Aside from @MilliGFunk being a little chilly in the restaurant, I don’t think we could have asked for a better day for the first ever St. Louis Apple Picking Tweetup.  The sun was shining, the temperature was cool, and the air was crisp.

The afternoon started off with a little bit of excitement though as we stood in front of the Country Store.  There was a 2 car accident out in the street.  No one was seriously injured that I could tell, but it was remarkable how fast the paramedics made it on the scene.  There was an off-duty Search and Rescue worker who showed up on the scene within literally 2 minutes…I’d say about 5 minutes for the actual ambulance.

After that bit of drama, we continued on to the line for getting on the tractor trailers.  It was busy…but we waited in line patiently and ensued in some conversation.  I’m not sure of the exact time, but I’d say it was about 30-40 minutes of being in line before we hitched our ride.  We had alot of kids come with their Twittering parents, which made this a really fun family event.  We definitely need to plan more family friendly events in the future…I think that could increase our attendance for sure.

Once we boarded the Twitter Train (yes, we had one all to ourselves) the real fun began.  Since there were about 20-25 of us, we just kind of wandered off in our own little groups.  The bulk of the group was able to stay together and rode back to the main farm.  We made a quick pit stop through the pumpkin patch first though so we could make our evaluation on coming back for another trip in a few weeks.  There were plenty of apples eaten out in the fields but a bunch of us were still hungry.  We made our way to the Country Store for dinner.  I had heard good things about their food here and felt it was worth a trip. Boy oh boy was it worth it.  Some had the bottomless fried chicken, while the kids stuck to more mainstream classics like Macaroni & Cheese and hot dogs.  FYI, the fried biscuits were certainly a treat.

By 7:00, it was time to head on out of the corral and get back to the city.  I for one had an excellent time as did my kids.  It would be advantageous for the social media community to certainly mindful that some of us have kids, and family friendly events would allow a much larger attendance at events planned.

Thank you once again to Eckert Farms for having us.  If you’re planning a big group event, they’ll be more than happy to talk with you.  Be sure to follow them on Twitter as well @eckertfarms.