Every once in awhile, when I can coordinate a rare weekend off with my best friend in NYC, we get to hang out! The calendars aligned last Friday/Saturday, and we chose to visit Lancaster, PA. It’s somewhat of a halfway point… I grew up visiting that area because I had (and still have) lots of relatives there. Some of the things we did I hadn’t done in years! (Pretzel factory tour anyone?) What basically ended up happening was we ate food constantly the whole weekend. Not that I’m complaining.
Friday was nice – I picked Lisa up at the bus station, then we headed to Central Market to indulge on some classic PA Dutch treats. (I ate a quarter pound of Lebanon bologna for lunch. Weird? Maybe.) For dinner, we joined an Amish family in their home and ate traditional Amish food (roast chicken, ham loaf, buttered noodles, chow-chow, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, and more.) It was a feast. And seriously, their kids could not have been any cuter or more well behaved. In turn, I behaved and didn’t take any photos… After dinner, since we were only a few miles away, we stopped by my aunt and uncle’s house/awesome alpaca farm. Check ’em out if you’re in the area – Cider Press Alpacas. They gifted me and Paul an alpaca blanket which is my new favorite one to snuggle with on the couch.
Here’s Lisa looking a little apprehensive. Farm animals just aren’t her thing…
Okay, these next photos are from Saturday, when I pulled out my real camera and shot some real photos. We started off the day by visiting the
September Cheese Farm in Honey Brook. Which, let’s just be honest, was pretty awesome if you love cheese. I discovered something new about Lisa on this trip… I love cheese, but she LOOOOVES cheese. Note the difference.
Lisa in sample-tasting heaven.
They had some really awesome cheese flavors to try, including peach (tasted just like peaches, I swear!), roasted garlic, apple cinnamon, jalepeno, cajun, and cranberry orange. I liked them all.
City meets country.
Then it was off to Intercourse (yes, that’s the name of the town) for a
pretzel factory tour. Little bit underwhelming, but we did get to practice making our own pretzels.
I am an expert, can’t you tell?
And since we were close, we had to drive over to
Wilbur Chocolate in Lititz. Which was also a bit of a letdown, but the town was cool. I knew
Hershey’s Chocolate World is definitely NOT disappointing, so we drove there next. You’ll have to forgive me for not taking photos there because I’ve been a zillion times. But every time it’s just as magical as the last… (I’m munching a chocolate bar as I type this, in fact.)
Anyhoo, I won’t detail the whole rest of our day because I don’t have pictures to follow, but I’ll tell you it involved a nice home-cooked meal at my aunt’s house in Lancaster (different aunt), and a trip to the
Jigger Shop! All in all, a great time. 🙂
