The Prius Palace

(Thanks to Theresa Bryant for the title of this post). 

Wednesday night found us on the top of a mountain on the border of Virginia and West Virginia at George Washington National Forest Recreation Area at Wolf Gap campground. There were three campsites taken, which included ours. If you ever want to experience solitude, I highly recommend that campground, which is a complete 180 from Walmart parking lots or crazy campgrounds that are filled to the brim. 

When it got dark, we couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces. It had spotty service so watching our nightly show, Frasier, was impossible. We ended up going to sleep at about 8:30 and slept until 6:15 Thursday morning. We did get to make an important phone call, however. We called the YMCA in Hagerstown, MD and they provided us with a free pass for Thursday to take a shower, which was awesome. 

We are trying to stay off the interstate as much as possible, so we are having a difficult time seeing state signs. But we did manage to find a Pennsylvania sign:

^this sign was right on the Maryland border so we went across the street to find that state sign, and this is all that was there :(

Yep, that's all that was there. Rude.

We decided to head towards Gettysburg:

It was getting late in the afternoon, so we didn't stay long, and continued heading to Lancaster where we spent the night and headed out the next morning to enjoy some of what Lancaster County has to offer.

We headed to the Central Market where we picked up some lunch.

There are rows and rows of vendors. Make sure you go here if you happen to be here on a Tuesday, Friday or Saturday. 

Next we decided to tour around the Amish/Mennonite countryside, which was more congested with cars than we had hoped. We thought we would see farm upon farm, but it seemed that the city was often encroaching upon the farmland. And we even saw several farms up for auction. 

I have been here only once before, when my mom, dad, brother and I visited 30 years ago. (Oh my goodness, where has time passed?) anyway, I remember going to the Mennonite Information Center where we hired a Mennonite person to tour around in our car for a couple of hours. That was a highlight of our trip. Her name was Dorothy Martin, and I think I still have her card. She was full of information. 

Here is a one roomed school houses we saw:

I was fascinated with their clothes lines. Some of them seemed 10 feet or more off the ground.

Anthony wanted to see some covered bridges and you didn't have to drive far to see a few. There are over two dozen in the county. The red one is Zook's Mill Bridge, which was built in 1849 and survived a flood which rose 6 1/2 feet above the bridge floor as a result of Hurricane Agnes, and the white one is Keller's Mill Bridge, which was originally built in 1891, but was dismantled and placed in its current location in 2010. 

We saw horse drawn carriages, people riding bikes, and several foot propelled stand-up scooters. I wonder how different our towns would look if that is all we used as far as transportation. 

All of the small towns we drove through pretty much looked like this:

These row houses are sitting right up against the streets. Would definitely be difficult to get used to this.

Thanks to my friend, Deb, for recommendations for the area, as she grew up in York, and this area was her stomping grounds.

We are heading towards Wilkes Barre, PA for the night and are just starting to see the leaves beginning to change.