Destination 5: Bates College and Wallingford's Fruit House Apple Picking

Ahh back to the alma mater...striding around a campus that once encompassed nearly your entire world and where you felt, by the end of four years, that you truly understood things. Six years has put enough distance from graduation that I A) felt old B) was shocked that such a small area was in fact nearly my entire world for 4 years and C) that dang I am really getting old. Fun and scary to think back to being a cocky 22 year old though...

For those Bates grads out there, a report: the new student center building looks pretty cool though absolutely huge and a bit dominating. The new dorm by Rand is not good at all - ugly and weird. It consists of three buildings in a symmetric design - a big ugly white building flanked by two smaller structures in the traditional brick style.

Our visit consisted of a walk around campus, seeing a few profs over in PGill (go Profs Murray and Richter), obligatory lunch at the den, and general reminiscing about our individual experiences at Bates (we didn't meet at Bates until a few months before graduating and then only as friends). The only bummer is that the fall colors on campus hadn't really come out yet - might need to head back up for homecoming weekend here in a few weeks. We had planned on a beer at the Blue Goose but couldn't drag ourselves into that joint at 4 in the afternoon.

So off apple picking we went - one of Julie's favorite fall things to do and, since it leads eventually to us making Apple Crisp (when made by Julie the best dessert around), one of mine too. We headed up to Wallingford Farms to climb in the trees (me reliving childhood) and pick way too many apples. Much fun though.

Pics below

Hathorn Hall, oldest building at Bates

Julie yelling (cutely) at me from admist the apple trees

The best apples are always near the top...