Weekend Fun

Last weekend, hubby took an extra day off, so with a beautiful day in the weather forecast, we decided to do some "fun things".

 

First on the schedule was visiting the Harley Davidson Factory in York.  It's only open Monday to Friday, so it seemed like a great opportunity, although there's actually no factory working on a Friday.  They offer free factory tours, which are really informative, even when the shop floor is quiet.  Apparently there are over 1000 people working at the site, with the shop floor working 10 hour shifts Monday to Thursday.  They only ever make the bikes to order - no stock - and unsurprisingly the process is quite high-tech, with lots of robots, although there's some hand-finishing too.  You also get the chance to sit on some of their motorbikes to get a feel for the different models.  Hubby particularly liked the trikes...

Next up was the "Turkey Hill Experience".  Not the feathered variety - Turkey Hill is actually a local dairy, which makes ice cream and ice teas.  Really aimed at kids, but we still enjoyed making our own ice cream creations in the Taste Lab - adding flavours, sprinkles and syrups to a pint of vanilla ice cream base.  A sophisticated cherry chocolate fudge swirl for me, and a rather sickly banana, peanut, butterscotch, caramel, fudge concoction for him!

Then, admittedly feeling a little sick, (well, we had to eat it all, otherwise it would have melted), we went home via Nissley Winery (ie vineyard).  Very pretty estate, where you can take a short self-guided tour through the wine-making process, ending with a chance to sample some of their fare.  It would have been rude not to join in, and we told ourselves it was all in the aim of educating ourselves on the American grape (to add to our "knowledge" of European and Australian grapes).  The winery also offers outdoor evening music concerts in their beautiful grounds over the summer, so I'm sure we'll be back one warm summer's evening in the near future.

 

Finally, after an exhausting (but highly educational) day of motorbikes, ice cream and wine, we headed into central Lancaster, to the "Celebrate Lancaster" event - now an annual event where 2 blocks of the city are closed off to cars, and then filled with every variety of food vendor you can think of.  Once you've made the difficult decision of what to eat / drink, there are 2 live music stages - great place to listen to live music, munch away and people-watch on a balmy summer evening.  It was really busy - about 17,000 visitors were expected throughout the day and evening.  Apparently the evening ends with fireworks, but we were tucked up in bed by then!  (Are we getting old?!)