Lancaster 2009
Wow – where to start? It was raining cats & dogs when we set out on Friday morning. Hauling all of LA’s baskets, bags and buckets to the car – it was hard to imagine that we would be back in 48 hours. We said hello to Joe – working at Maureen’s house. Alas, he did not make us breakfast. I drove Cathy and Lois and LA went with Maureen. Marianne left a little while later and Lori came up after lunch. We got up there around 10 and immediately went to Zook’s – so good to be there! Everyone made some nice purchases – Maureen got some good bargains - $3.49 a yard – ask no questions; buy three yards if you like it! Then it was on to the Old Country Store. They had a table of batiks for $5.39 a yard – practically giving the stuff away! We high-tailed it over to the Kling House restaurant – dancing between the rain drops. The ‘Sensational Six’ were promptly seated and tried to warm up and dry out. We were halfway through ordering when someone mentioned that it was a Friday in Lent – ignoring that, we ordered lots of meat! After one of the best lunches ever, we bought some kettle corn while Maureen helped Lois buy a plant stand – very nice! Time to check in – we headed to the Best Western to pick up the key – and soon found the Evergreen House – oh, it’s the ‘other’ green house. It is awesome!!!! Picked our bedrooms – and the machines were set up by 1:45. At that point, LA’s eyes lit up and she did a little happy dance in the kitchen – it was time for Bunny Hops!!! Boy was she prepared! Tom Cruise, eat your heart out! Everyone had one and we had an official Quiltmama toast. Lots of sewing and laughing going on…..around three, we headed down the road to Omar’s. More bargains to be had! Love that place! After we got back, Dolores arrived. We were complete. LA had already finished a couple of projects by now. Around 7, we decided to walk Dolores to Zook’s and the Old Country store – yep – walked two blocks – how awesome is that? Lois’ sister decided to scare the wits out of her while we were there – don’t you just love family? When we got back – we were starving. So we all piled into Mare’s van and went to the Pizza Box – good pizza, lots of local color and Dolores got carded. I think Lancaster is her fountain of youth! Maureen’s face when she saw broccoli on the pizza was just priceless – but trooper that she is, she ate it. ‘Depends’ would have been helpful for those car rides. Back home, into pajamas, the sewing continued. LA made another round of Bunny Hops – what a day!
Saturday was sunny but so windy! It cut right through you. We had a lovely breakfast – French toast casserole - and eight women showered in, what I would consider, record time! Apparently, the upstairs shower was a lot like Buddy’s shower in Elf. Mare and I had other issues in the downstairs bathroom – what is it with us and bathrooms? But, everyone managed to get clean and half of us set out around 10. Lori drove me, Lois and Dolores to the show. This will be important later! It was awesome. The Pincushion Boutique was in the first room to the right in the Host – dangerous! They took some serious coin from the Quiltmamas! We hit that twice. Zook’s & Sauders had a neat booth in that room as well – it was all fabric packs – so nicely coordinated and reasonably priced. In fact, Dolores and I almost got kicked out of that booth during our second visit – surely a misunderstanding! Almost walked smack into Geri – the hostess from hell – in the tennis courts. I had to quickly avoid her glare as I did not want to turn to stone. The show was very nice – they had almost twice the number of vendors in the ‘art’ quilt room. We walked across the street to the vendors. In one of the small rooms, a woman next to Dolores happened to say that batiks were her least favorite. Dolores wondered aloud what was wrong with her. The woman actually apologized! That whippersnapper! I told her to wait in the hall and she replied, ‘OK, Mom’. We were exhausted and started heading back around 2:30. Stopped at Omar’s again on the way home – the other group was already home and had made snacks! They didn’t even get to the show until 12:30……hmmmm….speedy! Got back around 3:30 – and there was still smoke coming out of LA’s machine. We had some lovely snacks! How did they manage to do all that in such record time? Dolores detected that something was up and finally got them to fess up that they skipped the vendors across the street – blasphemy! Show & tell was awesome – I think we now own nearly every pattern produced by Pincushion Boutique. Two cars of drooling fools set out for the Iron Horse a little after 7:00. You could feel the excitement building. The reservation was simply for the ‘Quiltmamas’ – and we were seated in our regular room. LA’s face just fell when she saw that they didn’t have the steak special. We told her to just ask for it as they had gorgonzola in other dishes – no, she pouted. Maureen finally cleared things up saying, ‘If you don’t ask for it, I will because I’m not going to look at that face all night’! A few Bunny Hops were consumed – they came with pink bunny peeps in them. Dolores thought LA’s were better! She only consumed the peep bodies – leaving the heads on her bread plate. The waitress thought we had some kind of Godfather thing going on until Dolores cleared that up – ‘It’s bad luck to eat the head’, she declared loudly. A good tip for the folks at the next table! It’s a wonder we could eat with all the laughing that was going on. Everything was delicious and LA had her special steak – it was worth the trip – as always. Back home, the drinking and sewing continued. While trying to figure out the whole Consuela/Hannah dichotomy, LA declared that, obviously, she is a Mexinnite! LA had a PINK disappearing nine-patch that was truly unique. When she wondered about putting more pink in it, Dolores assured her that, ‘The last thing that needs is more pink!’ Enough said. Multiple quilts were pinned in the ‘pinning room’ – a wonderful feature of the house. We did the major cleanup before turning in. Next morning, we had another wonderful breakfast pizza, got cleaned up and were on the road at 9:30 – we are nothing if not efficient! A truly fun, exhilarating and productive weekend for all – can’t wait to do it all over again next year!
Here is the infamous Bunny Hop Drink...
fill a tall glass with ice
1 1/2 shot vodka
1/2 shot Malibu Pineapple Rum
1/2 shot Peach Schnapps
1 shot of orange juice
1 shot of pineapple juice
1 shot of cranberry juice (I filled the glass to the top with cranberry juice instead!)
Stir and Enjoy!!!
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