Blueberry Picking

We're on vacation in Michigan, and yesterday somebody had the great idea that we should all go blueberry picking. I hadn't been blueberry picking since the time when we borrowed the Quiett's car for a trip (and I remember so little about it -- all I remember is when we were fighting in the backseat and the Dad slammed on the brakes and we skidded all over the gravel road we were on).

I should have known things would be "funny" when the "map" (poorly transcribed mapquest instructions) and the only person who had actually looked at mapquest's map were in the same car. And the M-I-L was giving directions. We (meaning everyone with a sense of direction) were following in the other car (as there is no way to fit five adults and four children (three of whom need car seats) in one car). We started south, and F-I-L quipped, "I wonder if this place is in Michigan City (Indiana)."

We stopped in New Buffalo for gas (across from a Michigan fruit stand, which advertised fresh blueberries in 5 or 10 pound bags (that's a measurement of weight here, not a price, for all you Brits out there), and we figured that was the place. It wasn't, so we continued south. Into Indiana. Shortly after that, we stopped.

S-I-L decided she must have missed the road, but she "let" us look at the "directions" which included no distances or directions (only "left" and "right" turns). Turns out we had turned the wrong way on the Red Arrow Highway. But the adventure wasn't over. We drove north for quite a while, then S-I-L finally got the blueberry farm on the phone (when F-I-L did, I think it was the wrong place, because the guy didn't know what we were talking about). So we turned around again and went south, back into Harbert. Only to turn around again and go back north.

I decided that if we had to turn around one more time, I was done. After all, we'd been out for almost an hour. But then we actually found it! Once we got out in the blueberry field, it was a lot of fun. The blueberries were huge and very sweet. Jonathan was stuffing them in his mouth, hand over fist. He LOVED it. He also enjoyed running away from us up the rows, which was funny because he could just run and we had to negotiate the bushes. Tara and I picked about 6 pounds of blueberries (not including those we ate; they said they didn't weigh tummies!). Jonathan had about 12 berries in his bucket (and who knows how many in his tummy!).