Pizza, Pottery Works, and Puffing up the Mountain!

The quiet domestic life — the excitement of urban life— a grueling mountain hike— it’s not often I get to experience it all in one weekend.

Pizza Loaves

I spent Saturday morning making one of my favorite recipes, Peppery Pizza Loaves. Mom has a scrapbook cookbook with the recipe clipped from an old issue of Quick Cooking. You can get the recipe from Taste of Home here. The pizza loaves are quick, delicious, and freeze well. I also made a couple of Frosty Chocolate Pies (pie recipe here). (I was making a freezer meal for someone at church. )

While I was making the pizza loaves, I noticed the pickled peppers, green onions, and the red kitchen scissors were making an Instagram-y type arrangement. (Or maybe I spent too much time adding kitchen gadgets to the website at work last week). At any rate, I took a food picture that’s not staged (well, I did move the scissors for better composition.)

I also took a picture of the finished pizza loaves, ready for the freezer.

Pottery Works in Lancaster

Saturday afternoon was my eleven-year-old niece Mikayla’s turn for a special aunt-niece day with me. She chose to go to Pottery Works, a paint-your-own pottery studio in downtown Lancaster. On our way to the city, Mikayla remarked “I’ve never been to Lancaster City. I’ve been to Baltimore and Harrisburg, but not Lancaster.”

As we approached the Prince Street Parking Garage, I decided to make sure Mikayla’s first visit to Lancaster would be a little more interesting. “The parking garage goes up really high. Want to drive the whole way to the top?”

“Sure,” Mikayla agreed, and I begin to drive up, passing plenty of empty parking spaces. We parked in the last parking space on Level 7, since Level 8, the roof, was chained off.

After we got out of the car, we walked out onto the roof. No one was around, and we enjoyed the bright sunshine and the glimpses of Lancaster City through the chain link fence all around the roof.

“Let’s get some exercise and take the stairs.” I suggested. Like the roof, the stairs were empty as we descended.

But when we reached Level 6, we heard angry men shouting below. We didn’t know exactly where it was coming from in the cavernous structure of the parking garage, but we didn’t stop and try to figure it out. Mikayla and I whipped around and ran up the stairs as fast as we could.

When we reached the next landing, I told Mikayla to stop. “We’ll go down the elevator.” I punched the button to summon the elevator and uneasily eyed the stairwell.

“That didn’t sound like happy shouts.” Mikayla said, and I agreed with her. The elevator arrived after several very long seconds, and we stepped inside and let it carry us down the six stories to safety.

We never figured out what the shouting was about, but I learned from the staff at Pottery Works that there was a large beer festival on a street next to the parking garage. Maybe some unhappy drunks? Most likely, Mikayla and I were in no real danger and while I don’t like being a scared country mouse in the city, I’m glad we turned around!

Despite the frightening start, we had a wonderful afternoon at Pottery Works! We sat in the front of the studio to paint our pottery and could watch the going-ons of Orange Street.

After Pottery Works, we had a snack at the Lancaster Cupcake.

Hiking Flat Rock Trail

Sunday afternoon, I headed off into the boondocks of Newville with friends to go hiking. For Lancastrians like me, the mountains west of the Susquehanna River always have had a boondocks feel—less traffic, pitch-dark nights, people always wanting to go deer spotting. Rich Lancastrians buy cabins in the boondocks so they can get away from the bustle of Lancaster County life and go deer spotting.

In Newville, we met at the Colonel Dennings State Park to hike the Flat Rock Trail, a 2.5 mile trail leading to an overlook.

The weather was pleasant, and the trail was rugged and rocky, with some shaded ferny areas.

Our group of sixteen hikers eventually got ourselves sorted out into two groups— mostly because the 5K runner-types got the idea to start running up the trail, while office potatoes like me determinedly puffed our way to the top.

One friend, who’s a nurse, offered me helpful, but too-late advice. “I hope you ate bananas before you came. All the potassium helps your muscles. “

“Does chocolate pie do the same thing?”

Happily everyone, even me, made it to the Flat Rock overlook, where you can see the entire Cumberland Valley. The view of forest, farms, and towns is stunning, and you can see as far as Harrisburg. One of the guys who regularly hikes in that area, told us “You’re really lucky. It’s rare that it’s so clear.”

There were a few other hikers already there, including one couple who went to work of taking hammocks to hang in the trees close to the overlook.

If you look closely in the photo below, you can see someone in an orange shirt sitting behind the group. He was there before we invaded the overlook, and I guess he decided not to move!

After hiking, the guy who planned the event invited us to his house (located on ten acres of woodsy land) for a stromboli supper. After we ate, he gave us a tour of his gun shop and showed how he makes guns (mostly hunting rifles).

We didn’t go deer spotting, but when it got pitch-dark, some of the Lancastrians set off fireworks and Chinese Lanterns, which sadly wobbled to the side and never floated very far before landing in the grass to burn up.

All in all, it was a fine weekend!

Cheers! Susan