Summers in the District of Columbia are h-o-t and humid. When the temperature rises above 90 degrees, I'm itching for ways to stay in the AC or - better yet - leave the city. Lucky for me, K and our friends Becca and Bryan are always up for an adventure. So this Saturday, we all drove an hour into Virginia to go tubing on the Shenandoah River. We'd all gone tubing before, but we were seriously impressed with the service provided by the
Downriver Canoe Company. For $22, you get to park your car, rent an inner tube, catch a ride down to the river, enjoy a lazy 3-hour tubing trip, and then hop into a waiting bus that returns you to your car. I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking to go tubing with minimal hassle.
We had just left the tubing place and were on our way back to DC when we spotted this...
... a sign for the
Apple House's ice cream stand! The Apple House is a restaurant serving up fish, burgers, and BBQ, but they open a roadside ice cream stand during the summer months. This big sign makes the place hard-to-miss, and a cold, creamy snack sounded like heaven to us.
The Apple House's Ice Cream Stand is nothing fancy, but the crowded parking lot and picnic tables were a good sign. The Apple House only offers soft-serve ice cream, with
Vanilla and
Chocolate flavors available everyday. This afternoon, the rotating "flavors of the week" were
Peanut Butter and
Coffee. You can get your soft-serve "straight-up" in a cup or cone or made into a sundae, "candy blast" (mix-ins blended in), or a shake. While the soft-serve flavors aren't exactly interesting, the extensive menu of toppings and mix-ins means that you can get creative with your order. The "Rice Krispies Shake" caught my eye, but K and I were sharing - and he had his eye on the marshmallow topping listed on the menu. In the end, we opted for a "small" cup of classic
Vanilla soft-serve with marshmallow topping and rainbow sprinkles. The small-cup of ice cream itself was $2.39, but our two add-ons brought the bill to over $4.
 |
| K and my cup, and Bryan modeling his cone |
The verdict? Vanilla soft-serve with sprinkles screams "Summer!" to me. I'm always transported back to early-evening outings with my family, licking dripping cones standing next to our car or on an old, sticky picnic table. The Apple House's Ice Cream Stand lived up to the standard of good-ol' vanilla soft-serve, but it didn't surpass it. The marshmallow topping was sugary-sweet like it should be, but was a bit to runny for K's taste (he prefers the thick, goopy kind). Still, I was really disappointed with the measly spoonful of rainbow sprinkles - especially because I paid almost a dollar extra for them! In New England, most mom-and-pop ice cream stands will drown your cup or cone in sprinkles for free. That being said, the Apple House's soft-serve was very enjoyable and made the oppressive heat a little easier to bear.
The Stats:
Apple House Ice Cream Stand
4675 John Marshall Highway
Linden, VA 22642
http://www.theapplehouse.net
The Apple House's Ice Cream Stand is nothing fancy, but the crowded parking lot and picnic tables were a good sign. The Apple House only offers soft-serve ice cream, with Vanilla and Chocolate flavors available everyday. This afternoon, the rotating "flavors of the week" were Peanut Butter and Coffee. You can get your soft-serve "straight-up" in a cup or cone or made into a sundae, "candy blast" (mix-ins blended in), or a shake. While the soft-serve flavors aren't exactly interesting, the extensive menu of toppings and mix-ins means that you can get creative with your order. The "Rice Krispies Shake" caught my eye, but K and I were sharing - and he had his eye on the marshmallow topping listed on the menu. In the end, we opted for a "small" cup of classic Vanilla soft-serve with marshmallow topping and rainbow sprinkles. The small-cup of ice cream itself was $2.39, but our two add-ons brought the bill to over $4.
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