Showing posts with label lancaster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lancaster. Show all posts

Monday, August 17, 2009

A Taste of Lancaster

A few days ago we made our annual pilgrimage to Lancaster, PA. This year, for the first time in three years, we camped out.

The tent is brand new, having discarded our two older (and smaller) tents during the great b*d bug debacle of 2007. Two of our sleeping bags are also brand new as the kids have outgrown the child-sized ones that they used to use.

Squidette was put in charge of erecting the tent with Little Squid assigned to assist while I started a fire. Experience has shown that if we do not start a fire by 5 or so then we will not eat until really late. (Mike was unloading the car and doing a small amount of unwinding after a nerve wracking drive through some really nasty rain.)

They did a great job until it came time to raise the roof. At that point the stronger (and taller) adults had to step in and help. We also had to put the fly on as neither child has the height or jumping ability to get it over the top of the tent.
Yes, it is huge but it served well and we were all as comfortable as one can get in a tent on a hill.

Little Squid woke up each morning in a heap at the bottom of the tent. The rest of us managed to mostly maintain our positions on our mats but he and I had the more slippery sleeping bags and with his lower mass, he had a lesser ability to stick to the slanted surface.

After a dinner of locally made / grown, slightly undercooked, sausage, corn on the cob and (fully cooked) bread,--and s'mores for desert, we sat around our pitiful fire and knit / read. A quiet and companionable evening as we listened to guitar music coming from a neighboring campsite.

The next day we trooped off to a local corn maze for another annual tradition and got ourselves good and lost and then found again as we wended our way through the maize.
I got a good amount done on this year's Corn Maze sock.
A hefty lunch at Good and Plenty (another tradition), some shopping and then back to the campground to swim and just hang out for the afternoon. We did not even attempt a fire until after dinner, dining instead, on cold (cooked) sausages, fruit and bread, all obtained from a local market. Yum! Then, we finally lit the fire and sat around trying to think of campfire songs and instead singing all sorts of silly stuff.

Our neighbors, they of the guitar music (which I realized was recorded) stayed up way beyond our bedtime, chatting loudly. I couldn't really fault them, they did turn off the music at 10 (the campgrounds quiet time) but it started the night off badly for all of us and not one of us slept well.

Waking by 6:30 (habits are hard to break, especially when you haven't slept well to begin with), we breakfasted, read, and stared in awe at the incredibly dense fog that obscured our view of the cornfield just 100 yards away.

Once the fog had lifted a bit, we went off to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. We've been here once or twice before and really like looking at the old trains. It was their family weekend so they had some retired engineers there to explain some of the engines to us. After a full two hours we pulled ourselves away and went to Jakey's for lunch. It was our first time dining there but not our last! Mike, Squidette and I all had bar-b-que sandwiches of one sort or another--Little Squid was less adventurous and had a hamburger.

A trip to That Fish Place, That Pet Place then ensued with the acquisition of lots of food and supplies for our turtles-in-residence and for Little Squid's soon-to-be blue tongued skink. Then a "quick" round of mini-golf at a new-to-us place (with a good amount of shade!) and back to the campground for more swimming / reading / relaxing.

Our final campfire was more successful than our first two and we managed to successfully brown our corn and smoked sausages which were eaten with fresh cantalope and more local bread. Mmm ... whoopie pies finished up the meal. Sitting around the fire we passed around my BeBook with it's collection of books and read a variety of selections from Grimm's Fairy Tales. Mike started a story from Arabian Nights (on his Nokia tablet) and we laughed and joked and generally enjoyed each others company.

All of us slept much better--probably because we were so very tired from two nights of little sleep--and were abruptly awoken by our neighbors noisily rising at 5:00 a.m. Grr ...

I managed to fall back to sleep and the kids didn't hear them but Mike was up for the day at that point and woke me up when he finally decided to start packing.

And so we are now home, though not at the end of our summer travels. I know I promised you Pittsburgh and, of course, there is all the knitting that always happens while we travel. Please be patient, I will get to all in good time.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Blog Vacation

We interrupt this blog vacation to bring you this.

We Squid would also like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Lil' Bro, Josh. It's a little belated but I did call ... Josh, from all of us here in the Squid home, may this year be as wonderful as the last and may your new home suit you and Jaye to a T. Love you!

We now resume this blog vacation.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Where in the World Were the Squid?

This starts a series of interrupted blog post where you get to follow the Squid on their summer travels outside, yes, I said outside, of New York City. Everyone gasp now!

For our first installment we have our annual trip to Pennsylvania Dutch Country where our intrepid Squid venture every year for a dose of the great outdoors and some quality time lost in a corn maze.

This year they wimped out and, instead of roughing it in tents, opted for a "Cozy Cabin." Let's hear it for the wimps making a good choice. It POURED and lightninged and thundered most of the second day so our Squid had a porch to play games on and a watertight, no worry roof over their head at night. And a bathroom.

***

This years trip started out with a visit to the National Watch and Clock Museum where we learned all about Horology. (The study of timekeeping, get your minds out of the gutter!)

Many interesting clocks were viewed -- click here for more photos.This clock did just about everything except vacuum the floor!One of my favorites -- I like unusual clocks.

Lunch was at Hinkle's Pharmacy for some good, authentic regional food. Yum! This pharmacy with lunch counter has been around since 1893!
We explored Columbia, PA for a bit and then headed to our camp ground for a quick stop to unpack. The we were off to join members of the Lancaster Bike Club for an Ice Cream Ride to the Oregon Dairy where we feasted on locally made ice cream. (For more bike cam pictures, click here.) Definitely NOT New York! After 10 miles in the heat, with the sun rapidly setting we trouped back to the cabin for showers and bed. The cabin had two bunk beds so we each had our own, off the floor, accommodations, with the kids on top and the parents below. It also had air conditioning.

In the morning we dined al fresco, the last such meal of the trip.

A little reading,
a little goofing,a little crossword action and then we were off.

In the 90+ degree, 100% humidity, we headed in to the Maze and found ...a bike. How fitting.And, a bull. Which this story is not.And lots of corn.And, finally, our way out! After 2 hours of purposeful wandering we did it! This seemed to be the hardest of the mazes that we have done so far. We spent the first hour or so seemingly going in circles and then finally hit on some new sections of the maze and quickly got on the right track.

After finding our way out, the kids did some pedal carting and then we headed to Good and Plenty for lunch. Just as our meal was served, the skies opened up. It did not stop raining until ... well, um, I think it is still raining. (Actually, there was a break in the rain this morning so we were able to cook our breakfast on the camp stove and eat on the porch.)

Since outdoor activities were out, we went clock and pretzel shopping and then retreated back to the cabin for a couple of rousing games of Scrabble and Set.

Our adventures will take us further west this summer and should include bike rides in four other states and a visit to a midwest state fair. Stay tuned!