Good news, everyone: We live in the future now and you don’t need to borrow someone’s kids to go to an apple-pickin’ harvest festival. You can just go. Well, you could go before, too, but looks like the farms have decided that our old-ass money folds just the same, and so more and more of them are adding adult-like activities to their punkin parties. This includes but is not limited to wine tastings, ziplines, events that don’t end at 4 pm, and evidently, gourd tunnels? Uh, maybe those were actually meant for kids, but they’re ours now. Go forth, take up space in the gourd tunnels of Washington State, and live your best adult life within them.
Pike Place Market’s Harvest Festival in Downtown Seattle
This event is one day only, and no, it isn’t at a farm. They just scooped up all the best parts of a billion different farms and brought it to us in the city! Same thing. First of all, not only is there a pumpkin-carving demonstration here, it’s GIANT pumpkin carving—this thing weighs 500 pounds. Minimum. Then you can watch artist Kristi Ringer make fairy houses or artist Aaron Murray make elaborate animal mugs, using ceramic and fire. Enjoy some live music from the buskers on the farm truck stage, which is a stage on the back of a truck. Take a fascinating free historical tour of the Market (there are a bunch, but sign up early!). Then, if you’re so inclined, buy a 40-dollar ticket for a dozen seasonal food/wine pairings from five Pike Place Market vendors (well, this might sell out too, so maybe do it in advance). Or just eat some of the delicious food that surrounds you in every direction—maybe from, say, Pasta Casalinga or Oriental Mart. Before you go, pick up some of what’s in season from all the local farmers–chanterelles, perhaps, or winter squash. Then take the light rail home at the end.
(Free entrance)
