31 Jul - Lunch with April Stanton Hill

 

Today we drove about an hour west to Lancaster PA to have lunch with April Stanton Hill, a great friend of ours from when we lived in Norwalk IA. Lancaster is smack dab in the middle of Amish country here and home of the PA Dutch, It is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. Lancaster was originally settled by German immigrants and in 1729 it was named Lancaster after Lancaster England. It was a huge munitions center during the Revolutionary War and it served as National Capital of the American colonies.  It was also the Pennsylvania state capital for a while.  

April Stanton Hill used to live near Spring Hill Iowa southeast of Norwalk and was in the same class as our oldest daughter Michelle.  April and Michelle were besties and we saw a lot of April since she was at our house or Michelle was at her house quite often.  April settled in Hanover PA and we stopped to see her and meet her family in 2016 on our Maine trip and in 2019 when our son graduated from the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg MD and we stayed in Gettysburg.  

We met April today at the Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant in Lancaster. They had a really good selection of local brews and the food was really good too. It did not look like they were actively brewing today but something might have been "cooking" back there that I did not see

It was great seeing April and getting caught up on everything with her family. We are in touch via social media, but nothing replaces a nice hug!   She has a big wedding coming up this fall for her daughter and that will surely be exciting and challenging!

After lunch April headed west back to Hanover and we drove north and east back to the campground.  We took a different route back to check out how we might leave the campground and access the turnpike on Monday.  

This afternoon we hung out near Brandywine Creek again, enjoying the nice, cooler weather and the peacefulness of the area. Our son Dan called and connected us via live video with our grandson Daniel as he played in the Allstar Baseball game at Ankeny.  He has had a great season. Cubs are at the Nats tonight on TV so will watch the game.  Tomorrow no great plans.  We may seek out a vegetable stand along the road and make preparations to depart Monday morning for our next stop which is Madison/Pittsburgh SE KOA Journey, just off the turnpike.  We will be there five nights before moving on to the Columbus OH area.