Tim and I both enjoy visiting in homes of friends, we enjoy meeting new people, and we enjoy sharing our home with others - be it friends or strangers. So it is a natural for us to enjoy this concept. Some of our friends thought this was wierd and said "You mean you are going to let strangers come stay in your house?" or "You are just going to go to some stranger's house and spend the nite there?"
YES, on both accounts! On our recent trip to Pennsylvanis, Virginia and Maryland, we met new friends in five different homes and stayed seven nights in the five homes. Each nite was a highlight in our travels. Visiting with these people and accepting their offers to drive us around the area, dutch treat dinner dining with them at restaurants they selected as some of the best, was so much better than checking into a hotel and dealing with hotel clerks. Wayside rules are to pay the hosts $20 couple per nite for the bed and breakfast accommodations.
Nite 1: We met Jim and Esther Rittenhouse in Morgantown, PA. They drove us around their beautiful countryside, we went to a great Amish restaurant. After dinner we played a new game we had never heard of before. They shared some fresh whoopie pies with us and then sent more whoopie pies with us on the road.
We had the whole second floor & private bath to ourselves. Their front and back yard was beautiful. Wild turkeys made themselves at home in their back yard.
Nite 2 & 3: We met Art and Mim Saunders in New Holland, PA. They had a great duplex home in a retirement village. They weren't home when we got there, but had left the keys in their mailbox for us. We went to Yoder's Smorgasbord for dinner together. Then they went on to their evening conference and we nestled down in their home. Mim played the harp, so she entertained us with harp music after breakfast.
Art and Mim were the ones who arranged for us to visit the dairy farm of their Amish friend Jake Esh; and they also arranged the dinner in another Amish friend's home. We went to church with them on Sunday and shared lunch with them at their retirement center dining room.
Nite 4: We Chuck and Joyce Siebert in New Freedom, PA, near Gettysburg. Again, we had the whole second floor of their beautiful rural home. The bedroom was like a huge living suite. We shared raspberry dessert in the evening and a fabulous breakfast of a puff pancake filled with sausage and apples, and they introduced us to "scrapple", a meat type food popular in that area.
The view out the bedroom window was filled with autumn beauty, as was the beautiful woods surrounding their house, where deer played in the back yard.
Nite 5: We stayed in a motel in Gettysburg. It wasn't nearly as nice and hospitable as the homes!
Nite 6 & 7: We met Ray and Kathy Steckman in Amissville, VA. We were suppose to stay in a home in Barboursville, VA farther south. However, we were right behind an accident where a tree fell on a car in front of us and killed the driver, so the road was closed for several hours and we were directed back in the direction we came from. The Steckman's had already encourged us to spend two nites with them, so we called and asked if we could show up on their doorstep a nite early. They were wonderful and gracious hosts. The second nite we all went to a great seafood restaurant for dinner.
We discovered many similarities: Kathy is Norwegian/German like me, and also makes lefsa for the holidays. Her best friend married a classmate of my best childhood friend up in ranch country near Jordon, MT. She was raised in Montana as I was. Their daughter is the same age as Cash and lives in Denver. We are hoping her and her boyfriend get together with Cash and Annie as they all share similar interests. It's a small world. Again the setting was lovely and it was a pleasure to stay there and share in their fellowship and friendship.
Nite 8: We met John and Kathy Steyer in North East, MD. Upon our arrival, we went for an outing to the North shore of Chesapeake Bay where we hiked a mile into the woods to one of the few remaining lighthouses. We needed the hike! It felt good! Then on to a great fancy restaurant for all you could eat shrimp. Again, it is a small world, because they recently returned from a mission trip to Peru with the young man who is the praise team leader in our church here in Scottsbluff. Who would have thought there would be connections like that with people across the country?
Meeting these new friends and fellowshiping with them, sharing conversation over the breakfast table, and starting our daily travels covered with prayer from these couples made this trip so much more memorble and special. We hope we have the eventful pleasure of hosting them at some time in the future.
The last nite we stayed in a historic bed and breakfast right in Independence Square, Philadelphia, all furnished in period furnishings from the 1700's. It was very quaint.
Go Wayside ~ an eventful way to travel!
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