Road Trip to Lancaster

Lancaster, Pennsylvania is a wonderful place to spend some time hopping around from shop to shop. If you are looking for a road trip with hubby or a friend, Lancaster is a wonderful destination! There are wonderful bed and breakfasts there, great food, wonderful antique shops and lots of country roads, farms and Amish people.
This past weekend was spent there with one of my friends while hubby was on a business trip in Boston. We had lots of fun and laughs. Of course, the weather played tricks on us. It was actually snowing on the way up. I guess that was our April Fool's joke! Even Mother Nature knows how to play a good joke now and then.
We stayed at a wonderful little bed and breakfast, called After Eight Bed and Breakfast. Here is the link: http://www.aftereightbnb.com/index.htm. I have stayed there before and it is comfortable and cozy. What I especially like about it is that it has two small cottages that offer two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. It was a perfect setup for a "girls weekend away." We had hoped to do a little watercolor painting in the evenings, but we were so tired after a full day of taking in the sites that we were happy to just rest at the end of the day.
There are endless shops in Lancaster. I prefer to visit the off-the-beaten-track kind of places rather than the commercial places. I found such sweet little things, more than I will mention in this blog. I was so inspired when I came back to just start creating! You can see some of the things I picked up along the way in the photos. Once home, I had to start creating. I will post again with one of my projects for my porch.
Here is a sample of our itinerary:
Friday - Drive to Lititz, Pa. There was a really cute sale at an antique house with all kinds of beautiful homegoods and florals. Downtown Lititz is a great place to browse all the shops. There are some good restaurants right on the main street. You can spend the better part of the day there.
Saturday - Just drove around from here to there. Stopped at antique shops, and then the big surprise: Craft and Floral Warehouse!!! That was a bonanza! There were so many great things there to look at. They have an amazing array of crafts and florals, just as the name suggests! If you think the wholesale clubs are big, you have not seen anything until you have seen how big this place was! They had everything! We spent several hours wandering around there. Then we went to a very cool place called Carsons in the Cornfield. They have all kinds of architectural items in the basement that you can paint on. Amazing. But don't be afraid to get your hands dirty! It is old stuff from houses in the area and they don't clean it before they sell it. What fun that was! I have lots of projects now to complete. We ate at a great small buffet called Family Cupboard which was filled with the Amish families and their children. The food was amazing and the entire dinner was only $13.00. What a value!
Sunday - Of course, each day we started breakfast at the After Eight Bed and Breakfast. Robert, the owner, was adept at telling jokes to keep us laughing. We enjoyed teasing him by groaning at his jokes. He was a very good sport and continued telling them in spite of our unrelenting groaning. He made fantastic breakfasts and was a very cordial host. Sunday services were at a lovely church called Keystone Church in Paradise,PA right on Rt. 30 a few minutes away from the bed and breakfast. It was great sermon and great music and a wonderful way to worship God. From there we visited an antique shop and then on to the outlets. There are the Rockvale Outlets and the Tanger Outlets, also on Rt. 30. Most everything is closed on Sunday except for the outlets and antique shops, so you want to save those destinations for Sunday. A final stop at Crackerbarrel was all we needed to get some great sandwiches and goodies for the ride home. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful on Sunday and my GPS was working well! Needless to say, our car was filled to the brim with lots of goodies and projects. We had a wonderful time and it was nice to connect with a friend creating memories that will last a lifetime.