Day 2 : Lancaster, PA to Cleveland, OH

Connie and Jenna in Brighton, next to the p-i-m-p station wagon, ready to go!

Connie enjoying her latkes from Rein's

Day 1 (cont’d):

Let us never speak of diverging from Google Maps directions again. We thought we were saving time by avoiding New York and the New Jersey Turnpike, which Google told us to take. That didn’t quite work out as planned. After much confusion about roads that were poorly labeled and highway exits that were supposed to exist (according to our map) but didn’t, we finally reached Lancaster about 11:30pm. The hotel was gorgeous, though, with a flat panel tv and a mint on the pillow. This was where we learned about the Minneapolis bridge collapsing. Holy crap! Luckily, we don’t have many bridges planned on our route.

The awesome hotel room

Anyway, the next day...

We woke up “late” at 6am so that we could actually explore Amish Country in the light of day. Our unfortunate escapades from the night before meant that we couldn’t see Allentown, PA (home of the Crayola Factory) or Intercourse, PA (home of more Amish awesomeness). This morning, the concierge told us about a farmers market that opened up at 6am. We ventured over to find, alas, the market is only open on Tuesdays and Fridays. We had to discuss for a few minutes to realize that today is in fact Thursday, and does us no good.

Jenna is sad... the farmer's market was closed! So much for Amish country...


So, we popped into a cute tea shop and grabbed some breakfast, bought some preserves (that were packaged in such a way that it could have been made in California, so not the local cuisine we were hoping for), and fresh bread at the only 2 places in town that were open, and hopped back on the road.

We totally lucked out on the way to Cleveland and happened to stop in at a rest area that had a farmers market. We bought some unbelievable apple butter and truly local preserves and some cheese. Voila, lunch! We debated stopping at some of the more interesting sights on the way, but after the problems of last night, we opted for the straight and easy route.

The rolling hills of Pennsylvania...

We made it to Chagrin Falls, OH, just as flash flood warnings were coming across the radio. We stopped by the famous popcorn shop but didn't get anything, and we got to Jenna’s great-aunt Ruthie’s place around 4pm. I met a great deal of Jenna’s family, all quite awesome people, and ate some AMAZING food that was prepared in our honor. (note from Jenna: my crazy, catty, and melodramatic family, that is!) After a long day, we crashed about 9pm.

We'll have a ton more pictures which we'll post when we have time, but for now we're off to explore Chicago!