Lancaster County, PA

On Friday, October 29, 2010, we decided to get out of Dodge and headed off to parts unknown (to us): Lancaster County, PA.

After running some errands (like picking out faucets for the new bathroom and kitchen), we drove to Terre Hill ("Terry Hill"), PA, and checked into the Artists' Inn and Gallery, http://www.artistinn.com/ We were at risk of showing up too early, so we stopped at the Shady Maple grocery store and very successfully killed a lot of time, picking out different types of apples and eating the-best-ever apple fritter. http://www.shady-maple.com/ After checking in and getting sound advice from our hosts, we continued to eat our way across the county: first with a historical tour at Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery http://www.juliussturgis.com/ and then at Wilbur's Chocolates, http://www.wilburchocolate.com/, both in Ephrata.

Our hosts at the B&B deserve their own paragraph -- warm and gracious but comfortable letting us be as involved as we wanted to be. The rooms were lovely and full of interesting antiques and details. There was a comfortable living room on the first floor and a quiet game/reading room upstairs. The breakfasts were huge and delicious. They easily served as breakfast, lunch, and at least half of dinner.

We weren't hungry enough to go anyplace expensive for dinner, so we shopped at 10,000 Villages and had a light supper in their snack bar. Part way through our tour of the store we realized that this must be related to the Agape Shop in Watertown, NY, also run by Mennonites, where we started shopping about 30 years ago. And, to our embarrassment, the person helping us said that they have another store in Media, PA, only 2 miles from our house. Good news, though: big sale in two weeks, and a huge sale on rugs in the Ephrata store in February. http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/

Saturday's early visits were less touristy, starting with "Obe's" fabric and quilt store where you hope the fire marshall doesn't bother to stop in, but with more quilts than you can begin to look at. We also visited a woman who runs a greenhouse, and talking with her was a real treat. Seeing Lena Mae Nolt and picking up more house plants from her greenhouse is definitely on our to-do list for a return trip. Then on to Uncle Henry's pretzel factory, http://www.unclehenry.com/, where pretzels are still twisted by hand but the factory only operates Monday - Friday (but the sales counter is open on Saturday). We passed Weaver Market which had a bunch of buggies parked outside so of course we went back. We could have purchased Amish hats, fabric and patterns for Mennonite dresses, shoes and boots, work gloves, farm toys or lots of other stuff. We got free hot dogs and cider with our purchase, although we were pretty full of pretzels. http://www.weavermarkets.com/

We wandered up to the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail, starting in Cornwall, http://www.lvrailtrail.com/. We didn't realize that the "30 minutes" on the directions was for the drive, and not the trail. The trail is 12.5 miles long and we got there too late in the day to do the whole thing. It was beautiful, though, and worth going back to. On this trip we did a lot of saying, "Well, we haven't been on THIS road yet" and we headed back to Terre Hill by a different road that went right past the Cornwall Iron Furnace, "America’s most complete charcoal fueled ironmaking complex" originally built in 1732, http://www.cornwallironfurnace.org/

Lena Mae said that she and her family eat at the Dutchette Diner in the Shady Grove Smorgasbord/gift shop building and, since we didn't want a lot for dinner, we thought we should give it a try (although Lily's http://www.lilysonmain.com/ and The Black Horse Restaurant http://www.atblackhorserestaurant.com/ both sounded really good). The gift shop -- the size of the Reading Terminal Market -- was a trip. The line at the Smorgasbord was unbelievably long so we did end up at the Diner with a lot of locals. Driving back was interesting. There were a lot of people riding bicycles at night, which is pretty startling the first few times you come upon a group of 6 or more cyclists in the dark. Our hosts explained that Saturday night is date-night. After we went to bed, we heard the clop-clop of horses pulling carriages, long into the night.

Sunday we lingered over a wonderful breakfast with the other B&B guests, pored over our host's artwork trying to choose what to bring home, and finally got on the road. There are two enormous antique markets nearby so we visited one, Renningers' http://www.renningers.com/ in Adamstown and managed to leave with only a picture frame. We passed on Stoudt's, this time. We took the Fivepointsville Road back to Ephrata and were rewarded with lots of corn fields with stalks stacked like teepees.

Our final stop was at the Ephrata Cloisters, http://www.ephratacloister.org/, the home of a community of Germans trying to achieve a spiritual life and preparing for the second coming by praying 5am-6am, 9am-10am, noon-1pm, 5pm-6pm, eating their one meal of the day, then sleeping 9pm-midnight, praying midnight- 2am, and sleeping 2am-5am. Oh, and sleeping on an 18" wide board with a wooden pillow.

Notes for another visit:

- http://www.landisvalleymuseum.org/

- and shopping for plants in the spring and shrubs in the fall