GUYS – I love fall, always have always will, October is forever my favorite month and honestly the time of year I feel most alive and myself, but this fall has been especially magical, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because in the early mornings of our fall-filled days, Darren and I have been apartment hunting. Our new weekend routine is to wake up early, Darren makes me breakfast, we go look at an apartment and then we spend the rest of the day making lists of pros and cons while mulling around the Kingston farmer’s market, sipping on coffees and walking in the autumn sunshine, all the while picking a fall activity for the afternoon. I’ve fallen in love with Kingston, I’ve always liked it, but lately Uptown feels like somewhere I could call home and we’ve been spending some extra time there just to make sure. Anyway, this is a very long-winded way to introduce my go-to guide for a fall-filled day in Kingston and New Paltz!

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First things first, we’ve spent the past two Saturdays at the Kingston farmer’s market. I smell the flowers, Darren buys a bottle of Hudson Valley Distillers AppleJack , we grab coffees at Uptown Coffee, or from my new favorite bookstore, Rough Draft Bar & Books, and walk through a few times before deciding what we’ll have: usually a fresh pretzel to share in the open air as we walk and talk and offer each other bites.

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After spending some time at the farmer’s market, once we start seeing cardboard signs on booths that say SOLD OUT, we walk blocks and imagine a life of city-living, in the country. We talk about nights that we’ll walk to dinner at our favorite restaurant, mornings where we’ll make our morning coffee and throw on a jacket to soak in the crisp air, and we argue over the practicality of the blue velvet couch I’ve been window shopping for for months.

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From Kingston, New Paltz is a quick, picturesque fall drive. New Paltz is and has been home to our favorite apple orchards for apple picking and then apple crisp-ing since our very first fall, the fall we were just falling in love; there’s also pumpkin picking and corn mazes and hiking at Minnewaska, which is so beaut this time of year.

Last weekend, we stopped at Wallkill View Farm; they have mums so big they’re hard to carry, corn stalks, and all the pumpkins and gourds to decorate your entrance way this time of year, also they are so reasonably priced! If you’re looking for some fall bits for your doorstep this is the perfect spot.

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This weekend, we decided to head back to New Paltz to check out Twin Star Orchards and honestly I’m giving it a 5 star review, we loved it! We ordered a pizza, grabbed a cider, walked the orchard, all the while admiring the countless rows of apple trees, the pond, and the most beautiful weeping willows, which happened to be filled with small children climbing, screaming in delight, while dogs waited at the bottom, tails wagging.

My favorite days are the days you smile so big your eyes look closed in every picture, the days I beg Darren “let’s walk around just one more time before we leave,” the days my lips feel crumbly from crumbs from apple cider donuts – the days where happiness is all around.