Fall is one of my favorite times of the year for outdoor fun. Perfect temps, colorful scenery, festivals…there’s never a shortage of things to do and see.
Usually hiking is my activity of choice in the fall. Last weekend, however, I did two new things that involved the outdoors and a decent amount of walking, and we had a blast!
First, my husband and I went to McKee’s Cornfield Maze, located in Rougemont, N.C. It is one of largest cornfield mazes in North Carolina, and features a 12-acre adventurous maze and a two-acre children’s maze. Each year the McKee family creates a different elaborate design in their cornfield, and visiting the farm has become a fall tradition for many local families. Their cornfield designs also provide a cool view for those flying over northern Orange County.
As you can imagine, it’s not hard to get totally lost in a 12-acre corn maze. It’s massive! Be sure to ask for one of the maps, although we found that even with the map it’s still easy to get disoriented.
To add even more fun, the McKees make a game out of it by giving you a mission. There were eight hidden stations in the maze, each with a hole punch to punch your admission card. If you find them all, you can enter your card in a drawing for $100.
I don’t know how far we walked — I should have used my tracking app — but we were there for an hour and a half! We were busy on our “mission” though, and the time flew by as we enjoyed the gorgeous fall weather and Carolina blue skies.
Next year, I’d love to come back to McKee’s for their haunted maze, which is held on certain nights from dusk to 10 p.m. Sounds like fun!
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We were pretty worn out after that. We went home and rested up for a few hours before it was time for our next outing — I’d gotten us tickets for the Spirits of Hillsborough Haunted Walking Tour in historic downtown Hillsborough, N.C.!
On this one-hour walking tour, we enjoyed learning about Hillsborough’s Revolutionary and Civil War history from the ghosts of its famous citizens, wonderfully portrayed by the Orange Community Players. Guides led us to each house or building on the tour, where the costumed character would welcome us and deliver a monologue on their experience. We loved it. This will definitely become an annual October tradition for us as well.
The tour was presented by the Orange Community Players and the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough. For information on future tours and other things to see and do in Hillsborough, see www.visithillsboroughnc.com.
Between the corn maze and the ghost tour, I don’t know how many miles we ended up walking that day but every step was worth it. What a great way to spend a fall day (and night)!
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