Summer Fun!

Summertime Fun at Knoebels!

While today it is hot and humid here in  South Central Pennsylvania...last week there are few days of PERFECT weather!  70's, sunshine, breeze...and we decided it was the perfect day to visit a spot that we enjoyed many times over the years.  Knoebels is America's largest free-admission amusement park.  Located in Central Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River Valley - between Bloomsburg and Danville - this spot is the perfect place to enjoy the day if you are anywhere nearby.  We used to live a lot closer and have not been to the park in years.  Now it was a little over a 2 hour drive to get there....but well worth it!

First of all...parking is free and plentiful.  If you arrive late and are parking far away from the park there is a shuttle to get you to the entrance.

You can see from these photos that the park is nestled in the mountains and is shady and cool most of the time...

but is is a sunny area at the beautiful pool.  There are cottages you can rent if you want to stay for a few days...as well as many picnic pavilions that can be reserved for family picnics or other groups.  You can bring your own food, or have Knoebels cater the day.  AND...in case you are wondering...the name is pronouced "K-nobles" - the K is NOT silent!  There is a nice golf course located a few miles away...as well as a great mini golf course in the park.  

The park has been operating for 90 years and started out as a swimming pond...

Lovely flowers everywhere....

and what used to be the main entrance...years ago you could drive right through the park, but traffic has since been re-routed to the parking areas.

Being in the Susquehanna River Valley means that the park does flood occasionally...and you can see that 1972 and Hurricane Agnes was the most flooding. 

Lots of great food and dining venues inside and out.   We loved the inside dining in The Alamo...when we lived closer we would go for dinner and have the famous Chicken and Waffles.  That was a bit much for lunch, so we enjoyed the outdoor dining with pulled pork and french fries!

Knoebels is the BEST for small children.  There are many rides in KiddeLand for small children and it is so much fun to sit and watch the little ones steer the boats, ring the bells, and have fun!

Live entertainment every day...this show had the spinning plates that I had not seen since the old Ed Sullivan show - wow, am I dating myself!

We wandered around and came back for "Tom and Randy" - a guitar duo that did many songs from the 70's.  You can see there are shows several times a day.

Lots of streams run through the park making is a pleasant place to stroll around...

There are two carousels, and both are beautiful!

Showing that this is a very family friendly place, I thought this was a great addition to the park.

Another addition to the park since that last time we visited is the Coal Mining museum.  With coal being such a huge part of Pennsylvania this makes a great addition...and I loved it, because my father was a coal miner and worked for the Blue Coal Corporation, so I was thrilled to see this sign

And a picture of what my father called the "shiftin shanty" where he would shower after his shift...

This check in was at the entrance of the mines so that in case of a cave in or accident the rescue team would know who was in the mine.  My father was in three mine cave ins - luckily he survived with broken bones.

This coal stove made me smile...we had one in our kitchen for year...and those grates were lifted off to expose the coal fire...which made the BEST TOAST EVER!!!

I love that Knoebels showcased the work of the miners...and realize how lucky I am to have had an education and not have to work in the mines.

The Phoenix is the wooden roller coaster and is named one of the best in the USA...

We enjoyed watching others ride the coaster...

The best part of Knoebels is that there is NO entrance fee...so if you come with others who want to ride but you do not you can enjoy the park for free.  You can purchase tickets to ride - or purchase an all day hand stamp to ride an unlimited amount of time.  The nice thing is...the tickets do not expire.  For years we had tickets at the end of the season that we would use again....

Many of the rides have received awards...

And...if you wait in line for an "outside" horse you can lean out and try to catch the golden ring for a free ride...

I caught several rings, but none of them golden!  When the ride ends you toss the rings back into the lions mouth.

The train and the merry-go -round are the only rides we do...

It is a great ride through the woods and a tunnel...waving at the people waiting in line for the coasters and on the other train.  After some ice cream and another walk around the park we gave our leftover tickets to the people in front of us in the train...and had a great drive home.

If you are anywhere near Knoebels I highly recommend it for a fun time!  You can find all the information about the park at Knoebels

Thanks for coming along on our trip to Knoebels - do you have an amusement park near you ?  Do you go often?  How many rides do you go on ?  Please leave a comment below and let me know...and thank you SO much for stopping by Our New Vista today.  Have a great summer!

This and That...

So happy that Summer is here and we are vaccinated so we can go out and about!  The dish picture above is a throw together - our community has an area where you can have a small garden plot.  The cost is 5 dollars for a small raised bed or ground level garden.  That cost includes the landscape crews turning over the plots early in the season so the ground is ready to have plants put in the earth.   When we lived in our houses I enjoyed gardening...flowers and some herbs in pots.  I never was a vegetable garden person - I guess because my family never was.   All of our neighbors were...and we always had friends giving us home grown tomatoes and other produce.   Now...I just don't see the need to go through all that work - we live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and there are farms and farmstands all over where we can buy fresh produce.  And...the neighbors in our building who do have garden plots are VERY generous with their bounty.  Some put extra produce in a common spot for anyone to take.   I often find a bag of some wonderful, fresh produce at my front door.   That was the case this weekend - a friend gave a bag of snap peas - and I turned some chicken tenders, carrots, a pepper that was hiding in the crisper drawer, and the snow peas into a wonderful stir fry supper.  The snap peas were SO tender - much better than the frozen ones I usually use.  The other nice thing about the garden program in our community is that extra produce is also placed in the gazebo near the gardens...and volunteers package it up and donate it to the local food bank each week!

It was a very easy meal...just threw everything in a pan with sesame oil, a little ginger, onions...and finished it off with some soy sauce.  Yummy!

My other project this weekend was unexpected - while browsing around Bed Bath and Beyond I came across this shelf - 

I have a similar unit in white that I use in my kitchen and love it...so when I saw this AND the sign on the shelf that said it was reduced to $9.00 I knew it had to come home with me...

This is what the area under my sink looked like...I had those white stacking shelves but it was difficult to see what I had and to get to the items in the back - 

It took me a little while to figure out where I wanted things to go...some of the items I use daily I had sitting in front of the old organizers and thought I would try to avoid that...I put the items I don't use every day in the back of the pullout drawer.  There is a divider in the middle to keep everything from jumbling together...

This is the finished project....No more tall items in front of the unit that kept falling over.   I was able to corral everything in the pull out drawers, keep my hair care and some other products in the purple bin, and have my two body lotions within easy reach.  I alternate between the TanLuxe Tanning butter and the Booth lemon body lotion in the summer months.   I am hoping this system stays neat and is easy to maintain...

Have you been reading about how to do a "gel" manicure at home?  Several blogs and Pinterest posts have been talking about this for the past few years.   I decided to purchase the Gelous and the Gel Effect Top Coat and give the manicure a try...here's the process - 

One thin coat of Gelous

One coat of any nail polish ( I used OPI Strawberry Margarita )

Another thin coat of Gelous

Another coat of nail polish

Top coat 

I did this process a week ago today and I think it is holding up great!  I am pretty active with my hands, but I did start using my rubber gloves to clean the pots after dinner...I also put another top coat on on Wednesday and Saturday...it is fast dry so that was not a problem.  And...I have started to rub in a cuticle cream each night while I watch television.  I am not as good at using hand lotion - I do before bed, but not a lot during the day.  Have to get better at that...but I am THRILLED with the way the manicure lasted!  A little wear at the edges and a tiny chip on one...but overall - SUCCESS!

Last but not least...this visitor was eating the shrubs behind our apartment last evening.   I tried to get a better photo, but did not want to scare him off.  I say him, because he was starting to grow antlers and before he wandered off he was rubbing the antlers on one of the tree trunks.  I love seeing nature outside our window...and hope he stays away from the flowers!!!

So...do you have a garden ?  Do you grow flowers, veggies... or both ?  Any tips and tricks for making a manicure last ?  Or...animal visitors ???

Please leave a comment and any tip you have below - I love hearing from you.  Until then, thank you for visiting Our New Vista !

 

Guest Room Spruce Up

Finally....after so many months of Covid  restrictions we had good friends travel for a visit and overnight stay!  Our guest room doubles as an office area, too - and the cabinet pictured above is over 40 years old.  It looks great now that we spruced it up - and company coming was the perfect excuse.

Once again, I forgot to take some "before" photos!  The base of this cabinet was purchased in J. C. Penny's in 1978 when we moved to Horsham, PA for a job my honey was starting.   We had only been married a year and my wedding china was still in boxes in the closet.  We found the base cabinet and it worked perfectly under the window of our dining area and held all of our china....then a year later we moved into John's parent's home back in Schuylkill County, PA.   Sadly, John's dad died before I met John...and his mom became sick before our marriage and passed away in late 1978. She had just remodeled the home and never even got a chance to use her new kitchen.   After a year in the Philadelphia area and looking for a home we realized that our best bet was to move into John's family home.  We slowly made it our own....and took this base cabinet with us.  Once day when we were out shopping - at a J. C. Penny - we found the two completing pieces to this modular unit on sale.  One boxy unit for the television, and a topper that had glass doors.  We were thrilled.  We used it in our family room...took it with us when we built a house in 1989 and used it in the basement family room...took it with us when we built a larger home in 1993 and put it in a guest room there.   When we moved again in 2007 we did the same thing...and the larger, old fashioned televisions fit in the unit perfectly.   

Times change....we downsized, moved to this wonderful apartment in a fabulous community and brought the unit along again.  But, times and televisions change...and here we were with this BIG HOLE for the back of the old fashioned televisions in the middle of the unit.  The smaller, newer televisions did not fill up the empty space.   For a little while I covered it up with a piece of wood...but that did not look right.  I tried woodgrain paper...not a great look.  Then I saw many posts about peel and stick wallpaper and my plan was hatched...

Since this is the bedroom near the Paris bath - you can see a post about that here - 

Paris Decor

I found some paper with a French newsprint design on Amazon and we started the project.  You can see a bit of the hole in the back of the cabinet where the wires for the television and printer snake through...and some of the awful fake wood backing that never bothered me when the BIG old television was in there.

We had to overlap a big to get the paper to match up, but it was already looking much improved...

Once that was completed it was time to work on the glass doors on top.  I have been using that area more as storage than display and it looked kind of messy through the clear glass...

So, we measured some cling on window film that we had leftover from the bottom of our bedroom windows. ( I have room darkening shades in the bedrooms, but did not want them down all the time and as our bedroom looks out onto our screen porch we covered the bottom half of the windows with this film and it is perfect...)

You can see the difference here...one side clear glass, one side with the film....

And here is the finished product.  I took everything off of the top, cleaned and purged and moved things around and her it is! I added a few plants to the sides of the printer for some more color.  I love it!  So much better than it was before...and since we have had the cabinet pieces for so long it is nice to use what we have. 

Did you do any makeovers on furniture pieces you have had "forever"?

Let me know what you think - leave a comment below!  Thank you so much for stopping by Our New Vista!  Have a fabulous week!