OCTOBER

 October is my favorite months.   I love the change of color of the leaves and Pennsylvania has many of them  Last Friday it was crisp and the sky was blue so the kid and I decided to take a Fall Foliage Trip into the Laurel Mountains, which is part of the Allegheny Chain in the East. 

We went first to look for a store we had heard about, the times and addresses were listed.   One of my biggest irritations is searching the internet.   Things do not die and go away.   The store we were looking for closed in January and there it was, in all its glory, on my search pages.  That was a real bummer.

Next we took US ROUTE 40   This is also known as the National Road, rumor has it that is was the first western route to Western PA.  In and about the time of the Revolution.   What we found and also did not find were that a lot of the shops had closed or gone out of business during the pandemic.  We did find a neat place in Chalk  Hill PA that consisted of The Countree Cupboard & Christmas Shoppe   I saw so many decorated trees, it was a small shop.   The trees were completely covered with ornaments.

Behind the Christmas Shoppe was CHRISTIAN W. KLAY WINERY  we had a sampling and after purchasing a few of my favorites we were off again.  This time up pa route 711 and found a gem of a restaurant.  BITTERSWEET CAFE   The food selections were seasonal and delicious.    The cafe was crowded with seating mostly outside.   WE did notice it had been written up as Have to Eat at place and it was true.   My daughter and I wondered where all the people came from on a Friday early afternoon.

By this time we were really getting tired so we drove up PA Router 711 and then on to Route 30.  Ligonier looked like a good place to stop, we will save that for another day post Covid.    Route 30 is a heavily commercial route and we were glad to get home