It's Fall Y'all!

Hands down, Autumn is by far my favorite season; I love the leaves, the colors, the fashion, the food, the activities, the holidays, I truly don’t think there is anything about Autumn that I don’t like. And so, I am super excited to share some of my favorite fall activities.

Maryland Renaissance Festival

Before you shake your head in confusion and close this article, hear me out about this. This festival is the bomb! I have been a regular attendee since the wee ages of elementary school where my friends and I used to dress up in all our Renaissance finery, and have continued attending all through middle and high school. Though I no longer dress up (unfortunately) I still love to go and enjoy the atmosphere. For those of you who don’t know about this amazing Festival, it’s set in Crownsville, MD and all the buildings there are permanent structures which make up a miniature Renaissance village, complete with a jousting arena. Run, don’t walk, because it is only opened the last weekend in August to the last weekend in October. My favorite parts of the fair are by far the food and people watching. There are plenty of things to do for a first timers, from watching comedy shows to browsing the plethora of stores, and there are many good places for a photo op. Once you’ve been a few times though, you’ve seen everything, (I mean how many times can you watch jousting, not that many) but the food and people watching will never fail. This year I went with my friends Margaret Ann Herbold ’19 and Katherine Leahy ’19. Katherine and I have gone every year in high school together and we still love to attend as a tradition and a fun experience away from anything related to school. One fun activity that Margaret Ann and I tried this year that I had never done before was to get out Tarot cards read. Let me tell you, it was wicked. We were sitting in a hut on the edge of the fairground and this old women was the one who was giving us our reading! I also love to believe in anything, but Katherine was skeptical, so you’ll just have to go on your own to test it out. The Renaissance Festival is a great activity and really not too hard to get to. From my house in Old Town, Alexandria, it’s about an hour away and very easy!

Butler’s Orchard

What is fall without apples and pumpkins? Very tragic. Last year Katherine, Lauren, and I went to Butler’s Orchard for my first time to go apple picking. I went overboard and bought 20lbs of apples! Anyways, this year we wrangled up a group of 1e9ndary seniors to go and experience both the apples and pumpkins. Friday started out pretty good, until we were all running late. Like 40 min late. So once arriving at the orchard, we condensed into the two Jeeps and drove up to the apples and proceeded to wait more time for more late people. We were very on top of things as you can tell. While waiting we jammed to country music and took copious pictures. Once everyone arrived we started picking and eating apples while just enjoying nature. And then proceeded to do a full-on photo shoot in the trees. Next, we drove a bit down the road to the October festival, where we parked and picnic-ed! Following that we finally got to the pumpkins and had fun finding the perfect pumpkins for our respective homes. And took more photos, we are teenage girls, and if we don’t record it in photo form, did it really ever happen? Though I’ve only carried out this tradition twice, I would rank it as one of my top favorite fall activities. Especially if you go when the weather is cool and crisp, it’s the perfect event to put anyone in the fall mood. Butler’s Orchard is by far a favorite and not that difficult to get to. From Georgetown it is about a 40 min drive and only a little difficult.