Category: Miscellaneous

Our first stop on day three, after a delicious breakfast at a local diner, was QVC studios, for a tour and some shopping in the studio store.

QVC is a 24 hour cable shopping chanel, and both KLS and Joyce buy many things (especially makeup) from them. KLS and I have also developed a bit of a fascination with the mechanics of the sell, and I’m pleased to say the tour (which was about an hour long) was extremely interesting, showing us all around the studios – and even let us watch a show in progress (QVC is live 24 hours a day).

Photography was not permitted, hence the lack of images. But I can say that even if you have no interest in buying from QVC, I doubt you’d be disappointed in the very well organized tour.

After QVC, we were about six hours from Albany. We had one last destination, which was on the way back, and that was a tour of an old coal mine. Not knowing much about this destination, we let Giles guide us through the wonderful scenery (including a tunnel through a mountain) to Lackawanna Coal Mine:

Not much to see from the outside is it? At Lackawanna (which is near Scranton, PA), a disused mine is open for tours. Imagine our surprise when we learned we would actually be riding a mine car deep into the earth, and that the tour (which was about an hour in length) occured underground!

These pictures are a series, looking backwards as the car entered the mine. The descent along an at times steep slope was 1.3 miles in length, and ended 300 feet from the surface.

< Mine entrance

Photography inside the mine, due to the darkness, was obviously difficult. The guide took us along a series of tunnels, showing us how the miners worked, what the conditions were like and just what coal veins (and a coal mine) looks like from inside. I think it’s safe to say this tour was an unexpected treat to say the least, and perhaps one of the most entertaining aspects of our trip!

< The Underdark

With Lackawanna behind us it was time to wave goodbye to PA, but not before a stop off at a rest stop to buy some fireworks (which are illegal to sell in NY state)!

Here’s a couple of random shots from the trip:

< Advertisement on the diner placemat

< Sign in the Burger King mens toilet

And last but not least, KLS and I had to wave goodbye to Giles, who was on his way back to Joyce. He served us very, very well, and one of his final salutes was to provide us with a log of our trip:

< Trip statistics

750 miles travelled, on about $100 of gasoline. Not bad…

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is famous for it’s large (~75,000 people strong) Amish community. Our second day was spent mostly in Lancaster county, which is slightly south of Hershey.

Many of our destinations today were planned from a tourist brochure picked up at a rest stop on our way into Pennsylvania yesterday. We did have a tentative idea of what we wanted to visit before we left Albany, but only one of those places stayed on today’s itinerary. And that was our first stop – the Sturgis pretzel bakery.

< At the pretzel bakery

Here we took a brief tour, including twisting our own pretzel (from fake dough…), and learned the history of this over 300 year old company, as well as how they make their pretzels today. It was an enjoyable way to spend the morning (and the fresh soft pretzel was amazingly good…)

After the pretzel’s we made our way south to a pet store named That Fish Place. “A strange destination”, you may be thinking. And you’re right. What attracted me was the fact that years before I used to buy my aquarium supplies from their mail order service, and remembered their claim of being America’s biggest aquarium store. So since it was on the way anyway, we of course had to check it out.

I’d say they are safe in their claim of being America’s biggest pet store, since the place was enormous. The aquarium section in particular was amazing, with just about everything imaginable for sale. The above right shot shows their innovative way of displaying coral pieces for reef tanks.

The above shots show some of the more exotic critters for sale. Note that on the tag for the Wobbegong (aka Port Jackson Shark) it warns they grow to 9 feet in length and require 10,000 gallon tanks! I wonder just who will buy such a ‘pet’? The evil worm was about 8 inches in length.
We were quite hungry by now, and had targeted a particularly interesting roadside restaurant for our lunch. It was new enough that Giles didn’t have it in his database, but we had no trouble finding Jakey’s Amish Barbecue anyway.

As far as Amish barbecue’s go, this was easily the best I have eaten. Jokes aside, the food was excellent (KLS has pulled turkey, Jim & I had pulled pork), and were the place not 5-6 hours away I would go again in a heartbeat!

The days real treat came after lunch, and it was a ride on the Strasburg Railroad:

< Strasburg Railroad

This is a refurbished old steam railway that runs 45 minute rides along a short length of track through Amish farmland. In addition to the working trains, they have various other attractions (such as parked train cars and rides for children) to interest tourists.

As members of society’s elite, we of course purchased first class tickets (which, at $16, were $4 more costly than the hoi polloi, er, coach class):

< The Beau Monde

The weather was beautiful. The drinks cold. The seats comfortable and the scenery engaging. The trip was a treat from start to finish. We passed through working Amish farms, mostly growing corn, and were lucky enough to spot some working the fields in the age-old fashion – by hand:

The smoke in the second photo is from the train.

It was after five when we finally left Strasburg, and we headed then for West Chester, where the first attraction of our third day was to be found.

But that can wait for the next update!