effort.

I thought it was fun how many different crops they had out there. This was what looked like a Christmas tree section.

Yay fruits and stuff!