I'm sure that plenty of people come to Valley Forge during business hours to learn some history, but if you go after hours, as we did, you'll see scores of parents romping with their kids on vast open fields, plus horseback riders, runners, cyclists and walkers like us. With a network of multi-use paths and a hilly terrain, it's an excellent place for exercise and outdoor play.
A short while after this picture was taken, we saw a group of serious young men with serious photography equipment (tripods, large cameras) set up in a row near the arch. They were getting instruction from an older man, probably on tips for sunset photos. But since they were speaking in a foreign language, I didn't really know what was being said. I hope they got some good shots - they had a nice evening and a great location.
The next several photos are from the Enchanted Woods (children's garden section) at Winterthur, near Wilmington, DE. I found it to be very charming, hence the several pictures I took.
Unfortunately for us, the Enchanted Woods wasn't put in until after we moved away from the region. Our daughter turned three shortly before we moved, so we would have taken her to this section of the Winterthur gardens had it been there then. The children we saw the day of our visit looked to be having a great time there!
A few more pictures from Winterthur's gardens, all taken in the Reflecting Pool area:
Reflecting pool.
Moving on and north of the Delaware Valley region, we used Williamsport, PA as our home base for exploring local and not-so-local places of interest.
View outside a window in our hotel. Westerners would likely sneer at those mountains, since most are no taller than 2,000 ft, but that's still plenty tall for us!
No shortage of funky signage in Ithaca, NY:
The next set of signs were on a message board inside a mini-mall building.
Back to the Williamsport area again:
Purity always has some gigantic chocolate pieces ready for a special purchase. When we've come in the fall it's huge solid turkeys, but this time we saw:
Enjoyed a 5 1/2 mile walk along the Pine Creek Rail Trail after visiting Purity.
After we were done with our walk it was time to start heading west back toward home. We went as far as Dubois, PA that day. Thanks to Yelp, I'd learned of Luigi's, an Italian restaurant in downtown Dubois, so that's where we ate dinner. I can recommend the stromboli option; it sure was good. It helped that one could pick up to three choices for the filling, similar to ordering pizza toppings. I selected sausage, hot peppers and fresh spinach. What arrived on my plate was a huge stromboli, big enough for two dinners. Of course it was fattening as could be, but worth the calories. My husband ordered the mushroom ravioli and enjoyed that as well. We also gobbled down some slices of delicious Italian bread - made on the premises, we were told by our waitress. (we were hungry after that walk on the Pine Creek Rail Trail!)
Also not photographed, but also recommended, is Zwahlen's of Audubon, PA (yes, the same Audubon who did the famous bird paintings - he had lived nearby). We'd done some serious walking on the Saturday of our trip, on a hot and humid day. Had a relatively light dinner too, so I felt ice cream would be a good ending for the day. We weren't up to driving very far to get some, though.
Was in luck again when I searched on Yelp - it turned out that an ice cream parlor, Zwahlen's, was literally right across the street from our hotel! (Homewood Suites) We'd seen the building as we'd driven up to the hotel, but didn't realize it was an ice cream parlor. The building looked more like it housed a restaurant.
Zwahlen's ice cream is very good and reasonably priced as well. They also make a variety of chocolate candies. It's worth a stop if you're in the area - say, to learn some history at Valley Forge (or go to the nearby casino if that's your thing!)
Lots more I could have shown off, and lots more I could have taken photos of, but I hope you got a sense of the scenic, historic areas we visited.
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