Corn Maze Adventures

 Jason has wanted to go to a corn maze for a few years now. I remember the fall before Little Pumpkin was born, we attempted to go to a corn maze in Colorado with our friends, Shaun and Tiffany. That was supposed to be a haunted corn maze, and I was a bit relieved that it was closed when we arrived. (We obviously did not research and plan that trip very well!) Since then, I believe the topic of doing a corn maze has come up every single fall. We finally made it out to a non-haunted corn maze this past Saturday. I was surprised to find out that Jason had never actually done a corn maze. Not that I had ever done one, but I just assumed that he had been to corn mazes at other times in his life. So it was a first for all three of us!

Gieringers Family Orchard and Berry Farm is south of Kansas City, and I discovered them last year when I heard of their u-pick strawberry patch. We have been fortunate to be able to partake of almost all of their seasonal fruits - strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries, peaches, sweet corn, tomatoes - but had never been to any of their fall events.

Little Pumpkin did a fair amount of walking through the corn maze- more than we expected!

When the little lady was tired of walking, she got a piggy-back ride that she thoroughly enjoyed!

 

After having a drought this summer, there has been a ton of rain this fall to the point of flooding in some places. Thankfully it wasn't too muddy this weekend, although the ground was still spongy, and a little muddy in some areas.

Thanks to Jason's extensive reading throughout his life, he was pretty sure he knew the key to getting through the maze without getting lost: pick one side to follow and stick to it. We followed his suggestion and it worked! We did not have to do any back-tracking, never got lost, and made it out in decent time. Although, with the corn being so short this year, I don't think you could get too desperately lost!

After the corn maze, it was time to check out all of the other activities Gieringer's provided: a combine slide, a truck slide, barrel rolling, and more. We chose two of the events that Little Pumpkin could enjoy the most.

The inflatable pumpkin bounce! She really likes to jump, or bounce, these days so this was a lot of fun for her.

We even convinced Jason to join us on the pumpkin bounce, which made it all the more fun for Little Pumpkin!

And the giant corn pit. I told Jason that this activity kind of goes against farm safety rules, but it was not very deep.

She spent a fair amount of time filling, and dumping, the buckets with corn. Since it was getting closer to closing time, and we still had a few more things we wanted to do, we had to move on....

....to their pumpkin donuts!!! Gieringer's makes, and sells, seasonally flavored cake donuts throughout the summer. We have tried their strawberry and blueberry donuts, so of course we had to try the pumpkin! I think the pumpkin donut was my personal favorite of the year, and Little Pumpkin definitely did not disapprove!

On our way back to the parking lot, we stopped to take a picture with the sunflowers. Sadly, they were past their prime, and were drooping (not to mention we have had a couple hard frosts already), so I did not get the beautiful, full-bloom sunflower pictures that I had wanted.

Our last stop was the pumpkin patch! I had really wanted to get a nice picture of Little Pumpkin with a pumpkin. (Cliche, I know!) But, we were too late in the season. They still had a lot of nice pumpkins, but the leaves and vines were all dead, so not a very pretty picture.

We still took some pictures, but the little lady is in the phase of "don't smile for the camera."

All in all, our first experience with a fall corn maze and pumpkin patch event was pretty successful. Little Pumpkin quite enjoyed the outing, loved the pumpkin donuts, and got lots of exercise! Jason and I both enjoyed the break from a slightly rough week, and it was a lot of fun to do something all together.

What fall-type activities have you done, or would like to do? And, what is your method for not getting lost in a maze?