We spent about a week in July, 2001, in Pennsylvania, staying in the city of York. We chose this spot because of its proximity to some other places we wanted to visit; as it is almost equidistant from Hershey, Gettysburg, and Lancaster County, it became an ideal home base.
Today we drove to York, PA. We started with a nice breafast at the Family Tree restaurant on Broadway. We drove most of the day, and checked in to the Quality Inn, where we learned some lessons about booking hotels (the 800 number for Quality Inn did not pass along some of our requests, and the rooms were not what we wanted. The staff was very helpful, and corrected the situation the next day). For dinner, we ate at the Eat 'n Park on Memory Lane in York.
This was the day we spent in Hershey. We started by moving to the rooms we originally wanted, then went to the hotel lobby for their continental breakfast. Then, it was on to I-83 to US-322 to Hershey! We knew we had arrived when we could smell the chocolate. Of course, the first stop was Hershey's Chocolate World, where we took a simulated tour of the factory. The tour conveniently leads to the gigantic gift shop area, where we spent a lot more money than we expected. :-)
We then drove through the town, so that we could see the legendary street lights, then went on to the The Outlets at Hershey, PA. For lunch, we ate at the Red Robin restaurant near the outlet mall, which has great burgers and fries. Afterwards, we went across the road to Hershey Gardens, which has 23 acres of beautiful roses and a butterfly house. We then went back to York, and had a late dinner at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, conveniently located next to our hotel (I've really missed Perkins, and am glad that they are re-entering the Buffalo area).
This was the day we spent in Lancaster County, the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. We started out late, and got a little confused getting there, so we missed breakfast, but had a good lunch at the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant, on Route 340 (the Old Philadelphia Pike). We then went down the road to the Bird-in-Hand Farmer's Market; the market itself was closed, but they had a nice glass shop and candle shop.
We then went down Route 896 to Strasburg, home of Traintown, USA, on Route 741. We botched around the Strasburg Train Shop and Thomas' Trackside Station, then toured The Amish Village, an Amish farm house on Route 896. Then, it was off to Intercourse, and the Kitchen Kettle Village, where we bought many fine jams, jellies, other foods, and decorations.
A dinner at Your Place Country Inn in Lancaster satiated our need for chicken pot pie, and a couple of hours at the Rockvale Square Outlets filled our shopping needs. I was happy because I found a couple of Van Heusen shirts for $9.99 each (I like Van Heusen shirts because they fit well and last long), and a couple of cheap, good books at the National Book Warehouse (A history of MAD magazine by Dick DeBartolo, and a tribute book to Roger Zelazny, one of my favorite writers).
This was the day we spent in Gettysburg. We started by eating some pumpkin and zucchini breads from Lancaster for breakfast, then got on Route 30 West. Once we got to Gettysburg, our first stop was at the Lincoln Diner for breakfast/lunch, which my uncle Don had suggested; it's a great little diner with excellent food and an incredible dessert menu.
We bought some souvenirs at The House of Bender on Lincoln Square, then set out to tour the Gettysburg National Military Park, using the audio cassette tape tour (which works very well).
We had intended to tour a pretzel factory the previous day in Lancaster, but they were closed by the time we got to them, so instead we toured the Utz Potato Chip Factory in Hanover, which was on our way back to York. While we were there, we bought pretzels, potato chips, and other snacks at their factory store (their pretzels are carried at Sam's Club, but we've never seen any of their other foods in the Buffalo area). We went back to York, and had dinner at Marino's Pizza & Pasta House on East Market Street (excellent!).
Originally, we were going to spend today in Baltimore, but decided that we had already done a lot of driving, and that there were other things in the area we hadn't seen yet, so Baltimore could wait for a future trip. As it turned out, this was a good decision, as a train derailment closed most of the area we wanted to visit!
So, instead, we stayed around York, going to the Stauffer's factory store, the York Galleria Mall, the Petals factory store, and Christmas Tree Hill in the Mansion. The, we had major pool time at the hotel before and after dinner, stopping only for food at Wendy's and Dairy Queen.
Today, we drove to Corning, after having a good breakfast at Perkins. After checking in at our favorite hotel, the Fairfield Inn, we drove to Market Street, where we had a nice dinner at Boomer's Bistro, then walked along Market Street for a while. We went back to the hotel, and enjoyed a nice swim in the indoor pool.
Time to go home! We started out by having breakfast in the hotel, then went back to Market Street to visit some of the shops that were closed the night before. (For more information on Corning, go to this page, which I wrote a couple of years ago.) For lunch, we stopped at Tom Wahl's in Avon for Harvey Wahlburgers and frosted mugs of root beer. Yum! Then, it was back to Buffalo and home.
It was another great vacation, full of great experiences. We like to go places where we can see how things work, and how people live, and this trip certainly had both. The weather was great for the entire trip, and everyone, kids and adults, had a lot of fun.