Pennsylvania Part Two: 11-11-11 wedding, trying to eat Amishly - November 10-13, 2011

Babe's baby sister Alicia and her long time boyfriend Randy planned their wedding date to fall on November 11, 2011, which should be an easy anniversary to remember, it being 11-11-11!  (Next year's favorites would probably be 10-11-12 or 12-12-12, though they fall in the middle of the week)  The chance to visit Babe's hometown area of Lancaster County, PA had arrived.

We had flown into Baltimore (BWI) two weekends ago for the Penn State game...here we go again, flying 11 days later, though these tickets were bought back in April when there was an unannounced Continental fare sale, just under $200 inclusive per ticket.  I was lucky to stumble upon the fare as the wedding plans had solidified and I looked for tickets at that particular time.

Once United and Continental merged, I had my frequent flyer status on United matched on Continental, so I was able to participate in their unlimited elite upgrade program.  There were a few BKM's for doing this...if flying on Continental metal ("operated by Continental" flights), you must use your Continental OnePass account number.  (I learned this from religiously following the United forum on Flyertalk.com...all those hours of reading paid off!)  If you use your UA number on a CO flight, you are lower in priority than CO flyers, even though the levels are the same. Confusing, but go with the flow.  I had seen this in action on a recent business trip to Austin, as my co-worker and I booked the same flight on CO.  We both had Premier Executive status on UA, but I used my CO number and he his UA number, and I had my upgrades clear and he was #3 on the waiting list.  Another trick I learned was to buy a ticket separate from my companion if on an "operated by CO" flight, at least until sometime end of Q1 2012 when UA and CO finish merging everything and companions are automatically upgraded with the elite flyer, space permitting.  CO follows a rule where the companion can only get on the upgrade list 2 hours before departure.  This pretty much reduces the chance of anyone getting any upgrade as all individual elite flyers are upgraded first and the first class cabin could be full by 2 hours before flight.  By buying separate tickets, I would be in the bucket of individual flyers to get upgraded.  This also means the other person would be flying in the back.  Of course I couldn't leave Babe back there (though he said he wouldn't mind); I had 2 one-way upgrade coupons that were to expire January 2012, so I used them on his ticket.  I seated him in the last row of first class so when it came time for elite upgrades, I'd have a chance that the seat next to him would remain empty, as people tend to select seats further up front.

I got upgraded on the first leg to BWI and was able to change my computer-assigned seat to be next to Babe's.  The second leg was upgraded less than 24 hours before departure and the computer conveniently assigned me the seat next to Babe!  I hadn't flown CO first class in 10 years so I was curious if the quality was as good as I remembered it. (That time, the flight was about to depart and the purser walked into coach and called out my name; I was upgraded even though it was my first time flying CO!  No joke!)  The seats were the same deep navy blue, but upgraded with DirectTV, which was a nice touch.  The flight departed at the wee hour of 5:50am, so we got breakfast, which was better than United's.  I thought I would catch a few zzz's, but I was riveted by satellite TV and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  The economy section also had DirectTV, but passengers had to pay $7.99 for the duration of the flight, whereas first class was free.  I had decided to save a movie for watching on the second leg, but found out not all planes were equipped with satellite. :(  We got lunch on the second leg, also better quality than UA, but there were no warm nuts served, just a foil bag of cashews. (I know..."just"!)  There was a snack basket passed around later in the flight, but the quality of the selections were not as good as the UA snack basket, so thumbs down.  (boo hoo, I know ;))

free DirectTV in first class

controls were built in to the armrest

breakfast of egg and cheese biscuit, yogurt, fruit and warm cinnamon roll

no warm nuts for lunch, UA had cups of warm nuts

warm chicken wrap with corn chowder, fruit, and Milano cookies

the other lunch entree was a shrimp salad

We arrived into BWI with no issues, and the weather was sunny but brisk.  No snow at least!  The rental car shuttle came quickly this time and we were able to get out of the airport in good time, using Hertz again.  It was almost a two hour drive into Conestoga for the wedding rehearsal.  I finally saw my first Turkey Hill and Sheetz convenience stores since I heard about them from Babe and my co-worker Eggy who hails from New Jersey.  I don't think we have any of these gas stations in California, though we do have stores that sell Turkey Hill iced tea.

didn't get a shot of Sheetz though, but Sheetz was VERY brightly lit!

When we arrived at the Conestoga Country Club for the rehearsal, I saw that the altar and tables were already set up for the next day.  Babe didn't have to worry too much about memorizing anything as he was an usher.  I got to meet Alicia the bride and Randy the groom, Babe's parents Steve and Sue, Babe's brother Jarrett and his girlfriend Kate.  The rehearsal dinner was a potluck at Randy's mom's home, with the moms contributing as well as other members of the family.  I didn't take any pictures of the food, but it was Italian-themed, consisting of minestrone soup, salad, lasagna, chicken wings, and many desserts (the peanut butter pie was most yummy and sinful of the bunch, made by Kate).  After dinner, we headed back to Sue's house, our hotel for the weekend.

On Friday morning, Babe and I got up, had leftovers from dinner for lunch, and drove over to Steve's house to visit as we found out the bridesmaids were gathering at Sue's and we wanted to get out of the way.  I met Steve's girlfriend Mary Ann there.  Steve gathered a bunch of old pictures of Babe when he was little for my perusal, so that was fun. (for me, not for Babe!)  They showed me around the property and we walked over an adjacent old metal bridge that locals and Amish buggies used to cross the river before the state shut it down due to needful repairs.  Time flew and we needed to get ready for the wedding, so Babe and I drove back to Sue's, got changed, and headed to the country club.  It was nice to be just a guest!  I got to meet other members of the family, including Babe's grandparents, aunts, uncles, plus Sue's fiance Gerry.

decorative lanterns

escort cards

men's boutonnieres

tiered wedding cake

these were bags that were later used for the dollar dance

there were two betta fish that were kept in separate vases; the stained glass was done by Jarrett's girlfriend Kate

our table, numbered 11

minty favors

the altar in the middle of the room; tables were along the sides

saying "I do"

After the wedding, there were some light appetizers and a hosted bar in the back room.  We were later seated for the bridal party introduction, followed by a plated dinner, which started with a salad, then entree.  Babe and I decided to go with beef as a safe choice, though I heard that the fish was very tender.

got the end piece

The first dance was announced, then the parents danced with the bride and groom.  My camera sucks at dim light plus motion, but it'll take a lot to make me break down and buy an SLR...

the new Mr. and Mrs. Walker

father-daughter dance

A "dollar dance" was announced and both the bride and groom participated.  It was a "contest" to see whether the bride or the groom would collect the most money.  I had never seen the groom participate before, as I was familiar with the dance where money is pinned to the bride's dress.  This version was also different in that the money was collected in separate bags and $5/$10/$20's were requested, hehe.  Dancing was then open to all, though I had expected the DJ to play more current songs as much of the music was surprisingly 70's/80's.  Later on in the night, cake cutting and bouquet/garter toss were done.  Alicia and Randy looked like they were going to feed each other nicely, but in the end, there was some cake smearing.

There were actually wedding crashers, though not the kind you'd expect.  I think they were club members who were having drinks at the bar in the next room and they decided to come in for some dancing.  When the night was over, Babe helped put the gifts in the car and then we headed back to Sue's house.  Congratulations to Alicia and Randy!  They would leave on their honeymoon a couple of days later at an all-inclusive resort in Barbados.  (It would be Randy's first airplane ride...fun fun!)

Saturday morning, we picked up Steve and Mary Ann and went to breakfast at George's in the nearby town of Willow Street.  It was your usual breakfast fare, though I had a chance to try a grilled sticky bun and scrapple, which is sort of like Spam, made Pennsylvania Dutch style.  The scrapple was all right...at least I tried it.  Maybe I didn't have the best version, as I really like Spam.

grilled sticky bun

scrapple (looks appetizing huh?)

I had a mushroom and cheese omelette

On the drive back, we saw an Amish man driving an open buggy...my first Amish sighting!  After dropping off Steve and Mary Ann and picking up a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies that Steve baked (so good!), we returned to Sue's house as Babe's friends Tony and Brian were stopping by to watch the Penn State game (without Joe Pa!).  Gerry, Alicia and Randy also stopped by.  Penn State barely lost the game to Nebraska; surprisingly there wasn't as much drama as people feared after the scandal broke out.

The boys were having so much fun catching up that the time slipped by and we were too late to head out to Amish country to buy baked goods at Bird-in-Hand Bakery and eat smorgasbord at the Family Cupboard since they closed at 8pm.  There was an Amish country store still open nearby, so we headed there first to buy some whoopie pies and shoo-fly pies.  Amish folks don't like their picture taken, so I respected their privacy, but pictures of food are must-haves.  Babe joked that even though I may have been excited to see Amish people, the Amish people were probably tickled to see a Chinese person in their store!

yummy baked goods

these were really good

they lit the store with gas lights

Dinner was at the only restaurant in town, the Conestoga Wagon.  I tried their liver and onions with lima beans and "homemade filling" (aka stuffing) while Babe ordered the fried chicken with mashed potatoes and apple fritters.  It was a lot of food; I don't know how people can eat the whole plate, plus the bread basket that comes with it.

We were so full, we didn't order any dessert, but Babe said I still had to try some renowned ice cream at the Pine View Dairy.  Their ice cream is made from scratch with no chemicals or preservatives.  They call scoops "dips", so if you want a single scoop, it's called a single dip.  I thought they meant dipping the ice cream in chocolate or something!  We shared a double dip of chocolate peanut butter and pumpkin flavors.  I had a kick out of seeing bags of orange juice and milk being sold.  Apparently it's cheaper to buy the liquid in these bags and put them in special pitchers to dispense the product.  I had never seen this before.

bulk bagged beverages

We returned to the house and Sue had made some chicken pot pie for us, since I had been on a mission to taste Amish food, if you hadn't noticed already.  We were so full but I had to eat some, and it was tasty.  We then dug up old home videos of Babe when he was young.  I had such a good time watching them, though I think Babe felt otherwise. ;)

Sunday morning, Sue's fiance Gerry stopped by; Sue made a wonderful sausage and pancake breakfast for us.  I'm not usually excited about pancakes, but these were so fluffy and tasty that I had to have two of them, which surprised Babe.  ("You don't eat pancakes!")  The sausage was good too, locally made.  After spending some time showing Sue and Gerry photos from our previous Hawaii trips to prepare them for their trip in mid-January and sharing travel tips, we packed up and drove back to Baltimore to catch our flights home.  I did not get upgraded from BWI to Houston (though I did get upgraded on the second leg), but I didn't mind as I was in a bulkhead window seat, plus no one was sitting in the middle!  Babe offered to give me his first class seat, but there was DirectTV on the flight, and I knew that he would appreciate it more as the football games were on.

I had a great second outing to Pennsylvania, and looking forward to next time and experiencing more Amish culture and food!  In the meantime, 11 days later, Babe would be coming to my home for Thanksgiving, followed by a trip to Napa.  Until then...

Pennsylvania Part One: My first and last "Joe Pa" game - October 28-30, 2011

(sorry for being so behind on my blog; December has been pretty busy, but I promised myself I would finish typing up November's travels before my New Year's trip!)

What seems like every Halloween weekend, there is a big football game at Babe's alma mater, Penn State, and he and his old college buddies make efforts to meet up and watch the Nittany Lions play, win or lose.  This year, I figured I'd tag along to watch my first (?!) live college football game (Illinois at Penn State), and what a place to do it but at the impressive Beaver Stadium in State College, PA, the second largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and fourth largest in the world.

It was a last minute decision to go (4 days before the game) so we used award tickets to get to Baltimore to cut down costs as airfares were expectedly high.  There was availability when we pieced our flights together as one-ways on various websites:  a one way ticket on Continental for 12.5K miles, a one-way Southwest Rapid Rewards flight, a 37.5K round-trip award flight on United, plus $25 last-minute award travel fees per flight.  Surprisingly, a low amount of miles were needed for this last-minute travel.

Last year, I had helped Babe look for lodging near State College, and there was no availability, causing the guys to have to drive 3 hours to and from the stadium, plus stuck in traffic for extra hours.  This year, there were some hotel rooms available, but at outrageous prices, like $350 for a room at the Ramada Inn.  I could stay at a Four Seasons for that price!  I went on craigslist and found a historic home "bed and breakfast" (basically a room in someone's house) for $135/night.  Eileen, the owner, told me that she usually didn't have vacancies this late, but it seemed the weather was not looking good for that weekend and people decided not to attend the game.  I got a great deal on a rental car through our company's Hertz leisure rate (something like $19/day including #1 Club Gold benefits; until March 31, 2012, join with no membership fee by clicking here; if it's after that date, search for "#1 Club Gold free" on Google to find other ways to sign up for free).  Babe found a good pair of tickets on stubhub.com, so we were all set!

The flights were non-eventful; Babe and I were meeting each other at the airport in Baltimore.  I was flying on an economy award ticket, so there were no upgrades, but I was able to get exit row seats.  We got to Baltimore around 9:30pm.  The rental car shuttle took a long time to pick up, so we weren't able to start our drive to State College until 10:30pm.  It was a 3 hour drive, so I had warned Eileen that we weren't going to get there until around 2am, and she seemed fine with it, so that was a relief.  The weather forecast was not great, calling for rain and snow.  The rain had barely started when we left Baltimore, and we were practically racing in front of the storm.  The light rain had turned to snowflakes at the top of the hill approaching State College.  We made it to Eileen's home around 2am, and she was still up as she came home from a late engagement, which worked out for all!

We were the only guests at the home; there were three guest rooms, but the people who were going to stay in the other rooms had cancelled due to the weather.  It was nice not to have to share the bathroom with too many people.  Our room was warm and comfortable.  The floors creaked a lot, as expected in an old home.  No way that someone could sneak around the house without being heard.

The next morning (I guess you could say it was later that morning), we woke up to a winter wonderland...everything dusted in a few inches of snow.  There was more snow in the forecast, unexpected for this time of year.  Babe and I enjoyed a continental breakfast with bagels, cereal, fresh cut fruit, coffee, tea and juices.  Even though we were paying guests, we picked up after ourselves once we were done eating as it felt weird to just leave the table like that.  Eileen had been outside using the leaf blower and when she came back in and saw what we did, she told us we didn't have to do that, but added that at least we felt like we were at home. :)

I did not bring clothes for snow, so we headed out a bit early to do some shopping.  The home was about 20 minutes walking distance to campus, which was good, as we did not want to drive and get stuck in traffic.  The snow was coming down harder, and all I had on was a thin hoodie, a scarf, gloves, and flat-soled boots that weren't waterproof.  We stopped by an off-campus store and bought a Penn State windbreaker and a Polartec headband for me.  Then, Babe called up his buddies to find out their tailgate location.  It was in one of the campus parking lots as the snow had closed the field near the stadium where people normally park.  The group consisted of Babe's friend Tony and Tony's dad, brothers and friends.  There normally would have been more people, but the weather made them stay home.

I had never been to a tailgate before, and I think what I experienced was a pretty elaborate setup despite the failing weather.  There were a couple of tents erected across two or three vehicles, a portable barbecue, a portable camp stove, abundant folding chairs, and lots of food and beverages (alcoholic and non).  This bunch was definitely hardcore, willing to set up a tailgate with wind and snow pouring down.  People passing by were looking at us like we were crazy.  The roofs of the tents had to be shaken every once in a while to keep the snow from caving them in.  It was pretty cold, yet the guys still managed to get a game of ring toss in, hands freezing and all.

the snow's a-pouring

cute little barbecue

that camp stove was able to make some good grub!

ghetto ring toss, get it in the PVC pipe for double points

I was very impressed with Tony's dad's cooking ability, able to whip up a pot of delicious seafood bisque, perfect for the cold weather, and fry up bacon-wrapped potato wedges with that camp stove.  He even had a bottle of homemade limoncello, which hit the spot.  I hadn't understood the references to drinking whiskey and hard liquor in cold weather (or St. Bernards with whiskey barrels), but when that limoncello hit my tummy and warmth emanated from my body, I got the gist. ;)  I didn't even get a buzz!  I think my body was digesting the alcohol to fuel the shivers.  We spent a few freezing hours here, with a couple of warming intermissions consisting of going to the bathroom in a nearby classroom building and getting a cup of hot chocolate from the Hub on campus.

a stately tree on campus

watching people make a snowman through a window in the Hub

Finally it was time to head to the game.  It was a 10 minute walk to the stadium from where we were, and the snow was not relenting, becoming slush on the ground.  My boots were soaked by this time, and I regretted not having some plastic bags for my socks. (or having proper snow footwear)  I wasn't the only one suffering as the women's bathroom was full of ladies sopping up their socks with paper towels.

brrrrr!

Our seats were not near to Tony and the group so we made our own way to our section.  The ticket taker/usher directed us in the general direction of our seats, but we found there were people sitting in them.  We pointed this out to the usher, and he pointed and said "sit here", with "here" being front row seats right behind the Nittany Lions.  We were close enough to hear them talking and using flowery language when plays didn't go so well. ;)

sitting up front right behind the team

the student section, all dressed in white

The snow was scraped off the field (and piled up on the Illinois side...), so it was fit for playing.  I had thought that the football game would be delayed or cancelled due to snow, but I learned that games were played rain or shine.  The stadium was made up of mostly metal bleachers, so it made for a rather chilly time.  Babe had to buy mugs of hot chocolate and a poncho for us to sit on to relieve our frozen butts, as the game seemed to drag on endlessly with snow pouring down and no score from either side during the first half!  During halftime, Babe and I walked the ramps up and down the stadium to get the blood pumping.  I was hoping for lots of good plays by Penn State in the second half so the band would play and we would be able to jump up and down to warm up.  That didn't happen until the 4th quarter, when the snow relented some and Penn State finally scored a touchdown and a field goal. (they had missed an earlier field goal).  Illinois scored a touchdown, and in the final 5 seconds of the 4th quarter, the Fighting Illini had the chance to tie the game with a field goal.  The white-clothed Penn State students all moved close in behind the goalpost to create a distraction for the opposing team's kicker.  Would that even work???  I was hoping that the game wouldn't go into overtime, so I could go back home and warm up!

the students move in

The ball is snapped and set up, the kicker kicks and the ball sails...and hits the goal post, bouncing out.  Penn State wins!  I had never seen Babe so excited.  (in TV footage the next day, it was revealed that the ball was not held "laces out"...)

no Joe Paterno on the field though...he was in the press box due to a bad hip

the field goal attempt wasn't super far, I was shocked it was a miss

We stopped by the tailgate once more to grab a bite to eat, help pack up and say goodbye.  Then Babe and I walked back to the house and took a very hot shower...ahhhh!  The next morning, we had breakfast, then took off right away without any time to sightsee as we had a 3 hour drive back to Baltimore to catch our flights in the afternoon.

scraping the hard snow off the rental car

Babe and I were able to fly back on the same plane from Baltimore to Denver, then we parted ways on the second leg back home.  The weekend was already memorable enough, but the following days made it even more noteworthy:  the snow-kissed Beaver Stadium was featured on the front page of CNN.com, and the week following, the Sandusky child abuse scandal broke out, and Joe Paterno was fired from his job as Penn State's head coach for the last 46 years.  We had seen "Joe Pa"'s last game.  But this was not the last of Pennsylvania for me...I would return two weeks later to attend Babe's sister's wedding...stay tuned!