Lancaster County, PA

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about taking advantage of local getaways. These short weekends spent exploring something different can be energizing and add quality time spent with a loved one or your family. My husband and I were in need of quality time and drove two hours to Lancaster County, PA this past weekend.

Lancaster County, aka PA Dutch Country, is known by many as a largely Amish community. We stayed just east of the city of Lancaster and didn’t quite make it downtown because we took advantage of the quaint towns in the country side. What we found interesting is the blend of activities for tourists to choose from. You can take an Amish buggy ride or spend time at an Amish farm learning about their way of life and then head over to the Dutch Wonderland Amusement park or shop at one of the large outlet malls. This overlap of visualizing life in the 18th century with the roller coasters and fast food joints of today can confuse your senses. My husband and I chose to explore the peaceful environment of the country side. With no children in tow, we could drive and stop when we wanted to and just really enjoy each other, the beautiful weather, and anything that we found along the way. The towns in the area to explore are called Bird-in-Hand, Intercourse, New Holland, Ronks, and Strasburg. If you have a good map, you can easily get to these towns in one weekend. There are many places to take buggy rides with the Amish. These rides range from 20 minutes to 90 minutes and include different activities along the way. You can also take Amish tours. Do you remember the movie Witness? There is a movie tour on a farm where it was filmed. There are farmland tours where you can milk a cow, feed the animals, taste the homemade food, and pick fruits and veggies from the garden. There are train tours and theatres featuring energetic productions. The one experience that we thought would be great for families with teenagers would be the Amish Camp- leave modern life behind and live as the Amish do, complete with school lessons, cooking sessions, chores and no electricity. We also had a good laugh thinking about how our children might think we were punishing them. If you like antiques, furniture shopping, baked goods and jams, and driving the beautiful country side, then this place is for you. The custom made furniture quality is amazing and the price is unbelievable. The food is fresh and provides that nostalgic home-cooked meal you remember as a child. The popular dessert found throughout the region is called Shoofly Pie. It was delicious. Whoopie pies are also very popular. Of course, I tend to be a dessert person but I love their homemade pretzels. Have you had a buttery soft pretzel from the mall? This is similar but better! Especially when you are eating this in the country while watching the bouquet of animals interact peacefully in the backyard of an Amish home while a little Amish girl in her bare feet serves you a sample with some homemade root beer.

While we enjoyed shopping, eating, watching, and exploring, we couldn’t ignore the Amish men working their fields. They had between 4 and 8 horses pulling them through the fields while a dedicated dog ran beside them. Local families were seen in their buggies throughout the day going somewhere. I remember seeing Amish families near my home in Indiana but the concentration of Amish families in Lancaster County are much higher. I admire their hard work, their dedication and their peaceful lifestyle. I did envy it for a moment as I thought about trading mental exhaustion for physical exhaustion. It’s funny to think that our ancestors all lived this way at some point. Today, we have to go to the gym or go for a run to get physically tired. I hope that the tourism industry hasn’t exploited the Amish. If so, I am at fault too. I respect the Amish way of life and I did get a sense that the locals and tourists do as well, but that is without asking them. I encountered many Amish families and they were all smiles and very helpful. We will be going back to take our children and do buy some furniture on our next visit to PA Dutch Country! There are more pictures posted on my Facebook page. The link is at the top of the homepage.

San Francisco

San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the United States. The weather is near perfect everyday with respect given to the season. The extended area has rolling hills. It is near the ocean. There is a multitude of history waiting to be discovered downtown AND in the extended Bay area. And as an added bonus, it is one of the best regions in the world to taste wine! Do you need to hear more before you decide to visit this gem underneath the Golden Gate Bridge? How about the fact that you can drive 3-4 hours and be in Yosemite National Park. Or what about the 3-4 hour drive to Lake Tahoe. By the way, these two locations are amazing on their own but they serve as an added bonus when a side trip to visit one or both is planned. How about a coastal drive south to Big Sur along one of the most breathtaking drives on Highway 1 with a stop along the beach to visit the enormous elephant seals? (I believe I have a picture in a previous blog) I could go on and on and on and on. So I will! But first, I must remind you that as a military wife, I have lived in a lot of different places. One of them was here in the Bay area to the East of San Francisco. Because of the public transportation, aka BART, we were able to get into the City quite often. I also want to add that you can kayak, boat, whale watch, view the surfer's tackling the giant waves at Maverick's, hike the hills and mountains, look up at the giant Redwood trees, head to a professional football, baseball, basketball or soccer game, eat your way through one of the many farmer's markets, and, did I mention, go wine tasting? If I were going to plan a trip to San Francisco, here is how I would do it. First, I would stay between North Beach (Little Italy)and Fisherman's Wharf. Yes, these are the tourist areas, but there are plenty of ways to get around the city and Bay area from here. This allows for a great location to the tourist destinations. Explore Tripadvisor, Frommers, Lonely Planet or one of the other online guidebooks with recent reviews of the hotels. Before we lived there, we made a last minute decision to stay in the City. I found the San Remo Hotel in North Beach. It is a quaint little place with a vintage appearance and Victorian decor, and, oh yeah, shared bathrooms. But, they had heated towel holders! Once we made it to the lobby to check in and saw the old man walk by in his towel brushing his teeth, I figured out this is a hotel/home type of lodging. To my surprise, we enjoyed it there and would go back! I loved the location and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. Okay, once you find your hotel, download a guide map so you won't get lost. Now, make reservations online to get into Alcatraz! Yes, it is worth it! Now, make reservations to see a show called Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi. Daytime is for families with children and evenings are for adults. If you enjoy comedy shows, this will have you hurting from laughing so hard. There are wonderful Italian restaurants and bakeries in North Beach. One of my favorites is Caffe Sport near Club Fugazi. Once you arrive in the City, visit the Wharf at Pier 39 to see the sea lions and eat the mini donuts (yes, after the bad breath of the sea lions wear off you will smell the donuts). Walk by the Boudin Bakery and stop in for a cup of clam chowder in a bread bowl. Walk to the Red and White Fleet and take the one hour historical Bay cruise for $20. Any time spent on the water is worth it! Afterward, head toward Ghiradelli. (Higher numbered piers) Notice the restaurants along the way. At night, the area on the water becomes alive with kiosks of fresh seafood served in a variety of ways. Watch out for the shrub man. He will jump out and scare try to scare you. On your way up to Ghiradelli for your free sample, stop at the little beach. Notice the swimmers in the 50 degree water. Look at your view. You see Sausalito, Tiburon, Angel Island (Ellis Island of the West), Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. If you get a chance to ferry over to Angel Island, it is worth it. Rent a bike there and bike the 5 miles around the island. Now, walk up the little hill to Ghiradelli. Finally, get your free chocolate! They also have hot chocolate and ice cream. Did I mention that the City is all uphill. (It's not but it seems that way). The hills are so steep, you must be prepared so start walking today! If you like to bike, rent them and go! You can bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. I took my girls on this little 14 mile jaunt in the rain and wind. (They were 7 and 13) I loved it but I was old enough to drink a beer afterward! Once you are at Ghiradelli, walk back down to the trolley and ride this to the end. This is Union Square, a shopping mecca! Shop til you drop! Take your trolley back or take the F Muni, electric bus up Embarcadero and back to the Wharf near your hotel. It was $1.50 last time I was there. Just north of Union Square is Chinatown. This is a wonderful area to explore and there are many places to stop in for some dim sum. If you want more walking days, walk up to Coit tower for some great views. The bike tour will allow for you to see so much but if you can't do the bike, consider a city tour on an open bus. There are also the duck tours that give you the city and the water experience. There's Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, The Presidio and so much more. There are museums galore! At this point, you need to get to the library and read up on San Francisco to match your interests. Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco". So, my advice to is dress in layers and bring extra clothing, just in case! Trust me, you may buy a fleece and gloves in June! However, once you are 20 miles East, it could be hot enough to sunbathe! There is so much to do here and I can't mention them all but only give you my favorites. Once you have explored the city, have a plan to rent a car or allow for transportation or a guided tour to get you north into wine country (Napa and Sonoma). Take the BART to UC Berkeley and walk around the campus. Head over the Golden Gate Bridge into Muir woods for a quick hike to see the giant Redwoods. Head up to Bodega Bay to hike the ridge and watch the whales (the photo was taken at Bodega Bay and we saw many whales that day). Or, drive south to Half Moon Bay to kayak, have lunch on the water and if the waves are giant, there may be surfers at Maverick's. Don't forget to work in a side trip to Lake Tahoe for winter skiing or summer relaxing~ it is worth it! OR, there's always Yosemite! It's not called a National Park for no reason! I'll be honest with you. I would like to move back to the Bay Area when we leave the Army. It is high on my list for all the reasons mentioned and much, much more! Contact me if you have any more questions about the area or if you would like more infomation on the places I mentioned. gpurvis@cruiseone.com

CANADA AND NIAGARA FALLS

It took about 8 hours from NJ to get there. To be honest, I wasn't too inspired by the drive. Maybe it's pretty in late spring or early summer but it wasn't for our trip. About twenty minutes before arriving into Canada, I inquired about using our phones there. Not good timing, considering that our GPS wasn't loaded with Canadian locations and we were afraid that the Int'l rates on our phone would be high so I hurried up and downloaded a map to my iPhone and we put all phones on airplane mode. We made it to Rainbow Bridge to go through customs. We picked the slowest line. I was throwing a tantrum and should of been punished. The average car time was 5-7 minutes and, of course, it took us about 2 minutes. Hey, with about 10 cars in front of us, that could be up to 70 minutes! Once we crossed, I pulled my phone map out and guided my husband to our hotel. I hate to say it but the Canadian side is much nicer than the American side along the river by the Falls. Stay in a hotel that overlooks the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, it is well worth the view. I found a wonderful package on Travelzoo for the Marriott Fallsview Hotel and Spa. Plan to pay $25 or more for hotel parking, and there's no getting around that unless you park at the Casino garage for $5 a day and check on your car daily. It's about a 10 minute walk from the Fallsview hotels. We did valet at the hotel because it cost the same as self park (+tip). Here is our room view.

There are high and low trails to walk along the river. It is very clean. We walked them a couple of times. The American falls are about a 1/3 of the size of the Canadian falls. Once you near the Canadian falls by the river, you start to feel the mist and wonder if it is sprinkling but the sun is out and there are no rain clouds.
The area was extremely diverse. There were people from all around the world speaking many different languages and often in their traditional attire representing their culture or religious beliefs. There is a beautiful visitor's center with a food court, some little shops and kiosks to book different activities. We wanted to do the "Maid of the Mist" but she didn't open for another month so I was bummed. Instead, we did "Journey Behind the Falls" and walked through the cave like hallways behind the Falls and looked through the openings. Here is one of the pictures.

It was cool, damp, and loud down there but very thrilling.
We had a concierge in our lobby and she also had a variety of activities to discuss or book with guests. We spoke with her about the ice wineries and booked some tastings in the nearby city of Niagara On The Lake (on Lake Ontario). We took the scenic river drive and it was beautiful. The wineries are everywhere and reminded me of living near Napa/Sonoma; well, maybe a little. I just had to check out this ICE WINE that my mom keeps telling me about! We made it through our whites and reds and finally onto the Ice Wine, which is higher in sugar and considered a dessert wine. They pick the grapes frozen and at this point the sugar content is much higher when fermented. I am not much of a "sweet" person when it comes to cocktails so for me, I could enjoy a couple of sips but that's all. We did buy our favorites and then made our way to Lake Ontario for some cool views and drove around the historic downtown. We ate lunch and walked around. Here is a picture of Starbuck's and is an example of the character presented in these downtown stores.

I think my husband tried to use one of our debit cards and it was rejected, which, again, reminded me I didn't call our banks. At least our trusty USAA credit card worked and in these parts, most places take USD! So, once we made it back to the hotel to get on wifi, I made the changes online. The funny part is, I remind people to make copies of their passports, call the bank, photo copy credit card numbers, write down bank numbers, find out the transaction fees, check into wifi access or phone/text/data Int'l roaming charges and phone plans and guess what? I didn't do any of these things. I was laughing at myself and glad we weren't too far from home!
We were able to make a tribute to my mother's family. My grandfather is buried here and I was able to visit his grave site and the house my mom grew up in and eat at some of the restaruants they remembered.

There is a lot to do here. You could easily stay for a week but plan on spending more $$ than planned. Visit tripadvisor for restaurant and activity ideas. The restaurants in the "tourist" areas are limited and we heard people saying that the food wasn't very good. We took advice from the concierge desk and front desk employees and were pleased with their recommendations. We didn't get to the Casino or the shopping or the area with Planet Hollywood and the Ferris Wheel. There is also a butterfly conservatory, a Fort along the river, cable cars that cross the river and many scenic viewing areas and walking/biking paths.
We were going to head to Toronto, which we could see across Lake Ontario, which would take about 90 minutes to get there but we opted to stay in our area this time. We'll take a cruise to the New England/Canada area from one of the NE ports in the fall or next summer and get a chance to see more of Canada!

It was a wonderful trip and we are glad we were able to visit one of Earth's magnificient wonders.

Check out my Facebook page for more pictures.