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IT WAS AN EXCELLENT DAY for piling into a car with three of my sisters-in-law and running all over the country ( It was limited to that part of the country that is in this county in which we all live. It's a beautiful part of the country; our travels were mostly through the countryside; the countryside was so lovely on a spring day such as this, and I could go on blathering about the country, but I'll take you quietly back to the county, because it just so happens that this traipsing around that we did today was all part of the Secrets of Lancaster County Tour*).



We visited greenhouses, galleries and gift shops,
not to mention way many other small businesses...too numerous to mention.



Though, of course, Dear Reader, I have to comment on a few (did you think not?): like this glass-etching company that had the high honor of etching drinking glasses for the Academy Awards. "Here's one," the workers explained, "that we made for Brad Pitt, but the letters aren't quite perfect so we had to make another." They showed us the glass, and sure enough, it read Brad Pitt. The letters looked just fine to me, but I suppose that one cannot be too finicky when etching a glass for the likes of Brad Pitt!

There was a little game set up exclusively for tour members whereby we pretended to be blindfolded, and pretended that there was only an iffy chance of winning a free glass. All winners took their choice from a hodgepodge of etched drink-ware (Brad Pitt's rejected glass was not up for grabs). When it came my turn to choose a glass, the choices had dwindled. I claimed one etched with an "I" though it seemed just ever so slightly edging on self-absorption to choose a glass with an "I" when my name is not Isabella or Isaac...or....uh....hmm... (Dear Reader, I believe there was a clear reason for the surplus of glasses etched with "I").

Truth be told, we played little games at many of our stops...whatever the shop owner had cooked up for us tour members. We got multiple tickets for door prizes (who knows when you may hear, Reader Dear, that I've won a copper-topped birdhouse?!), and many discount coupons and refrigerator magnets and small wrapped candies and other trifles....


...too numerous to mention.

When hunger pangs beset us (which took longer than one might suspect due to refreshments set out for us at nearly every tour stop), we stopped off at a "cozy ice cream and sandwich shop" enticing us to put them on our itinerary with free beverages:















And ooo-la-la, in spite of the somewhat unfriendly guy who greeted us at this place, those mango-lemonade drinks led us directly down the path to knowing we'd made the right choice (yes, we did a bit of raving !)









I'd like to show you more, Viewer Dear, of our stops on the tour. There were so many more! But I've just got to stop! The reasons are, well....too numerous to mention.



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