Part 1 of our Spring Trip

We decided to keep our vacationing close to home this year. Definitely way more economical. We have picked places that we've been wanting to check out since we moved up here to Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, we went down to Philadelphia to see the Zoo. It is the first zoo in America. The day was perfect for it, very cool (about 62 degrees) and sunny. Most of the animals were quite tired and not very active for us, but the giraffes are always stunning to see. The gorillas were a bit active and put on a show for us. We also saw some russian red squirrels that were downright spastic in their cages, running around like loonies! After the zoo, we headed downtown to our hotel, which was very centrally located. We stayed on the 19th floor, so we had quite a spectacular view. For dinner, we strolled the nearby streets and ended up at an Olive Garden, then tried a local place that I searched online... for dessert. We went to Capogiro's for Gelato and it was sooo good! Definitely will stop there again. Christopher had apple, while I had pineapple mint and thai coconut. Ivan didn't have any, but tried all of ours. Then we watched a few of our favorite shows on tv in the room and crashed for the night.

The next morning, I wanted to try the Reading Terminal Market, where I saw Termini Bros' (another spot I saw online where they raved about the canoli's), so ordered one and it was really good (and I don't even like canoli's in general). Then found some English cheese for Ivan. He hasn't had it yet. I hope he likes it. Then, back to the room, where the guys were getting ready. We left and then drove out to Amish Country where we heard was an amazing Amish buffet. Amish food in Pennsylvania is pretty amazing... the baked goods are phenomenal and it's just good stuff. The buffet was HUGE, bigger than any buffet we've ever seen. The food was incredible... then downstairs they had a 41,000 sq ft gift shop and it had really nice things in it and it really wasn't too expensive, either. Then there was a grocery store, so we stopped for some cheese bread to take home with us. While driving through the streets, we saw several horses and buggies with the Amish in them, but tons of cars, too... who knew it would be sooo crowded there. Then, we drove to Penns Caves. Ivan got pretty tired while driving, so I took the wheel. We got to the caves and it was a nice tour. Our boat was FULL of kids, which totally annoyed us at first, but they were all quite entranced with the tour and were very well behaved, so it worked out well.

After the tour, we headed home, hit a bit of traffic and rain, but got home around 7:30 pm.

This morning, I slept in til 10:30 (very late for me) and we've just hung out all day resting and watching tv, etc.

Tomorrow, we are headed up to Corning, NY to go to the Corning Museum of Glass. I hope to be able to get a mobile post in, although it's not really worked much for me thus far. I keep coming home to delete blank pics posted and have to repost everything like this. NOT FUN! LOL