Fun in PA

In early April, I flew east to visit my father in Pennsylvania.  As always, I had a nice time with him and, as they often do, my daughters came from Florida for the weekend.  I have no pictures of my father or daughters, as they are even more camera shy than I am.

On Friday evening, we all met my only cousin’s only daughter at a restaurant for dinner.  (As you can see, we have a small family.)  The only time we see Rebecca and her husband Terry seems to be at my father’s birthday parties (his 90^th and 95^th, so far) when they are busy handling the food.  They are terrific people and it was so nice to be able to sit and talk.

Rebecca is quite an organizer and even had a suggestion for something for us to do on Saturday.  The Mennonites were holding their 62^nd annual Relief Sale.  Although we had no idea what that was, the ‘girls’ and I went to check it out.  There were a couple of craft booths, but they had two continuous auctions and lots of food.  Laura and Christy enjoyed an authentic Philly Cheese Steak.

The quilt auction was fun to watch.  The beautiful quilts were donated and sold for hundreds to thousands of dollars.  I checked their website later and found the quilt auction raised $115,635.

We laughed at the Country Auction where the items were rakes and hoes, but even that raised $13,877.  (No pictures of the rakes and hoes . . .)

Since we were already in Harrisburg, we decided to tour the state capitol.  Of course we had previously done that, but it had been a long time ago.  We parked around back which gave us a different view of the building.

The building is spectacular and we were just in time to join a tour.

 (The previous two pictures were taken by Christy.)

Looking down from the third floor, I remembered how our school choir stood on those marble steps and sang Christmas carols one year.

The Senate . . .

And House of Representatives are gorgeous.

The House has four priceless murals by Edwin Austin Abbey.  The largest depicts explorers, pioneers, scientists, industrialists, and military figures who shaped Pennsylvania’s history.

The Supreme Court chamber is more intimate than one might expect, but just as impressive,

With a stained glass dome,

And the fanciest thermometer I’ve ever seen.

We also stopped at the cute Appalachian Brewing Company where I had some of their birch beer,

And the girls had a flight.  Not being a beer drinker, I didn’t even know that a flight is a rack of samples.

By the time we returned home, I think my father was wondering if we got lost.