Bud's Best Cookies

Tres and I went on his second field trip to a local cookie maker. It was very interesting and fun! Because of 9/11 and laws about warehouses, we couldn't take pictures on the tour. This was as far as they let you take pictures and this was at the beginning of the tour. But we got to see the whole process from mixing the ingredients in huge vats mixed by machines... all the way through packaging and shipping. They fed us warm chocolate chip cookies straight off the line too! Tres was in hog heaven let me tell you! Throughout the tour, I kept seeing where cookies were falling on the floor and I wondered what they did with those. It seemed like such a waste to just throw them away. So I asked the tour guide. She directed our attention to a huge green machine in the packaging area and told us that they grind up the cookies that hit the floor and give them to local farmers to feed to their livestock. Hmmm... interesting, huh? After the tour, they gave us some vanilla wafers and a coloring book.If you live in this area, you should go. The tour is free, and it's off Valleydale Road. I've heard these cookies advertised as local, but I had no idea just how local!