Western Pennsylvania

On our way out to stay with my grandmother, we stopped for a picnic lunch and long afternoon in Old Bedford Village. This was a Pennsylvanian version of the Icelandic and Norwegian folk museums I had been to and enjoyed so much last month.









Here we saw some original log and stone buildings that had been relocated to the museum. We tried our hands at tin punching, and the girls learned how candles were made.

Beware Pearl! Bedford County cut off the ears of their horse thieves.








Our route to Grandma's took us past the Flight 93 Memorial Park, so we stopped in there despite Sapphire's ongoing meltdown. The meadow lands setting is certainly soothing. It was sad to have to explain what it was all about to Pearl.

We pressed on to Grandma's house. The girls love to cover themselves in the aprons my great-grandmother made in the 1950s. The next day we drove to town for lunch and several hours on the Somerset Borough playground. That's all it takes to make a vacation for the girls!

On Thursday Jasper stayed home with Grandma and worked on the children's sermon handbook he is creating for his doctorate of ministry dissertation. My patient Aunt Cathy and I took the girls to Idlewild, an amusement park with an old time feel. 

In Storybook Forest, where they have homes and figurines of Mother Goose characters, Sapphire easily stepped into the fantasy. I saw her waving furiously at the three bears (all life size, but plastic), and here she cuddles Mama bear's porridge. 

Pearl stood above the magical 48 inches mark, so she and I put her bravery to the test and tried out the water slides and her very first roller coaster.  The carousel was a favorite, and the two bigger girls liked the ferris wheel, but I did not. All three shorties enjoyed the children's section, where they zoomed around in circles on various rides. Thank you for a fun day Aunt Cathy!

The next day Ruby had a chance to play with my aunt and uncle, while the rest of us paddled down the Youghiogeny River. We rode over a mountain or two to Ohiopyle, PA, where we saw a tiny town that lives by the river and the fun to be had on it. The safety talk about how to handle running into rocks or being thrown from the raft had me a little nervous. Pearl became our safety officer, and she kept telling Sapphire to stick her feet in the grips to stay in the raft.

The first half hour was rougher water than I had expected. No napping in the boat and watching the sky roll by! We eventually got the hang of it, and Jasper even trained Pearl to steer the raft while Sapphire and I lolled with our feet up on the edge. We paddled, drifted, and played on some rocks, taking frequent snack breaks. A muskrat swam past us. We saw the huge elephant shaped rock in the middle that marked the end of the trip 4 hours and 20 minutes after we had put in.

Now, at the start of the rafting trip, everyone else from our batch of rafters was out of sight by the time we pushed off. We were passed by people who started long after us. Nonetheless, as we neared the pull out spot, Sapphire noted it was empty. "We're the first ones here!" she shouted triumphantly. 

I was very pleased with the assortment of western PA amusements we strung together. Seeing family was the real joy, but it was neat to couple that with some new experiences.