Hillridge Farms

Hillridge Farms 

Youngsville, NC            October 17, 2009

Ok, so late start again. I love to sleep. What can I say. We left the house around lunch time. I decided before going to Youngsville, I would take a detour and go to Smithfield. I have been to the outlet stores but it has been years and I thought I could get a new pair of shoes for Tizi there. So detour taken. We looked at several of the shoe stores, and we just stayed with his favorites. It was actually the same price at the outlets as it was in the stores in Fayetteville. But Tizi had fun riding those little rides on the sidewalks that cost 50 cents. And we got a hotdog and ice cream at dairy queen. Time had flown by though, because by the time we left Smithfield, it was like 3:30 pm.

We got back on track and headed towards Youngsville, a small country town past Raleigh. I assumed it was going to be like an hour away from Smithfield. I was hoping the farm was going to be open til 8:00 pm or so. Wrong. It took two hours to get to Youngsville from Smithfield. Traffic through Raleigh was horrendous. We made it to Hillridge Farms at around 5:30 pm. The farm was going to close at 6:30 pm. Ugh. We got out of the car and I said, "Tizi, run and have fun really fast."

The cost to get into the farm was $10 per person and it was totally worth it. In that hour, Tizi ran through a cool children's maze. There were pony rides, but we didn't do that. There is a giant slide. Tizi and I were going to go down the slide, but when we got to the top, Tizi said, "Mom, I don't really want to do this." And I said, "Thank goddess."  I was scared to death. It was a big black tunnel that you slide down with no windows or light. I'm kind of a wimp. So we ran down to the bottom of the slide area. Then I saw a train. It was just about to take off when we got to it. We picked a seat right in front behind the driver. (I don't recommend that unless you like being high on diesel fuels.) The train was awesome. Of course, I was high on diesel fuels at the time. It could have all been an illusion. It did go around a large track twice. With this little train tour, there was old farm equipment to look at and pumpkin-like haystacks. Oh the time they must put into this event every October, that family has to be exhausted. So we had a great time on the train.

Then we ran through a big castle. I lost Tizi. Then he found me. Then we ran towards the hay ride. It was one of the last rides of the night. On the way to the hay ride was a little covered area filled with hay where children were jumping up and down and having a great time. Oh, there was live music there and karaoke. On the hay ride we road all over the farm and through some woods to end up in a pumpkin patch. There we were able to get out and pick one pumpkin each. I just let Tizi pick one, because I didn't really want to carry two pumpkins. Plus we had already gotten two pumpkins at home and Tizi was decorating another one at school. Tiziano looked at every single pumpkin there. Finally we got the very best pumpkin in the world. And we took off running back to the leaving hay ride. So we road through the woods again and all around the farm.

The family and friends of the farm were having a bon fire and they were getting ready to cook some food over it. I also saw a man with a big gas can over the fire. I was a little worried about that, but stayed in ducking position for the rest of the hayride. Hopefully, no one thought we were too strange. When we got done with the hayride, Tizi ran through a hay maze and then back through that colorful children's maze again.

On the way out of the farm, they have a little country store. We went in and got homemade blueberry preserves, homemade superman ice cream, and homemade fudge. It was so good. They also had little toys and things for children. I got Tiziano a small train, since that is one of his favorite things. When we got outside of the store, I rode Tizi around in a pumpkin wagon and I took some pictures in front of some Halloween decorations. I got quite a picture of all kinds of orbs around the area.


We left the farm and headed home. I think it was about 7:30 pm. Though we only got to spend a short time at the farm, it was totally worth it. I recommend it to everyone who has children. We did so much and there was still plenty more to do had we had more time. I will definitely be heading back to the farm next year. You should too.