Friends, Food & Fun in PA

On Thursday, July 21, we left Chesapeake Bay Thousand Trails and drove further north to Hershey Thousand Trails where we would be camping with Ken and Bonnie for 11 nights.  Woohoo!!  We got all set up on the hill just a short distance from Ken and Bonnie's site and then later that afternoon, we met Cindy and John (Bonnie's sister and brother-in-law who we had also camped with in the winter) at Quentin's Tavern.  We had a delicious meal and enjoyed visiting out on their deck.

After dinner, we rode to Ephrata to watch two of Ken & Bonnie's granddaughters in their last swim meet of the season before championships.  Bria and Cali are 9 and 7 and they are both very good little swimmers. This was the first swim meet Chuck and I had ever been too.

It was amazing watching all these young kids swim across the pool.

I think Cali is telling PaPa and Grandma how fast she can swim!

Cali & Bria make for a lap full of granddaughters!

Bria broke her record in the butterfly!

On Friday morning, we played pickleball for the first time since we had been together at Eustis in March.  Later that afternoon, Neil and Nancy called and said they wanted to come by to see us before they headed to Indiana.  We spent a couple of hours at the pool that afternoon and got to meet their cute little granddaughter, Olivia.

On Saturday morning, we played pickleball again.  Ken and Chuck began the morning with their pickleball stretches.  What a sight!  :)

There were several people who would come in the mornings to play pickleball.  And some who were just learning like Andy and his two sons.  They were very good for not having played the game before.  Young legs help a lot too!

On Sunday afternoon, we went with Ken and Bonnie to Ken's Hosler family reunion.  We met Ken's two brothers and sister and a lot of their nieces and nephews.  Ken and Bonnie's daughters and their families were there too.  There was lots of good food and fellowship.  It was another hot day but Samantha and Katelyn (Ken and Bonnie's other two granddaughters) found a way to keep cool in front of the fans.  :)

Later that evening, we went with Ken and Bonnie to their small group get-together and had another wonderful time of food and fellowship with their friends from church.

On Monday morning, we played....you guessed it....pickleball again!  Denise and Holly who are seasonal campers at Hershey met us almost every morning...

...and Devon, the campground's activity director, joined us to play a few games when he wasn't working.

Ken and Chuck thought they were so cool...

...until they played pickleball for three hours!

Nearly every morning was filled with pickleball and every evening with card games.  We talked about going for a bike ride or a hike but we were having too much fun playing pickleball.

After playing pickleball on Tuesday morning, we went to a new Japanese buffet that had just opened in Lancaster called Dragon Hibachi & Sushi Buffet.  The restaurant was so nice and clean and the food was delicious!  All you could eat and drink for just $8.99!  And boy did we eat!

Wade and Tiffany whom we had played pickleball with at Chesapeake were on the courts when we arrived Wednesday morning.  Wade and Tiffany are who taught Ken and Bonnie to play and they had even given them the paddles that Ken and Bonnie taught us with!  It's a small pickleball world!
Another great player that we played with was Dick.  Dick had not played in about 3 or 4 years due to health reasons but you couldn't tell it.  Nor could you tell that he was 80 years old!

On Wednesday afternoon, we went with Ken and Bonnie to visit Bonnie's parents, Bill and Gloria, at Masonic Homes.  We played one game of Up the River (7-Up) and three games of pinochle.  The women won 3 out of the 4 games!

Thursday was the ultimate feast day (after playing pickleball of course that morning).  Our first stop of the day was Eli's Countryside Roadstand.  His store is filled with lots of Amish crafts and baked goods but the main reason we went to Eli's was for his pretzels.  Chuck and I had been so looking forward to having some of his delicious buttery soft pretzels.

They were so good it almost brought me to tears!  :)

After leaving Eli's, we drove a short distance to Bird-n-Hand Bake shop for some homemade whoopie pies.

Chuck had an oatmeal whoopie pie and I had my favorite, a pumpkin whoopie pie, and they were so good.

Our next stop was supposed to be Costco but we saw Mr. Sticky's at the Lancaster Visitor Center and we had to try a Mr. Sticky's sticky bun.  We bought one and divided it four ways.

It was SO GOOD!

You would think we would be stuffed by now but Costco had lots of samples out and we tried a few of those while getting our groceries.  After leaving Costco, we traveled some back roads back to the campground.  Actually, after riding around with Ken and Bonnie over the past week I think Pennsylvania is nothing but back roads.

We were almost back at the campground and when we pulled up to this intersection.  I think the boys were overcome with all the delicious treats we had been eating because they sat there for about 5 minutes and just talked about how pretty the barns were or the shutters or the grass or windows.

Bonnie and I just sit back and laugh.  After the boys came to their senses we were on our merry way back to the campground.  :)

On Friday morning we played pickleball again and then headed to New Holland to watch Cali and Bria swim in the championship meet.  There were swim teams from all over the area and the age groups went from under 8 all the way up through high school.  We got there just in time to watch Cali and Bria swim in their relays and they did great!

After leaving the swim tournament, we drove back to The Jigger Shop at Mt. Gretna where they have delicious ice cream concoctions like this delicious hot fudge marshmallow sundae that Chuck and I split.

It's a good thing we have been playing pickleball every day!  With all this good food we have been eating, the pickleball playing has hopefully kept our weight gain to only a couple of pounds rather than 5 or 10!

On Saturday morning we played pickleball for nearly four hours.  Chuck and Ken played Wade and Dick in a best of 5 series and Bonnie and I played several games with Denise, Holly, and Tiffany.  After resting a bit on Saturday afternoon, we met Fred and Doloris at Duke's Grill for dinner and then came back to play 5 Crowns, SkipBo and Hasenpfeffer.  Doloris had brought homemade chocolate whoopie pies that were DELICIOUS!

Sunday morning was a special day because we got to witness Joyce, a lady in Ken and Bonnie's small group, get baptized at church that morning.  After church all of their small group plus some other friends of Joyce's went to brunch.  Later that afternoon, we went to the pickleball courts and for the first 30 minutes or so it was just Ken and Bonnie and Chuck and I playing.  But then, Denise and Holly and Tiffany and Wade showed up.  We had some terrifically fun last games of pickleball even though we could hardly move from all the pickleball we had been playing.  But wow!  What great new friends we all have made!

Ken and Bonnie came over to our place for one last evening of card games and Bonnie and I finally won a game of SkipBo!

What a great time we have had at Hershey!  We have had so much fun with Ken and Bonnie.  Thank you for letting us tag along with you and for being the wonderful, awesome friends that you are!  :)