Lancaster

We made a day trip to Lancaster last Friday.  I am happy just driving all the back roads all day and doing nothing else ;-).  

OK.  So.  She's not Amish ;-)  We happened to be in Kristin's area, so decided to try and find the Pizza Hut where she's the manager.  A few texts to Alyssa and with the help of my friend Google, and look who we found!

That's my ham ball I had at Dutch Way Restaurant/Buffett ;-)

Look what town we drove through!

LBI!

I was off work last week.  Kurt suggested we make a day trip down to the shore.  It's been about three years since we'd been down to Long Beach Island, so I was definitely up for the idea!

Driving across the bay to get on to the island:

The south end of the island.  The landscape has definitely changed since Superstorm Sandy a few years ago.

The view from a pavilion in Beach Haven:

Old Barney!

Can't go to the shore without getting an ice cream cone!

Supper in Point Pleasant on our way home:

What a gorgeous evening to eat outside:

Chicken George pizza:

The pictures below I took with my real camera, the ones above are from my phone.

Here we are at the end of the island and looking across to Atlantic City!

2 views from the pavilion at Beach Haven:

The next three pictures I used some sort of different setting on my camera.  I was just playing around, trying them all out.  Some of the pics turned out kinda' neat!

This is a pic of Old Barney from the mainland:

And this is a pic of Long Beach Island from the mainland:

EZ Pass

So Kurt has been very resistant to get an EZ Pass. Alyssa recently obtained one; in fact, it just arrived a few days before we left on vacation. I asked Alyssa if we could borrow it for our trip.   She had actually added my car and its license number when she registered for one anyway.   She got an extra adhesive, too, so it seemed like a no-brainer to me!

Kurt's issue with EZ Pass is that he doesn't like the fact that they (EZ Pass) are holding on to our money. My argument for him is, it's just sitting in our bank account NOT accruing interest anyway, so what does it matter where it's sitting?!?!?  On top of that,  I've watched toll prices go up and up, while EZ Pass users rates have gone up much less. Finally, why would you want to sit in a long line when you can just zip right through with an EZ Pass :-)

I'm not sure we've changed his mind and that he'll run right out and sign up for one, but I think he's totally enjoyed zipping through those toll plazas!

I do find it quite funny that the first toll we had was $13 to go over the Washington Bridge!!

***FYI, I totally just did this entire post on my iPad!  I'm moving up in the world. I did end up buying a $3.99 app (Picasa), but otherwise it seems to have worked well. I'm excited!

Vacation-Last Day!

This was the rustic lodge we stayed at our last night in Watkins Glen:

We visited the International Motor Racing Research Center on our last day before we headed back to PA.  Kurt thought we'd be there about 15 minutes....an hour later....

It was actually kinda neat, we watched a 20 minute video about Watkins Glen Race Course.  We also drove the original 6.6 mile road course on Wednesday afternoon, which was, I'm sure, a highlight of the trip for Kurt :)

We took a detour through Wellsboro, PA and a short drive to the Grand Canyon of PA.  Had we been there about two weeks earlier, I think we would have seen some phenomenal fall colors.  It was still pretty neat, though:

There was a couple standing by us who spotted a bald eagle waaayyyy down in the ravine.  It took me quite a long time until I was able to make this guy out!  This picture was taken with my zoom and you can actually see it much better in the pic than you could in real life:

After a very long drive through much nothing-ness, we came upon my favorite sight in the world-Beaver Stadium:)

And just happened to find these two on the side of the road.  They looked hungry, so we took them to dinner:)  We spent less than two hours in State College, then headed back home to Danielsville.  We had a wonderful time and it was so good to get away for a few days.

Here's our wine purchases: