A grannie client & I have started including another resident in our Monday lunch treks. The choices - Ben & Irv's in Huntingdon Valley, Bonnet Lane in Abington - have been convenient, but (I thought) not far enough to log in a picturesque ramble to & from as we would to the Farm House Tavern up in Doylestown or Catherine's in Buckingham.
I was wrong! Both restaurants are within a short drive, but our guest has been delighted - with the experience! Go figure. Never thought of my around-the-neighborhood routes as being anything special - just the way my family always rolled.
We take Rydal Road to get to Ben & Irv's. Rydal Road, then Washington Lane all the way to where it dead ends at Terwood. (We avoid the more direct Valley, chewed by last winter's awful weather & endless construction.)
It wasn't until our friend started marveling at the beauty of the drive that it hit me how truly special that short bop is. The stretch between Susquehanna & Welsh Road is unusually lovely, with stately houses & well-kept properties and Meadowbrook Farm. The beauty continues on the short nip between Welsh & Terwood. But the pause at the very end of Washington Lane - that is special. Magical. We stopped right across from what were great expanses of wheat fields when I was young, now meadow. The farm house is across the lower pasture, tucked into the woods. The pasture spreads from our left to our right, as far as we can see, up gentle hillsides to a tree-crowned crest.
Several chocolate-colored horses graze in the lower section, several others farther to our right, and - high up on the hill, outlined against the line of trees, is one pure white horse.
It was astonishing, seeing beauty that's been my norm for all my life through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time. What a gift to be given.
But the drive was not over. We cautiously turn left (not great visibility) down Terwood, then hard right onto Edge Hill, which takes us past the Pennypack Watershed on our right, the big meadow where they hold the June Fete to our left. Rats! No wild turkeys in view. Then, it's left onto Huntingdon Road, right onto Mason's Mill - lovely homes & well-kept yards side-by-side with stretches of woods & meadow. Had never thought of it as a super special drive, because it's the way I've always come. But, yes - those fifteen minutes are drenched in beauty.
To get to Bonnet Lane, it's back to Rydal Road & a meander through that same remarkable neighborhood. This time, we head in the opposite direction, turning left off of Rydal onto Cloverly Lane, which takes us past one of my all-time favorite houses, a Zen-ish low slung house in a peaceful setting, just before the turn at the top of the lane. My grannie client always comments on the big English manor houses to its right, but my allegiance will be to the calm of the tucked-away home. We turn right where the road Ts at Woodland - past Penn State Abington's charming campus - then left onto Amity, with it's lovely homes & yards & gardens. It's a veer left onto Hampton, which takes us past the grandest houses & magnificent properties on the drive. I give a special tip of my heart to the house once owned by a dear-to-my-heart young family. It's left onto Meadowbrook Road & almost an immediate right onto Huntingdon & the DIP left onto Old Welsh, which we follow all the way to York. Left on York - and there's Bonnet Lane, about a minute later, on our right!
Monday lunch typically took three hours or longer, but we've kept it to under 2.5 hours these past two weeks. So far, the friend has been reticent about heading farther afield. Perhaps we will get her up to Isaac Newton's or the Back to the '50s Diner. Maybe we'll always stick close to home when she joins us. Thanks to seeing my routes through her eyes, am certain sure that wherever we go, getting there will be half the fun!
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