This past weekend my wife and I did a covered bridge tour of Lancaster County, Pa. We started our weekend off at the Lancaster County Brewing Co. Before prohibition Lancaster breweries accounted for 7% of all the beer brewed in the U.S. Prohibition along with poor economic times and pressure from the major breweries led to all the breweries closing until 1995 when Lancaster Brewing Co. was founded. Both my wife and I had their Oktoberfest which was excellent. For dinner my wife had the wiener schnitzel while I had a bison burger.
Saturday morning, after standard Hampton Inn fare for breakfast we started out on a tour of Lancaster county covered bridges. Lancaster County has a total of 24 covered bridges with many of them located on scenic country roads in the heart of Amish country.
Our morning also included a stop at Kitchen Kettle Village; a shopping area comprised of small shops. Most of the shops in the village hold little interest for men, but there is one that is always worth stopping in - The Jam and Relish Kitchen. This shop sells the best salsa's I have ever had - bar none. They have samples out for just about every product they sell which includes probably 20 different salsas, various apple butters, jams and relishes.
For lunch we visited another micro-brewery - Bube's Brewery. The name is pronounced just the way you would think, so it would be pretty hard to forget. I had their alt beer which was quite good. It's a pretty cool little brewery with a sweet outdoor beer garden complete with bean bag toss, a pool table and garden sized chess.
We spent the afternoon touring around the county hitting a number of the covered bridges. Dinner Saturday night was Shady Maple, a very popular smorgasbord.
Sunday morning we traveled to a wolf preserve. The roads getting there were really good - lots of nice sweepers with a few tighter turns thrown in. After visiting the wolf preserve we took E-town road west toward the Susquehanna River. E-town road, while not particularly challenging is quite fun with a couple significant elevation changes, terrific valley overlooks and fun sweepers.
The pictures of the wolves are a little blurry due to shooting through a fence.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and so after lunch at an Italian restaurant called Little Italy we headed for home in Southern New Jersey. I had DVR'd the Eagles game since I knew we wouldn't be home in time for the start of the game - I wish someone had warned me not to bother watching it!!!
