A Weekend in Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania
After missing my exit for Mount Gretna, I had been in the car for nearly four hours when I finally arrived, and was promptly told, no dogs allowed. Well. Fuck.
My aunt had rented a house in the strange Pennsylvania "town" for her birthday weekend, and upon receiving the news that Igby would not be welcome, I prepared to turn around and drive all the way back to New York City. Fortunately for me, I have the best family there is, and we were able to strike a deal where the dog was allowed on the spacious porch where we would now be spending most of our time shooting the shit under heated blankets.
For anyone unfamiliar (i.e., most people) Mount Gretna is a very unusual place out in Pennsylvania's Amish Country; it's less a town and more of a community of homes built very, very closely together, linked by "roads" that are amusingly uneven and only wide enough for a single car. It's mostly populated as a summer resort type area, with a lake, fishing, canoes, etc. as well as live music, theater programs, and arts festivals.
Mount Gretna also has a roller rink, and if you just had a flashback reading that phrase, check out these pictures. The prices. The carpeted walls. The strict "no hats" rule.
The Mount Gretna Roller Rink is essentially a functioning time capsule, apart from the pop music they play on Sunday afternoons. For a real throwback experience, they also have "organ night" in which an organist plays live overlooking the skaters as they round the rink.
Since it's now October and we are white as can be, of course the requisite pumpkin and apple picking was in order. We came upon a small family farm, called Gray's I believe, that was unfussy, uncrowded, and pleasantly devoid of city dwellers out for a day trip.
Seeing as it is decorative gourd season, motherfuckers, I availed myself of two small pumpkins to display inside my home, you know, just for fun, as well as seven and a half pounds of apples which I will be cursing until they reach a point of rot in my fridge that can no longer be denied and then thrown out.
We spent evenings relaxing on the porch with some wine and playing a bit of Boggle, and also did a little photo experiment with my Olympus and a few glow sticks we picked up from Wal-Mart.
All told, I am very glad I didn't turn tail and go back to Brooklyn after a sort-of mean man yelled at me about my dog.