February 18, 2024
Sweet Ride Ice Cream, West Reading, PA
I have been to Sweet Ride Ice Cream before – it’s one of my favorites -a beautiful, friendly, nicely designed and decorated shop with great, homemade ice cream in plenty of interesting flavors – what more could and ice cream blogger ask for?
When we walked in to the shop, we were greeted by the folks behind the counter and given all the time we wanted to peruse our choices. In addition to ice cream, signature sundaes and plenty of topping choices, they also had vegan ice cream, ice cream drinks and ice cream cup cakes. They even have an ice cream truck if you want Sweet Ride Ice Scream at your next event.
I chose a sampler of 4 flavors – Banana Peanut Butter Chip ( banana flavor with peanut butter chips – great creaminess), Espresso Blast (they were not kidding with the blast! Great coffee flavor with chocolate chips), Cupid’s Milk and Cookies (pretty pink color, lots of flavor), and Fluffernutter (a throwback to my younger years). I loved all the flavors, but much to my surprise, my favorite was the Cupid’s Milk and Cookies.
For seating, there are two bars, one by the front windows and one near the ice cream counter. There are also plenty of tables inside. I assume that there are outside tables in the summer, but I am not sure. This shop is a must visit if you are in the area.
In the area: Initially we planned to visit the area to possibly see snow geese, but we found some more interesting things to do when we arrived..
Lititz Fire and Ice Festival, Lititz, Pennsylvania – to sculpt ice, artisans normally start with specially prepared ice blocks made with very clean water with few dissolved gases. Using special tools, they then slowly and carefully cut and chisel the block into a rough form. The artist finally painstakingly makes fine details to create a beautiful, but temporary, masterpiece. The Lititz Fire and Ice Festival featured many beautifully carved ice sculptures situated in Lititz Springs Park and around the town,
The day we visited The Fire and Ice Festival in Lititz, PA, was the perfect day, cold enough for the ice sculptures to remain intact, but warm enough to walk around and enjoy the sights. The town’s ice sculptures. most 3 to 4 feet high, some larger, were situated around the town. It was a lot of fun walking around and looking at them. Many were instantly recognizable, others required some thought. Some needed to viewed from different angles to truly be appreciated. All were works of art with fine details to be enjoyed – my favorite was the North Wind God that had ice wind swirls coming out from the sculpture.
As we were leaving, we saw smoke coming from Lititz Park and thought we finally got the ‘Fire’ part of the ‘Fire and Ice Festival’. There we a group of scouts offering smores with with fires for roasting marshmallows (a really nice groups of scouts handing out the makings for smores – don’t miss this stop!), but the scoutmaster assured me it was not from them. He thought the “Fire’ was from a chili cook off that happened the night before,
We very much enjoyed our visit here – it started to get crowded by early afternoon, so come early to avoid crowds.
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, Elverson, Pennsylvania – Historic iron furnaces are common sites in much of the northern US, but the process and the lifestyle of the folks who ran them has always been a bit of a mystery, At the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, the process is explained and can be envisioned in the historic structure. The process of obtaining iron requires three things: a fuel source (charcoal), flux for removing impurities (limestone) and iron ore (magnetite). The charcoal was obtained by slowly burning wood harvested in the vast forests near Hopewell. The limestone was abundant in the area and magnetite was mined from near by surface sources.
Hopewell explains how the iron furnaces were filled, smelted and the iron obtained. Much of the iron was either used for wood-burning stove plates, or made into pig iron bars to be shipped to other locations. It was fascinating to follow the process from start to finish, to see how the furnace was loaded in layers, heated and the product removed. This is a great site for folks interested in the history of technology,
The site also shows the lifestyle of the charcoal workers, laborers, and site supervisors, There was even a historic farm with animals. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site has something of interest to almost anyone.
Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, Stevens, Pennsylvania – if you search for snow geese on-line you will find a plethora of videos showing snow geese migrations where thousands of snow geese migrate in late winter and congregate on lakes in places like Middle Creek, I did not really believe that I would see this kinds of migration, but I had to try. We arrived late afternoon at Middle Creek Wildlife Management and toured their visitor center which was very well done – plenty of interesting exhibits and a bird watching area with volunteers helping to identify what we saw. The white board in the visitor center said there were 8,000 snow geese observed that morning. After the visitor center closed, we explored the park more and eventually went to the viewing area where the snow geese were supposed to congregate. Either we were too early, or the geese did not get the memo. I think I did see 5 snow geese when we were driving around. Fortunately the park and visitor center was interesting enough to make it worth a visit the park.
Li’l- Le-Hi Trout Nursery, Allentown, Pennsylvania – This was supposed to be a quick stop on our way home, but I include it here because it was an interesting stop, and not as quick as we expected.
Trout are freshwater fish that are native to the area, but not spawning in sufficient numbers for sport fishermen. This hatchery grew trout from fingerlings until they were ready to be released. With placards explaining the process, we walked around the large tanks learning about the process and admiring the fish.
There was even fish food in vending machines, so we could feed the fish in certain tanks and watch the crazy feeding fenzy,
Colleen's Ice Cream Blog 