Where is Denice P., CVT?: A travel column by Denice Putland, CVT

One of my family’s favorite places to go for a long weekend (or week) is Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Lancaster is a family destination, so make sure to bring the kids. If you visit the website www.padutchcountry.com, you will find just about every kind of lodging known to man. Lancaster has everything from resorts to camping, but my personal favorite is the farm-based bed & breakfast (B&B). Here’s your chance to see (and smell) what life is really like on a working farm. We stayed at Rocky Acre Farm, a dairy farm, with milk straight from the cow for breakfast. And talk about breakfast! They put out a spread like your grandmother used to do on Saturday mornings. Our breakfast was fresh farm eggs (that we collected ourselves), fresh milk, bacon, kielbasa, fruit, pancakes, and hash browns. After we finished our coffee, the hostess asked all her guests if we wouldn’t mind helping her shuck some corn that friends from another farm had brought over. We obliged and waddled outside to help, where we all gasped at a pickup truck full of just-picked corn! But we rolled up our sleeves and jumped in. It took eight of us about an hour, but we were rewarded the next morning with delicious fresh corn on the cob with our breakfast. Things to Do Lancaster County has many factory tours, which are popular with my family. Factories you can visit include pretzels, potato chips, candles, chocolate, and a cannery. Dutch Wonderland is a great amusement park for small kids. All the rides are geared for the 10 and under crowd. Shopping in Lancaster is also fantastic. There are very good outlet malls. If you are looking for homemade quilts, you will not find any better than in the local villages Bird-in-Hand, Lititz, or Intercourse. There are wonderful and huge farmers markets where you can find exotic and rare treasures. Antiquing is also very popular. The golf is great too! If you are into spas, be sure and make reservations for the chocolate massage at The Spa at Hotel Hershey. Hershey and York, both towns near Lancaster, are worth visiting. If you have older kids, they probably would much rather visit Hershey Park than Dutch Wonderland. Hershey also has a zoo. Plus, where else can you drive down the street and smell chocolate? Don’t forget the Strasburg Rail Road in Strasburg. You can take a real train ride to Paradise, Pennsylvania, and choose how to get there: coach, dining car, or first class. Sometimes you can even catch Thomas the Tank Engine. Next door is the Red Caboose Motel, where you can either have lunch or spend the night in a real caboose! At the end of the day, you don’t really need to leave your farm B&B for entertainment. You can feed the baby goats, jump on the trampoline, go fishing, or rock on the front porch and watch the fireflies light up the cornfields. Be sure and visit Lancaster! Here’s Lancaster County on my fun scale: (*Lowest, Highest) Fun Food Family Fee ** (*Inexpensive, Expensive) On the web: Padutchcounty.com 800padutch.com hersheypa.com dutchwonderland.com strasburgrailroad.com redcaboosemotel.com visitpa.com castyournet.com/RockyAcre metrocast.com/countrygardens Questions? Comments? Email Denice at dpcvt@hotmail.com

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