"Home!"

Pennsylvania: Millbach, Womelsdorf, Bowmansville, Myerstown, Birdsboro, Adamstown

(& side trip to NYC more on that later...)

Miles; 6550

The saying, "Home is where your heart is" is definitely so true. When we moved across the country to Washington we certainly left a piece of our hearts in Pennsylvania and being here reminds us of how comforting it is to be home & much we miss everyone and this amazing place.

So...here it is, just some of the things we love and miss about PA:

Visiting with family and friends, all the smiles, hugs & inside jokes, the excitement of meeting new nephews and nieces, being in the homes we grew up in, feasting on our moms' & dads' home cooked meals, driving on winding country roads with no shoulders, the satisfaction of knowing all the shortcuts home on those same roads, the beauty and unique odor of the PA farmlands in spring, sunsets from the front porch of the Millbach homestead, bike rides around "the country block", the klip klop of the horse & buggies going down the road, shopping at B&B and Dutchway, the funny way the Amish girls in B&B are always humming hymns to themselves, the rainbows of clothing drying on the mile long clotheslines outside of farmhouses, the fact that people don't look at you funny when you say the name of a town like Kleinfeltersville or Knauers, or mentioning that you'd die for some red beet eggs, shoe fly pie, or Tastycakes! (especially Butterscotch Krimpets), sleeping in your old room, going for hikes up to the Stone Hut & Middle Creek, seeing the last of the snow geese of the winter at Middlecreek. Finding out that Beringer's in Denver is open and going to get ice cream with Dave, Chellie & the kids, walking in the fields of Millbach and getting utterly and completely muddy, they way that everything remains perfectly the same even if it changes. HOME! There's so much more we could go on forever...

We had a great time staying in Millbach with the Haags in their beautiful, serene limestone farmhouse. It was great catching up with some old friends and family at Ben's Mom's house for a shindig that she and Bob threw for us and had a great afternoon/evening. We even got to visit the old house in Bowmansville and got a tour, amazingly nothing had changed. Some other visits that were simply great were: Dinner with Glenn, Ben's Dad and sister Sarah, a visit to Sarah's house in Ephrata, Visiting Jessica's Great Aunt Annie, a visit to our old neighbors; Edgar and Cathy (greatest neighbors ever), dinner at Johnny's in Denver with our family and friends; Sara & Matt Murphey and little Murphey (so cute!).