Adventures Along the Benjamin Franklin Highway

Leaving Ohio...

Day four, and we're in Pennsylvania!  Tonight, we're in Altoona, and we had a really lovely drive here through the hills and forests of this state.  A few miles before we reached PA, along side Highway 422 in Ohio, I looked over to the side of the road to see something absolutely stunning.  A small fawn, looking exactly like Bambi, was carefully stepping out of the forest into the tall grass alongside the road.  By the time I saw it and told my family, it was almost too late for them to see it.  My daughter caught a glimpse of it, though.  I wish I'd had the camera ready.

That wasn't to be our only encounter with a deer or other wildlife today.  After we headed down the Benjamin Franklin Highway, we saw a wooded area that had zebras running around.  We had to go back and have a second look, and found this amazing little wildlife place. So we decided to stop and go through it.  It was actually really fun.  They had a nice selection of animals, but it wasn't so huge that we had to hike for hours, either.  There were highland cattle, some impressive big cats, camels and llamas, the zebras, of course, and lots of very hungry and friendly donkeys, ponies, and goats.  And of course lots and lots of deer.

A bit later, we came across a small quilt store in Elderton, and I had to stop since I had broken a machine needle the night before and needed some replacements.  (Not to mention I just have to stop at quilt stores.  One can never have enough quilt fabric).  While I was there, the lady who rang up my purchases asked me if I had a punch card. (The punch card is a quilt store thing, I'm thinking.  For most stores, if you spend, say, $500, you get some percentage off your next purchase.)  I explained to her that we were from out of state and she asked where we were from, and when I told her Colorado, she asked me if we were with the other people from Colorado. Apparently, earlier in the day, there were several ladies in there store who were from Colorado. What a small world!  Of course, I have no idea who they might be.  But now I'm wondering if they bought fabric I'd want.  Hmmm....

Eric feeding reindeer.  I wonder if Santa knows about this?

When we got to Altoona some hours later, we still had a couple of hours before sunset, so we drove around town.  I'm once again amazed at all the lovely old homes.  And in this town, there seem to be a lot of churches, mostly Catholic.  Some are stunning.  Thanks to a new app my husband has on his iPhone, we found a really great restaurant we never would have found otherwise. Lena's Cafe had home-made pasta that was very nummy.  It appears to be a place frequented by locals.  There, our waitress was a lady from Denver.  She seemed excited to run into people from Colorado, and told us where to find some interesting historic railroad things around Altoona.  We'll have to check them out tomorrow morning.