On doctor’s orders and also as an early anniversary celebration, Scott and I took a little mini-vacation up to Amish country in Pennsylvania. Since it’s only about an hour and a half away from us, it was the perfect location for our three-day weekend.
I scoped out a little Bed & Breakfast located in Ephrata, PA, which is not a very large town at all but is right in the center of the main “circle” of typical Amish towns to visit. It’s practically in the dead center of Lancaster County. We had actually been to Amish country a couple times before, but never overnight.
And what a wonderful, relaxing weekend it turned out to be!
Our B&B was called the Kimmell House, an old stone colonial house which was part of the original German settlement in Pennsylvania. I’m pretty sure the walls were at least a foot thick!
We mostly just took it easy and meandered around, since my sprained back was still giving me a lot of trouble at that point, and visited little gift shops and farmer’s markets, but I thought I’d share a few of the photos I took while we were away.
Welcome to PA!
And hello Amish countryside. Hello relaxation!
Our lovely B&B - the Kimmell House. Our room was on the second floor under the big tree.
I adore canopy beds. They bring out the little girl in me.
View out our bathroom window. Quaint!
Our food was FANTASTIC. Breakfast Saturday morning consisted of a rammekin with herbed bread crumbs, cheese, and an egg cracked into the center and baked just until set. Bacon, fresh fruit, and a spice cake.
Heaven.
Excited that I didn't have to cook ANY of it!
Breakfast on Sunday morning was herbed scrambled eggs, sausage, and stuffed french toast with strawberry syrup. I think I'm still drooling.
Teeny little movie theatre in downtown Ephrata - ticket prices were only $6 on a Saturday night!!
When in Amish country...don't expect to get anywhere quickly. At all.
Being the big dorks that we are, we went to the National Christmas Museum. It was surprisingly fun - very well put together, we were impressed!
Wait. Who's that running by our car?
That would be Santa Claus....amazingly enough, completely unrelated to the National Christmas Museum! Apparently he's just a man that dresses like Santa Claus yearround. I love it.
And that’s pretty much it! We’re thrilled that we decided to go, and would highly recommend our B&B to anyone. Since Ephrata isn’t a tourist town, we paid $95 a night for our room, including the breakfasts, which if you know anything about B&B rates that is FANTASTIC. You can’t get a hotel for that price, much less one this elegant with a breakfast like we had.
It was wonderful being off the beaten path because we were 10-20 minutes away from anywhere we wanted to go, but didn’t have to deal with tourist traffic outside our window.
Here’s the website for where we stayed: The Kimmell House
Long story short: If you’re needing a vacation but can’t take a lot of time off work, take a three day weekend and see what you can find near your house. We were still very close to home, but far enough away that we were both able to completely relax and forget about our stress for a while. Since it was just the two of us we were able to be completely on our own schedule and meander as we felt like it.
A much-needed, and much-enjoyed vacation, even if it was a miniature.
Now back to real life!
littlestirrings.wordpress.com 