Amish Country

We thoroughly enjoyed Intercourse, Pennsylvania and the surrounding area. The immediate tourist area wasn't great, but if you enjoy riding around in the car, it was totally worth taking the back roads and seeing the farms.

I completely splurged and bought a quilt. We called it an early birthday present. The quilts were all works of art and I could have spent hours looking at all of them (and wanting to wrap up in them). I bought this one out of a family's home and the woman was so kind and was just showing me as many as I wanted to see. She said it takes about 12-16 weeks for them to complete one quilt and each woman in the circle will work on a particular bit. She said her 86 year old mother does the edging. It amazes me they are able to part with them!

We spotted at another house where they were selling cheese and Root beer. Odd combo, but why not? So we bought cheese and root beer. I had never had home made root beer before and O it was O so good. I thoroughly enjoyed every last drop. Of course, the cheese was tasty too and went into a few of our pasta dishes over the next few weeks.

I loved seeing the horse and buggies all over town. I did try and be respectful and not take too many obvious tourist photos, and never of any of the Amish peoples faces. I had been told that they generally just ignore tourists, but when we were on the roads further out and we would pass someone on horse and buggy or out in their yards/farms, we received a lot of smiles and waves which was nice.

So Amish country so was a definite win and we will be going back again. Hopefully to buy another quilt and eat some more Shoo Fly Pie

Favorite picture ever?

The Triceratops

The last time I posed in front of these, I was 5 weeks pregnant. So it was very cool when at the Smithsonian in DC, Griff told me to stand in front to take a picture. I was like a wonderful, gigantic circle. Good stuff.

Adventures in Book Hunting

So I am a Stephen King fan. In particular, a 'Salem's Lot fan. So when my sister found a website to a bookstore specializing in Stephen King books called Betts Books we immediately added to the list of places we needed to see on our travels. It had originally been located in Bangor, Maine but has now been relocated to Fairfield, Connecticut.

So this morning we headed out from Amherst, Mass. and put the address to Betts Books into the GPS. We were checking out of our hotel at noon and a last minute check had me finding that Books closes at 3. With a 2 hour drive that would leave us an hour for browsing. We were off!

We were making great time and then when were about 10 minutes away we hit some major traffic so we took a detour that would add another 20 minutes to our drive. That would give us only 30 minutes to browse...that is if they decided to stay open. Indie bookstores have that luxury of "O no one is in, let's close early".

The GPS started leading us into a residential neighborhood. Initially Griff thought it was giving us a shortcut but all of a sudden we found ourselves parked in front of someone's house with the GPS announcing we'd reached our destination.

BUT THIS ISN"T A BOOKSHOP! IT'S SOMEONE'S HOUSE.

I was freaking out and screaming swear words at the GPS for taking us to the wrong damn place and threatening to destroy it for its stupidity.

Griff drove up the drive way. "But this is someones HOUSE" I kept saying.

Griff, "Look, see that SK sticker on the car? I'm going to go and have a look. If it says Stephen King, I'm knocking on the door. If not, we're driving!".

Next thing I see my husband going up to knock on the door and lo and behold, the gentleman does run the bookshop for his home. Apparently most sales are done from online and about 5 people in the last 3 years have shown up on his doorstep.

He was amazingly kind and we had a great chat about King books, illustrations and was able to examine some great editions.

And Yes. I did buy something. I bought a 2 books and some prints.

Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy Valentine's to me.

A Quick post about Aging

Today I turn 29.

I am so excited for our future I can't fathom being upset about actually aging. I have so much to be happy and excited about it. If this year is as awesome as the last one (and the one before that...and the one before that...) all I can do is say "BRING IT".

Dinosaur Kingdom

First, I give you a cute picture of Ozzy being "hatched" from a Dino egg.

In small town called Natural Bridge in Viriginia there is a man by the name of Mark Cline who likes to create odd roadside attractions. One of these is Dinosaur Kingdom (which has Haunted House attached to it as well).

The premise of Dinosaur Kingdom is that a group of archaeologists have been digging and uncovered an underground cavern of dinosaurs. It just so happens that the Union Army stumbles upon the dinosaurs and wants to wrangle them up and use them against the Confederate army (this of course taking place during the Civil War).

Just Bizarre.

What's more bizarre that by the end of it all I could think was "what a strange expression of Southern aggression". But maybe I'm just cynical. Regardless, we loved it.

But if Dinosaurs and Haunted Houses aren't your "thing", Cline has also created Foamhenge (the Foam equivalent of StoneHenge) and there is also a Wax museum with a factory tour of how they make the figures. And a butterfly exhibit. We didn't do all of those things. Just the Kingdom/House/Henge.

AND there are some Caverns in Natural Bridge. And a Natural Bridge. SO you could easily spend 2 days seeing things in this very teeny tiny place.

Christmas Ornaments

Some Pretties for my tree!