Driving to Lancaster County

On Thursday Sept 28th we drove out to Lancaster PA from Katie's house to Scott's memorial service. It was scheduled to begin at 6 pm and included a meal. The service was located in the Intercourse Community Park pavilion. We had planned our trip to Philly around this memorial service for my brother-in-law. We didn't want to drive back to Mt Airy that night after the service so we booked a motel room down the road a little bit and would leave for Katie's after breakfast the following morning.

We spent some time trying to figure out the best route from Mt Airy in Philly to the park just outside Lancaster and of course we started out looking at the Google maps recommended route which insisted we take the turnpike or the Schuylkill Expressway which I didn't want to take. Either way was about an hour and a half.

Check in at the motel was 3 pm and we were ready to leave Katie's after lunch. The kids were at school and we had plenty of time to travel. We wanted to get back as soon as possible the next day because Todd was flying to Toronto for a conference and would be gone for five days. Friday was going to be a hectic day for them so we were hoping to get back on the road early enough to get back to Katie's by around 10 am. 

In the meantime we packed an overnight bag and drove off to Lancaster County. I had decided on an alternate route that would take a little longer but would be much more interesting. We took Lincoln Drive, which wasn't too bad because of the time of day, Down at the expressway we crossed the river and headed over to City Line Avenue and out to the Main Line. The only time in recent years I've driven out that way has been to visit Liz out in Havertown. Many years ago I traveled this way a lot and I was looking forward to this drive through the past.

We followed City Line Avenue Rte 1 down past St. Joe's college and over to Rte 30 in Overbrook. Then we followed Lancaster Avenue through Wynnewood, Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, Rosemont, Wayne, Paoli, Malvern and the other towns along the Main Line. We also passed by the campuses of Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Villanova. When we went through the town of Bryn Mawr I looked for the old location of The Main Point which I couldn't see. I can't even imagine how many times I drove this route from Germantown over to The Main Point. We went through too fast but the area was very familiar. Overall I really enjoyed driving through these towns but the going was a little slow.

Then we hit the Route 30 expressway going into Lancaster County and our traveling sped up considerably. Now we were out in the country and no longer going through Philly suburbs. We took this to route 772 which was a real country road driving though farmlands and Amish communities. We saw lots of horse and buggies going down the roads. Lot of other farm animals too. We were only on that road a short time until we entered the town of Intercourse and pulled into our motel. It was just shortly after 3 pm. We checked in and then settled into our room to relax for awhile. My brother Dan showed up at the motel around 5 and had the room next door. 

The park where the memorial service was happening was located just a couple of minutes down the road. When the time came we pulled out of the motel parking lot and then drove into the park a few minutes later. 

After the service we made our way back to the motel around 9 pm. I was glad we weren't driving back to Katie's house that night. We were on the road after a quick breakfast and checkout and left a little after 8 am. We got back to Katie's just before 10 am and we able to stay and watch Violet while Katie took Clara to her OPT and Todd got his Lyft ride to the airport.

The first photo here is of a print on the wall of our motel room depicting Lancaster County and it says "the valley of no wires".  Well, we saw plenty of wires driving around there.