Cork Factory Hotel - Lancaster, PA

 

Up and ready for our promptly served breakfast at the Inn at Watson’s Choice.  We were expecting toast hoping for bagels, we got fruit bowl, omelettes, home made sausages and banana bread.   Our scheduled tour at Falling Waters was at 9:30 and since tours are already booked through the end of the year, late was not an option.  Although I had been there years ago with Son two, Deb had never seen it.  Surprisingly, it is as modern and relevant now as it was 80 years ago, with open spaces and a focus on the surroundings.

On to the Flight 93 Memorial.  After walking the black walkway that defined the path of flight 93, we stopped at flight path lookout, which overlooked the crash site, but it was all somewhat confusing.  So we went to the visitors center which had a timeline of what happened that day with quite a few exhibits.  There was a 1.2 mile long circular walkway that lead eventually to the crash site.  Deb and I talked about what it must of been like on the flight.  You can’t go to the crash site but there is a large boulder that marks it.  After reading the names of those who died, we walked back to the car.  It was not a remorseful visit. Afterwards, I googled the architect, Paul Murdock, to read that this was precisely the way he wanted the memorial to be viewed!

On to our rest stop in Lancaster.  Son one went to college there, and we had always stayed at the Lancaster Arts Hotel, but they insisted on a minimum two night stay, so this time we stayed at the Cork Factory Hotel, another upscale boutique hotel.  Because it was Friday night, I went big time and booked reservations at the fanciest restaurant in town, John J Jeffries.  Well it turns out that the John J Jeffries is the hotel restaurant for the Lancaster Arts Hotel and we ate there many times on college trips.  The dinner was delicious, served with a heaping plate of deja vu!

Inn at Watson’s Choice - Uniontown, PA

This is new travel for us: we have been traveling by RV for seven years.  Our first test of our new car travel life style is to just park on the street in the quaint little town of Warrenton, VA and have lunch at a sidewalk cafe…easy peasy! Although there are many ways to get from here to Uniontown, PA, Deb has requested that we take shortest, straightest route.  Google maps is only showing winding roads to get there but the GPS in the Lexus is showing only straight interstates (of course it would, it’s her car!). 

When we get to the inn, there is a sign at the registration desk that gives the phone number of the innkeeper.  Nancy, the innkeeper, answers the phone and chastises me for not knowing the name of my room (it was on the confirmation e-mail!).  With detailed instructions on where she would meet me, which I vaguely remembered, we headed out to find our room.  This was sort of like an escape room adventure.  As we neared some cabins at one end of the property, a man posing as a landscaper said “no, no, those are not it, you have to go over there.”  Once we got to the pavilion area, a woman posing as a a guest said “Nancy went in that door.”  In exasperation, Nancy appeared and redirected us once again to the correct door which had a combination lock that was encoded in the receipt she gave us along with a key which had fob with a floral pattern that we had to match with door to the room.

A check of é mail revealed that the third destination of our trip, Longwood Gardens, had to close because of an accident with a fuel spill.  During dinner, we made a tactical decision to leave the gardens for another day and instead spend the last night in the Shenendoahs.  We booked the last room at the Big Meadow Lodge while sitting at the table in a wonderful Italian restaurant waiting for our entrees.