I’m not usually one to go on any kind of vacation with no planning, but one Thursday night in February 2019 I found myself booking a hotel reservation (thank goodness for Hilton points!) and packing at midnight to leave for Lancaster County PA on Friday. It would turn out to be one of the most eclectic weekends we’ve had in a long time! We drove directly to a small supermarket to buy a button that would admit us to a chili cook-off (more about that later) and then headed to downtown Lititz for their Fire and Ice Festival. The ice part consisted of 75 ice sculptures lining the streets and 20 or so ice carvers creating more sculptures as we walked around. The fire part of the evening was a fire show set to music over the duck pond in Lititz Springs Park.
On Saturday morning, we went to the local high school for the second fire phase of the festival, the chili cook-off. We tasted 14 chilies made by a variety of local chefs, each supporting a different charity. Some were better than others were. Ironically, the one Lancaster County restaurant entrant that I’m familiar with, Isaac’s, got our votes. I swear I wasn’t biased! After the cook-off, we drove around Lancaster County before enjoying a relaxing dinner at Miller’s Smorgasbord Restaurant. We’d never been there and since we were playing tourist, why not? Besides, the little spoonfuls of chili didn’t exactly fill us up at lunch. Then we headed back to the hotel, relaxed with a cup of coffee and met a scary clown in the lobby. Yes, you read that right! Zeebo, the scary clown. There’s never a dull moment on a Gatti vacation!
On Sunday, we checked out of the hotel and went back to Lititz to a wolf sanctuary. It was a fascinating place. Most of the animals there are actually wolf dogs but have too high a percentage of wolf DNA to be legally kept as pets. There are also some full-blooded wolves. They’re beautiful animals and all very well cared for. Unfortunately, thanks to the ridiculously warm weather we’ve been having, much of the snow melted and we were up to our ankles in mud the entire time. We got cleaned up and did another Lancaster tourist thing we’d never tried before, an Amish buggy tour. That was fun too. Our driver was ex-Amish, so I found it particularly interesting. He didn’t whitewash the story of the Amish. He told it like it is. It was hard to take any photos out of the buggy windows, but we learned a few things. Then we headed out of Lancaster County; stopped at Valley Forge Casino for a little gambling and dinner and then headed home.
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The new observation deck at One Liberty Place has been open for a while now, but too often, you don’t think of going to tourist attractions near home. I finally spent a day heading to the top of the formerly tallest building in Philadelphia to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised. After lunch a little Belgian place in Center City, we went up once during the day and once after dark. The views were impressive and they do a nice job of interpreting all that you can see from the 57th floor. I even learned a few new facts despite living here all my life. We also checked out the ice rink at City Hall’s Dilworth Park which was a nice way to get into the holiday spirit.
