Ben's Day Wednesday

Triumph! Our Last Open-Air Road Trip of the Season

Posted on by Liz

What a great time we have had in the last six months, stretching convertible season on either end. I suppose most people who tell children to put their coats on for a living wouldn’t go for the brisk rides we’ve been taking, but Ben asked “Alexa” about the weather for Saturday, and when we heard there was zero “perchance” for rain, we set our sights on the Northern Tier. 

Though the drive on Route 15 is undeniably gorgeous, especially this time of year, we like to stay off major highways in the convertible when we can. We took less travelled roads to reach Mansfield.

We picked up carry out at The Cast and Crew, and ate with Sophia in her apartment. I forgot to take pictures of our fabulous meal, but everything was great! The unique spin here is that you can order from the menu, or you can pick a genre, like burger, sandwich or entree, and essentially say, “Surprise me!” Ben wanted a sure thing, and went with a bacon cheeseburger. The rest of us split a cheesesteak, a burger creation, and a sandwich creation. Everything was so, so good!

Next, we headed off to see The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, which was ablaze with color. We were not the only people with this Grand idea, so by the time we had putzed around the circular drive by the scenic overlook, failing to find a place to park, roughly half the population of Pennsylvania had seen our Grand entrance, and Sophia was 13 again, “Dad, can we just go? Everyone’s staring.” She wasn’t wrong. The car gets people’s attention. It is almost impossible for men in their sixties to see it and NOT react. Usually it is a smile, and a thumbs up. When you are driving 3 miles an hour flanked by pedestrians, it could be anything from, “What the…????” To “Great car! I used to have a Triumph!” After this little parade, we parked in a field and walked to the scenic overlook.

Sophia was the first one to don her mask.
On the way back to Mansfield, we stopped at Mansfield Cider Mill. Sophia’s colleague’s family has been running it for 4 generations, and we even got to see cider being made. We thought the stuff we were getting at Wegman’s was pretty good, until we sampled this. Wow! It is so fresh, sweet and flavorful that it is hard to compare it to the supermarket product. We picked up a gallon, along with a few other products, and we highly recommend stopping there, if you are heading west out of Mansfield on Route 6.
Though the sun was still shining, the shadows grew longer, and it got a little chilly by the time we finally made it home, but it was a great day – another triumph over isolation, boredom, and stress.