Category Archives: Food and Drink

After a lunch of Fish ‘n Chips at Bull’s Head Public House, a real style English pub we walked on down Main Street to the Julius Sturgis pretzel Bakery.  While no longer an active bakery it is the site of the first commercial pretzel bakery dating back to 1861.  Tours allow visitors to understand the history and to actually get a hands-on lesson in pretzel twisting.  Of course there is a gift shop and an opportunity to purchase pretzels.  Tom Sturgis Pretzels company in nearby Shillington, PA continues the family tradition.  This area of Pennsylvania is home to many pretzel companies.  The first annual Pretzel Fest was held last September in Reading and features a great number of bakers.  We were there!

Julius Sturgis Pretzels

Along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, CA you can’t miss this eye catching table and chairs. The West Coast correspondent had Bird Dogged this spot in past trips up the PCH and was excited to grab this image for the website.

Rosenthal Wine Tasting

As we continued north on US-17 from Jaws Resort Wear we came across the Golden Egg Pancake House in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.  The parking lot was packed but we were lucky and one car left just as we were getting ready to take this photo.

Golden Egg

While in Charleston we decided to make a trip to the Charleston Tea Plantation, a short trip away.  The Plantation is the only tea plantation in the US.  Quite an interesting visit to see how tea is harvested and dried.  While there we found this Big Thing.  Seems it was exhibited in Summerville before it was replaced with a larger version and found its way to the plantation.

Tea Plantation Sweet TeaTea Plantation Sweet Tea

On our way from Columbia to Charleston, after the eclipse, we stopped in Summerville, SC to get a photo of this Large Sweet Tea container.  On the way in to town we stopped at the Visitor Center.  We found about the Azalea Park which has walkways featuring a number of sculptures and azaleas and camellias in season, a nice park in a small town.  We also were recommended to a local treat, Eve’s Restaurant where we had great fried chicken lunches.  A real “local” place.  Oh, I forgot, the sweet tea image.  Here it is.

Summerville Sweet Tea

For Father’s Day, Ben and Nate gave me a visit to the NASCAR Pocono 400 racetrack.  Known among race fans as the “Tricky Triangle,” a 2 1/2 mile test of drivers skills.  We (Ben, Nate, the Chief Photographer and I) went to the time trials on Saturday before the race. Interesting and much different than watching a Sunday race.  Cars in and out of the pits working on set-ups, tires, etc.  During one of the breaks we walked around some of the booths and I saw this Big Idaho Potato.  (It was first spotted by Olivia, the niece of my Number One Fan, when she was in Idaho – check out the Bird Dog page.)

Pocono Potato

After our trip to York to see a Time 4 Three performance (which Deb gave me as a gift) we took a route home leading through Reading, PA.  In Skillington, near Reading I had researched a Big Pretzel.  It is located in front of the Tom Sturgis Pretzel Factory on Lancaster Pike.  Truly a great pretzel, too bad it was a Sunday and we couldn’t get in the retail store to buy some of these pretzels.

Tom Sturgis Pretzel Factory

We were running out of time to get this photo.  The house was sold, we were finalizing the move and knew about this chili out in front of Chili’s on 86th Street in Indianapolis.  Most Chili’s restaurants have this up high over the door.  Had to grab this before leaving town.

86th Street Chili’s