Road Trip to Lancaster

I made a solo road trip to Lancaster last week. One of my friends at work, Pam, and I wanted to get Jamie a graduation gift.  We talked about what we wanted to get her, and ultimately decided we wanted to get her a quilt wall hanging.  Pam and I both love Lancaster and quilts. We thought this would be something that not only would be a lasting gift, but also something that would always remind her of us :-)

I avoided all the commercial quilt stores....I don't think I've ever been in one of them!  I went to 4 different places, 3 of which were in people's homes.  I found some that I sort of liked, but there wasn't one that stuck out for me that I really liked that I thought Jamie'd like, too.  All day long I was texting pictures to Pam at work (shhh, don't tell the boss!) with some of the quilts I thought were possibilities.

These were some of the options:

This was the one I had pretty much decided on, and Pam was good with it, too:

Until I found this one at Hannah's:

You may not be able to tell it, but, in addition to different materials and colors, there's quite a few different stitches.  If you look at the maroon border, there's leaves and acorns in there!  I think as soon as we both saw it we thought it was perfect for Jamie!

I love Hannah's!  I've gotten several wall hangings and pillows from here.  I love supporting this Amish family, instead of some commercial business.  

You can't go to Lancaster without doing some sightseeing.  Even though I was all by myself, I put my windows down (which at a few points, was a bad, bad idea.  There was some fertilizing going on!!), and just drove on many of the roads between Rts. 30 and 23.

I follow a blog that the writer reviews and rates buffets.  His all time favorite buffet is Shady Maple in East Earl.  I don't even think he's from Lancaster, let alone even Pennsylvania.  He's written several times about this restaurant and I knew for a while that I wanted to check it out the next time I got to Lancaster.  It's attached to a grocery store/farm market.  It's not near as big as Shady Maple, but that's OK.  The day I was there they had 4 different kinds of soup (chili, New England clam chowder, chicken rice and beef vegetable) and quite a few main dishes (ham balls, 'Henny Penny chicken', roast beef, beef stew, pork and sauerkraut, turkey, catfish) and lots of sides.  They also had a stir fry bar that you could pick your ingredients to be stir-fried, plus a burger bar, neither of which I tried.  They had a nice variety of desserts, but all I had was half of a white creme filled donut :)

And you can't leave Lancaster without stopping at Lapp's Dairy Farm for an ice cream cone!

This guy jumped up on the picnic table while I was sitting there and wanted to be petted:

And here's Jamie holding her new wall hanging:

(If you click on this pic, you can see the stitching on the border)