Country Roads

The farmlands of Lancaster were a welcome sight after 10 days of subways and concrete. I hadn't spent as much time researching our options for that part of the trip and so we really didn't have an agenda. We just found some backroads and made our way to the little shopping area known as Kitchen Kettle Village. We spent the morning exploring the shops, feeding animals at the little petting zoos that are everywhere there, and watching some Amish women who were canning some sort of salsa at the jam kitchen. We ended up eating hot pretzels for lunch while sitting next to two Amish children who had a little stand made out of a red wagon, and some scrap wood. Their product offering was a variety of previously used horseshoes which they had spray painted. We chatted with them while we ate and our topics ranged from school to dog breeds to their typical summer day. It was a great way to start off our week.

Dinner that night was an epic flop. We ate at the Good N Plenty restaurant, which serves a variety of PA dutch offerings, family style. The chicken, mashed potatoes, and homemade bread were a hit, but beyond that the kids were disenchanted. They tried several of the offerings, like cracker pudding and apple butter, but we didn't push them as far as chow chow and beef stew. I know, we're headed to West Africa. I know, we're in trouble. Trust me, it's a matter of prayer.

This picture makes me laugh. This is who I am. Chunky bracelet, sequined shirt, holding 2 pocketbooks with a third in the bag. I am feeding a llama and I am about to move to West Africa. What in the world?

The Kitchen Kettle village mascot. If you look carefully, you can see one of our lunch buddies in the left rear portion of the photo. She and Lizzy were excited to find out they were the same age.

The next day, we headed to the Herr Factory, which was a big hit. It was free, informative, and fun. Not to mention, yummy! Hot potato chips, right off the line are delicious. We got to see them make pretzels, nacho chips, popcorn, and of course potato chips. The kids picked out a huge shopping bag full of various bags of "oops" chips to take home and the entire thing cost of $6.00. I found a new favorite flavor, salt and pepper, and Ryan fell for the dill pickle.

That evening, we went to the Sight and Sound theater. This, my friends, was incredible. We saw the story of Joseph and it was so neat. We all sat riveted the entire 2 hours. We've been listening to the soundtrack ever since and it's a new favorite.

Outside the Sight and Sound

The final "fun" thing we did while there was a trip to the Hershey Chocolate World. I have to say, this wasn't my favorite. Don't get me wrong- I love chocolate and all things Hershey. I appreciate the life of Milton Hershey and the humanitarian contributions that he made. What I didn't like was that there were non-stop opportunities to spend money from the minute you walked in the door. Wanna make your own candy bar? It's really cool, and it can be yours for $14.95. Wanna watch a 3-d movie about chocolate? Great, it's only $7 each. I suppose that's to be expected and I knew it going in, but I still don't have to like it.

We did have fun riding the free chocolate ride, practicing packing Hershey kisses, and even letting everyone choose their own $1 candy bar from the gift shop. We did pay to ride the singing trolley tour which took us all around town and explained the life of Milton Hershey. They showed us the Hershey factory, mansion, hotel, park, and school. The two actors who were our tour guides made it fun and the kids loved that they got free candy every few minutes. We did it once, we'll check the box, next time we'll go somewhere else. I guess I'm more of a National Parks kinda girl.

The anticipation is building...

About to practice "packing" kisses

Waiting for our trolley to take off.

This was the first souvenir that Isaac selected. Needless to say, we redirected him to the $1 rack.

At this point, the trip headed in a different direction and we spent the rest of our week in the outlet malls. But that, my friends is a different post for a different day.