October 17th, 2022...more pumpkin patch talk...

Greetings and salutations,

Yesterday my wife wanted to head over to Half Moon Bay to do our traditional pumpkin patch run to Farmer John's.  Heading over to the coast reminds me of when I was a kid so I'm always up for the ride and we like to support a local farmer by picking up our pumpkins from them.

We left a little later than usual, but made good time over the bridge and toward the hills that lead over to Half Moon Bay.  Then I saw the sign. 54 minutes to Half Moon Bay.  I asked my wife, "Is the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival going on today?". She grabbed her phone and looked it up. Yes.  It was this weekend.

I grew up going to the festival and it's always a fun time.  In the early days before the internet the festival always drew a crowd.  I do believe once folks learned of the festival the attendance numbers exploded.  It was many, many years ago when I last attended and wasn't really interested in doing it again.

We had a choice to make.  Turn around and head over to another pumpkin patch inland, or keep heading toward the ocean and see what happens.  We all decided we wanted to keep moving forward and did.

Traffic was slow and steady over the hills and remained that way until we hit Farmer John's Pumpkin Patch. We found parking relatively easily and although the patch was crowded we managed to snap photos and enjoy our time picking out pumpkins.

Afterwards we decided to pay for parking and wander over to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival.  I'm so glad we did.  We heard a bunch of great bands, grabbed some kettle corn and other treats and enjoyed looking at the artisans wares.  We purchased a blown glass pumpkin (which I'll photograph at some point) and a pumpkin hat for my
daughter (he was out of stock, but we should receive it in the mail shortly).  It was a nice afternoon celebrating pumpkins and my favorite time of year.

Happy Haunting,

Mark Harvey