Last fall, I bought tickets for an event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My daughter C and I had really enjoyed our previous visit to the town, and we looked forward to another trip there. Washington, D.C. has also recently been saturated in tension and uncertainty, so I needed to get out of town for a weekend.

We headed out of town on a Friday afternoon just after C came home from school. Friday afternoon driving out of D.C. can be a struggle, and so soon after the Return-to-Office order for federal employees meant the 2 1/2 hour drive took about an hour longer. But no worries, our first destination in town was Sushi Heaven, an all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant we fell in love with during our last visit. After stuffing ourselves, we headed to our hotel.

On our last visit we stayed at the super cute Red Caboose Motel in Ronks, PA. Looking for something else unique, I reserved a room at the world’s only Cartoon Network Hotel. While I am a bit too old for Cartoon Network, and C is largely over it, we are familiar with it, and we love a unique place! Also, the hotel is well-located on one of the main drags in Lancaster, with easy access to everything we wanted to see and do. I wanted a Powerpuff Girls room, but they had all been reserved, so we had to make do with Jake the Dog from Adventure Time. No problem. The room was cute, the beds comfortable, and we had a good night.

On Saturday morning, after a much-needed lie-in, we headed to the town of Lititz for a 10:30 AM tour at the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery. On our tour, C and I had the opportunity to roll out some dough, twist our own pretzels, and learn about the history of Sturgis Pretzels. Founded in 1861, the bakery is the site of the oldest commercial pretzel factory housed in one of Lititz’s original buildings, which was built in 1784. Now, pretzels have been around a really long time. Reportedly, an Italian monk invented them in 610 AD, but those were the soft pretzels now generally associated with Germany. But the hard pretzel popular in the U.S. was invented by Julius Sturgis in 1860. The baker he worked for thought they wouldn’t sell, so Julius bought his own place, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Following the Sturgis bakery, we took a brief walk around the lovely historic town of Lititz. Members of the Moravian church from Bohemia founded Lititz in 1756, and for much of the first 100 years of its history, only congregation members could own homes in the town. Over the years, buildings of many architectural styles (48!), from colonial and federal to Victorian and Beaux Arts and everything in between. I would have liked more time to explore but C is a bit less enthralled with historic buildings and architecture than I am, it was chilly with a bitter wind that made walking unpleasant, and we we were getting hungry and had lunch plans.

C and I made a beeline back to Lancaster and its Central Market (the continuously operated public market in America) for lunch. C may not care that much about the historic importance of the market, but she enjoyed the food there enough to personally request we return for some more goodies. We wandered past the stalls doing some “window” shopping before getting sandwiches and a whoopie pie, then nabbed a few seats at one of the few tables on the ground floor. Here we could munch on our food and people watch – where cheerleaders just out of a local competition mingled amongst locals and visitors buying from stalls with fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and meat from Mennonite and Amish farms or grabbing Thai, West African, Spanish, Caribbean, Scandinavian, or Middle Eastern bites. Then, it was back to the hotel for a little rest before the evening’s event.

I built our Lancaster return trip entirely around seeing Riverdance, the Irish dance phenomenon, at the American Musical Theater (AMT). I do not remember when I first saw Riverdance, but it was in the Washington, D.C. area some 20 years ago, and I absolutely loved it. When C and I visited Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, I took her to see the Irish dancing show, and she insisted we see it again on our next visit. I knew she would love Riverdance, so I had to get tickets when I heard they were touring again. Lancaster and its unique AMT seemed the perfect place to see it. The performance was everything I remembered and more; C loved it! I’ll certainly keep the AMT in mind for future shows.

On the last day of our Lancaster County getaway, we drove first to one of the county’s many famous covered bridges so I could do a photoshoot of C. It was chilly and C was grouchy (she is nearly every time I pull out the fancy camera) so we spent only 20 minutes. Our next and final stop was the Turkey Hill Experience in Columbia, PA. I opted for both the interactive experience and the taste lab. For the former, we laughed our way through creating and naming our own ice cream flavor, designing its box, and making a commercial. We also locked ourselves into a mock (but still cold) ice cream freezer and taste-tested several of Turkey Hills’ beverages (for free!). In the taste lab, we were able to create our own ice cream using a very delicious vanilla base and choosing between some 18 flavorings, maybe 20 dry toppings, and some 10 liquid mixes. I went with a birthday cake flavor, topped with peanut butter cups and cookie morsels. I stopped there. With the flavoring, that is! I wish I could have used more self-control when it came to eating!

We packed a whole lot into our second visit to Lancaster County! It really was just what we needed for a mother-daughter getaway.