Lancaster, PA

I love Lancaster, PA. Have I ever told you that? It's no Austin. But it has it's own wonderful, unique charm to it that is just different. I mean, where else can you go where your local Walmart or grocery store have horse tie ups out front? (for the Amish) There were a lot of charms I really enjoyed about that area of Pennsylvania. When I went back a few weeks ago my goal was to get to experience as many of my favorite things there as possible.

Downtown Lancaster is really growing into itself. There is a WONDERFUL variety of small, local restaurants to pick from. As well as some really great shops and art galleries. But one of my all time favorite things to do in downtown is go to "market". Central market. In Austin that is the name of a really nice, high end grocery store. In Lancaster, it is a real farmers market where you buy your meat from the butcher, your jelly from the Amish people and you take your pick of vegetable and fruit vendors. It is the oldest farmers market in the country, dating back to around 1757. You can learn more about the history here. When we lived there I would go down there really early most Saturday mornings and do the majority of our shopping. I loved every minute of it. My girls and I took a visit there while I was home, just long enough for me to remember the wonderful smells and buy myself some homemade jelly and jam.

Another new treasure that I visited on my trip was a store called Building Character. Be still my beating heart. My good friend Heidi took me there during our visit. I wish it were there when I lived there. It is an architectural salvage store. They have pieces of old houses - everything from windows, to doorknobs to keys. Everything in the store reminded me of my grandmother's house (you never know, some of it could have come from there!). It is the type of store that I always wished existed and who knew, it does! It was so cool, anyone reading this from up there - it is worth the visit.



Heidi and I also took a trip to one of my FAVORITE places to eat - Rachel's Cafe and Creperie. They are a small cafe where the wait can be really long if you go during peak times, the food takes a while to make but the crepes are to DIE for! Our plan was to have lunch there. But there as a 45 minute wait and then another estimated 45 minutes until you got your food and...well... baby couldn't wait that long. So we enjoyed lunch at another local spot and hit Rachel's on the way back for dessert...the best part. We shared a nutella and ice cream crepe. Sinful, absolutely sinful and totally worth it.



Well, I am hoping sleep will find me soon. Our dog Winston and I had one of our 2 am cereal eating sessions tonight (it is close to 3am as I write this). I got in bed and my mind just wouldn't stop whirling. Finally my stomach also started growling so I decided if I got up, ate and maybe wrote this entry that my brain would settle down long enough to go to sleep. We'll see how many more bowls of cereal I eat before that happens. Good night y'all.