With less than two weeks until the Lancaster AQS quilt show, I’m getting really excited.

Lancaster is about an 8 hour drive from Ottawa, with a few quick rest stops. Definitely doable in one day, however, I’m planning to leave a day early, take my time and explore a few areas along the way, such as Scranton, Bethlehem, Allentown and Reading.

Here’s what I have booked:

• The Quilter’s Link Wednesday, March 24, 9:00 – 10:00 am
• Floral Delight (Course/Workshop), Thursday, March 25, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm
• The Quilt-As-You-Go Advantage (Lecture), Friday, March 26, 3:00 – 4:00 pm
• All Star Review Saturday, March 27, 1:00 – 3:00 pm

The Floral Delight class is with Linda M. Poole. Here’s what I’ll be making:

I have only been to one other large quilt show before: the Nashville AQS show in 2008. I had an absolutely fabulous time, and returned home loaded with goodies, new friendships and inspired like never before.

There are so many wonderful quilt shows throughout the United States (and even a few here in Canada). Do you have a favourite show? Best experience, worst experience? What show would you love to go to but haven’t yet? (For me that’s Road 2 California and Paducah!)

P.S. Anyone else coming to Lancaster? I’d love to meet-up.

After I left Spring Market and Pittsburgh behind, I travelled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

It was a gorgeous trip, in perfect weather. Route PA30 is quite mountainous and an exciting experience for me, as it’s pretty flat here in Ontario by comparison. My ears kept popping, just like they do in an airplane.

I finally found a safe place to pull over to take a couple of photos and texted my mom to tell her I was on top of a mountain. To which she replied, come down safe. Ahh, mothers!

I arrived late in the afternoon in Gettysburg, and most of the touristy things were closed, which I expected. I wandered around the beautiful historic downtown centre for a couple of hours, read some history pamphlets and visitor books, grabbed some dinner, then off to my hotel for the night.

As luck would have, it certainly wasn’t planned, the Gettysburg National Military Park was very close to my hotel, so I headed there to see what was available. I purchased the package that included a guided battlefield bus tour, the museum and the cyclorama.

I had a great day. As you can see from the pictures below, the weather was perfect. While I’m not an American, I do know a fair bit of the American Civil War history. While the bus tour was enjoyable and informative, if I’d had more time, I would have opted for a self-guided auto tour as there were additional places along the battlefield I would have liked to stop at.

After the tour, I went back to the downtown area to do some more exploring and grabbed a snack at the Farnsworth House Inn. You can see the bullet holes in the side of the building below.

It was a great experience, and I’m really glad I was able to visit.

It was a fabulous trip. You can see the route I took below.

A brief summary of the trip locations and dates is below.

I left Monday, May 11th, and stayed two nights with an old friend in Rochester, New York. Left there Wednesday, May 13th and headed to Pittsburgh, PA, where I stayed 6 nights. I left Pittsburgh for Gettysburg on May 19th, staying one night there. Then I headed to Lancaster and stayed 3 nights, heading home on Saturday, May 23rd.

I have tonnes of photos to share, and lots of trip information. I’ll get the blog posts done as soon as I can. I’m pretty busy with work-related stuff over the next few days. Stay tuned.

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Just a reminder, the deadline for the Lazy Days of Summer Photo Contest is tomorrow (August 31st). Please email me your submissions by then. I have several more to post, which I’ll get to in the next couple of days. Voting will start next weekend, and will last several days.

Have a great long weekend (if it is one where you are!).

I’ve stopped about 30 minutes outside of Louisville for the night, and will continue on into Nashville tomorrow. I think I’m about 3 hours out.

Now to jump in the pool and grab some dinner.

More later, I’m hoping to post later on tonight the first round of submissions for the Lazy Days of Summer Contest, they are amazing!

• The Quilter’s Link
  Tuesday, August 19, 7:00-8:00pm
• An Evening with Billie Lauder
  Wednesday, August 20, 7:00-8:30pm
• General Jackson Luncheon
  Thursday, August 21, 11:00am-3:00pm
• 200 Years of Quilts with Chris Moline
  Friday, August 22, 10:00-11:00am
• Scrapple with Donna Slater
  Saturday, August 23, 9:00-10:00am
• Quilter’s Fanfare
  Saturday, August 23, 1:00-3:00pm
• Grand Ole Opry – Saturday – 2nd Show
  Saturday, August 23, 9:00-11:00pm

I received my Nashville vacation guide in the mail yesterday, full of wonderful information on places to visit. Here are a few things that have caught my attention:

• Belle Meade Plantation
• Belmont Mansion
• Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art
• The Hermitage, Home of President Andrew Jackson
• Travellers Rest Plantation & Museum

How I’m actually getting to Nashville is still up in the air. Right now, I’m looking at driving and extending my mini-vacation to almost two weeks. If I drive, the tentative route will take me from Ottawa, crossing the border in upper west New York, making a slight detour from Google Maps to visit the far northwest Pennsylvania, though I haven’t determined what’s there worth visiting there yet, cutting diagonally across the entire state of Ohio (that state is huge), into Kentucky, then Tennessee.

Coming home would be a much longer drive as I want to hit North Carolina (maybe South?), West Virginia, Virginia (Richmond!!), scoot around to avoid Washington and Baltimore (I don’t see how to do that yet), and into Pennsylvania on the east side, stopping in Harrisburg, Allentown, Lancaster and Reading, up through Syracuse, and back to Canada.

I obviously need a better US map, which I’ll try to pick up this weekend. I’m open to trip planning ideas. Any special must-see places would be appreciated. Aside from quilting (obvious!), I’m into history, civil war specifically, gardens, life in the South, historical architecture.

Anyone want to share a room? I’ve booked into the Gaylord Opryland Resort for the entire conference, August 19th to 23rd. It’s a standard room with two queen beds. If anyone is interested in sharing, send me an email. I figure if I can cut my accommodation costs in 1/2 I’ll be able to buy more fabric and goodies. One thing though, I hate the cold, so if you’re the type that loves to have the air conditioner blasting, then we would not make good roommates.

As it gets closer, I’ll start a list of Who’s Attending Nashville page. If there’s enough interest, perhaps a Quilting Bloggers meet-up is in order one evening for drinks or a morning for breakfast. Thoughts?