This past weekend my girlfriend and I went searching for an apple festival. It's that time of year, and we were craving something past our standard east-west borders of Charlotte Street and French Broad Ave. So, we grabbed a Mountain Express and she started flipping the pages as I set my foot to the gas.
We were headed towards Bat Cave, NC, a town I've heard from reliable and more aged sources is a "cute little place". "You should go there!"- that was the advice I received from my work supervisor my first year of college. She informed me that, yes, there really is a cave, although she wasn't quite sure where it is. I mentioned my love of both bats and caves, but kept my comments about running into Bruce Wayne to myself. Three years later and I was on the way.
Off of I-240 we exited onto 74-A. I was very quickly reminded of how thin the lines between city and farm country are here. A ten-minute drive and the landscape opens up into pastures filled with rolling hills on which cows somehow find a way to balance themselves; their mottled black-and-white or smooth, deep brown fronting the backdrop of mountains that actually have blue-tinted tops. Needless to say, it was and always will be a magnificent and humbling sight.
It was a journey that really needs no end-point, but we were, after all, searching for trees laden with a certain red fruit. At a point along the road, a modest sign pointed us left. "Apples" was all it said, and all it really needed to say. A few yards after was a sign for a place I've come to know through numerous restaurants in Asheville, but never actually seen: Hickory Nut Gap Farm, known for its sustainable practices and healthy, happy livestock.
"Is this it?"
"Well, I guess so. It says 'apples'. And I've always wanted to see this place and meet the animals."
"Meet the animals?"
Yes, I prefer to know the meat I eat. A reassurance that they are as happy and healthy as advertised.
We parked the car and watched as people carried bags full-to the brim with apples across the road. We checked out the farm store first thing. I wanted to get an idea of the selection and prices of meat products before we got to picking out our lighter fare. Ground beef at $5.00/lb, a whole chicken at $3.50/lb, among about forty other beef, pork, and poultry items. Not bad for the quality.
We then set out to do what we came here for. Bins and bins of delicious-smelling apples: MacIntosh, Gala, Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Staymen Winesap, all from the 10-acre Hickory Nut Gap Farm orchard. We decided to get a quarter-peck, the smallest option, probably about fifteen fruits.
After filling our little bag past full, we walked around the farm, although we opted out of the corn maze. Well-groomed horses, goats and two baby cows were surrounded by doting children, including myself. The baby chicks in the chicken coop were being chased, picked up, and inevitably dropped by a group of about five 5-year olds. Given that the fall was all of one foot, none of them really seemed to mind.
On our way out, the bus/food stand served me up the best hot dog I've had in my entire life, hands-down. It must have had little or no casing, as it was grayish in color and practically melted in my mouth. Covered in kraut, ketchup, and a line of mustard, it was so perfect that I don't know if I can ever bring myself to eat a hot dog of any other kind.
Satiated and loaded up with apples, we deemed our adventure a success. "We should do something like this every weekend."
"Absolutely."
It was a few days later, after a good portion of those apples were no longer even in our digestive tracts, that we found out the real apple festival, the one in Bat Cave, was actually a few miles past that left turn. I guess we have another weekend adventure coming up.
-JR
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