This Week (A Trip to Pennsylvania)

View from the Pinnacle

Hello, readers! Sorry I’ve been absent these past couple weeks— the time got away from me, the Halloween Festival swallowed my life, and then we left for vacation. We just returned yesterday, and I’m still finding my feet and getting back into the swing of work. 

At any rate, we had a great trip to Pennsylvania! Zach, his sister Ivy and I drove out on Halloween, soaring through miles of russet-and-gold woodlands and plowed-under cornfields until we drifted to the Appalachians— not quite in full autumn glory, but pretty darn close. Sunset on the never-ending mountains of hardwood trees, all shades of warm colors, was a sight I hadn’t experienced since I was a kid. It was a long drive, but we made it!

We spent most of the week hanging out with Zach’s brother, sister-in-law, and their baby, although Zach and I did sneak away for a day to celebrate our four-year anniversary. We hiked to the Pinnacle near Hamburg, and visited one of the original organic farms (The Rodale Institute), both of which I’ll write about soon.

We also took a day trip to Philadelphia, where we visited the Edgar Allan Poe National Monument, ate dinner at the Reading Terminal Market, and inched our way through terrifying traffic to get home. Aside from these events, we hung out, visited people, chatted, and ate food (including a lot of pie and a pirogi pizza). I also enjoyed walking through the rolling farmland around their house, watching the Holstein cows grazing the fields, seeing the barns made of stone with hexes painted on the sides, and looking out at a pastoral landscape that was familiar to me except for the hilly contours of the land.

I also got to hang out with this kittie.

It was a great trip, and I was glad to for the chance to visit family, help Zach relive his time spent in the area (he moved here on a whim six years ago and spent several months before moving back to Portland; on the way back to Oregon, he met me), and generally get away from the routines of life for a week. I have a lot of thoughts to share, so hopefully I can make time to articulate them and post them here in the next several days. Stay tuned!

~Lisa