It started early Friday morning. I woke up at 5:30. I had things to do to get ready to leave for our mini trip. Things that I wanted to get done before I went to work. So I was out picking strawberries at dawn.
I rushed around all morning and arrived for work on time (actually a bit eary). I worked 7:45-1 and then I rushed home. I quickly swapped out my shoes for comfy flip flops and jumped back into the car. We headed up the road. Two and a half hours (give or take a few minutes) we arrived in Lancaster County......Ephrata to be exact....and to be even more precise, we were at the Green Dragon....a big farmers market.
I stopped for a minute to call my parents as my father had a stress test done that morning and I wanted to hear the results. Dad is taking it well...mom's still weepy 3 days later.....Dad is going in for a heart cath in about two weeks. So that bummed me out.
After talking a few minutes in the parking lot about my dad's situation and calling in to work to put in a request for a day off on the day of his heart cath so that I can be with my mother (apprently if he needs a stent put in, 50% of the time they have to send them down to DC or Baltimore) we headed into the dragon. We walked through and saw the sights. We actually ended up not buying anything. After the the Green Dragon, we decided to head to our hotel. We made a quick stop at a Kmart on the way there to pick up some icyhot for todd's stiff neck. We checked into our hotel at roughly 5PM. Donna was sitting off of the lobby on the computer when I walked in. Todd and I carted our stuff up to our room and then headed down to Donna and Andy's room to chit chat and make our plans for the evening. Dinner out (yummy Family Cupboard) and a short shopping excursion and then back to the hotel to our respective rooms to relax for the evening. The next morning I was up again at the crack of dawn to get ready. Everyone met up early for breakfast at the hotel and then it was off to our bike ride.
Pedal to Preserve is a fantastic bike ride that raises money for the Lancaster Farmland Preservation Trust. (they work to preserve and save the farmlands in Lancaster County).
The ride takes you by some of these saved farms and through some of the most bucolic farmland. They did change the route a bit this year and we had 2 hills that we did not encounter last year. They were right at the beginning, I put my mind to this task and I powered up them. I went slow...but I did it. My feet did not touch the ground! I completed the ride! WEEE I was honestly worried because admittedly, I've been doing really poorly with my exercise...and in particular with riding my bike. After our ride, we headed to Intercourse to the Canning company to pick up a few things (they have the most awesome cranberry relish....and clean bathrooms for us to change our clothes) and then we went out to lunch with Donna and Andy. After our late lunch we said goodby and split up. Todd and I went down to the Bird-in-hand farmers market. They have cider and cherry cider....25 cents a cup. It's a tradition...and quite yummy. At that point we headed home. We stopped and got some groceries on the way home and got home at around 6 or 7. I put everything away and made dinner and we watched a show together on tv and then we fell into bed exhausted.Saturday morning I was up at the crack of dawn again. I got a few things done around the house and then headed to the battlefield to meet up with Sherry to walk. We walked and talked the whole time
and then because we weren't done talking, we walked some more. She came back to my place and I picked a few strawberries for her and we ended up talking some more...till 10:30. I straightened the house quickly and then made lunch for Todd and I and then we headed out with our van full of sound equipment to a local organic farm for a bluegrass in the barn concert. We worked to set up our stuff from about 12:30 until the sound check at 2:30. The concert started at 4 and we were able to start packing up after the concert at around 7PM. We got home....I made a quick dinner and then we had friends that were stopping by to drop off some stuff. They stayed until about 11. And I literally fell into bed exhausted. (sorry the pictures of the concert are still on my camera!)
Non-stop activity.
So here I am...Monday morning
