Cool Kid Travels: Arata's Pumpkin Farm

Growing up in New England, it seemed like a significant portion of October was spent carving pumpkins/throwing pumpkins out of moving vehicles at street signs, riding in haunted hayrides, and navigating corn mazes (of course, my eight-year-old self had a shitty memory).  With the lack of foliage and farms located within 4 blocks of my house, I've never really found myself in the fall mood found pretty much everywhere in the eastern half of the country.

After talking about shit to do in the fall in SF, a friend suggested I steal a car and head down Arata's Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay.  While this place has been around since the Depression and likely known to everyone who has spent years in the Bay Area, it was new to me and a bunch of other transplant losers.  So after a night of drinking crappy beer and lackluster pizza, we hauled ass down the coast to what has to be the closest to an authentic New England pumpkin farm I've seen.  A petting zoo!  Sword fights!  A haunted barn! Pumpkins!  A maze!  Statues of King Kong!  Feral cats!  Goats!  Overpriced produce!  Adult-onset diabetes!

Admittedly the maze (not pictured because all my pictures just look like bales of hay) wasn't incredibly hard, half of the attractions were not open until October, and they didn't have kegs of Pabst or indoor bicycle parking, but it was still a quality trip out of the city.

  

  

The petting zoo was full of goats, a cow with a sore of the back of its head, a bunny, and a bunch of bird.

This cat is a real asshole.

I guess they sell pumpkins.

After leaving the pumpkin farm, we stopped off at Moss Beach to look at starfish and seals and shit.  “Walking down to the beach, I briefly step on a wide and flat rock covered in sand.  It was soft and had a bounce to it.  It was a dead seal.” - @tpaz

Comments (4)

What a fun post. I would note that you were about two weeks early. Its all much better on a cool fall day, not an indian summer casino scorcher.

I found this maze to be extremely difficult. The owner bet me my entrance fee that I could not solve the labryinth in under 15 minutes. After 30 minutes, he sent his son in to lead me out. Rather than guide me, he walked atop the hay walls and belittled my sense of direction until I managed to find the exit. The Greeks have a stubborn leaning towards impenetrable materials for the contruction of mazes, unlike the English (me) who build them from hedges. Also, don’t take a girl here on a first date unless you’re certain navigation is not criteria for a second date.

I did the maze on a full moon last year. It was amazing. No pun intended.

i touched that cow’s sore