Began by poking around at Building Character.  Didn’t quite understand the model; I think local businesses house their wares on-site but a small group manages the sales.   Either way, there was some cool thrift-store type stuff.  I liked this lamp place, mostly for some of the ideas they offered.

Best thing happening there was the Heritage Press Museum and the awesome teacher/printer/craftsman.   He utterly charmed Kara, walked through the process of several of the presses, and was a great resource.   (I often talk to my students about how I can listen to anyone who is passionate and knowledgable; this man made you want to become a printer from the 18th Century.)   We’ll be down to the Ben Franklin House again this month.

We left and went to a kitchen supply place across the street:  “Mise En Place Kitchen Store.” Bought some small stuff — cool little place — and headed for our primary destination.

If there’s a used bookstore in a city, I’m going to it.  If Yelp is to believed, Dogstar Books is the last used book place in Lancaster.  This is a great store and worth making the trip.   My particular frustration with used book stores these days are books in cruddy condition.  I’ll pay real money for a book (50-70% of the list) if it’s in good shape.   Every book I pulled off the shelf here was in very good or near-fine shape.   The music section had lots of solid titles as did the gardening/landscape/environmental shelves. I was surprised I couldn’t find a novel or two because the fiction collection, mostly hardback, was pretty great.  And the kid section kept KC happy for forty-five minutes as I browsed around.   I only got two things — couple of good collections of essays — but enjoyed every moment of the store.   Well worth the trip; hope CC plays this tournament next year so we can come back.

KC and I got slices at Espino’s Pizza down the street from Dogstar.  Great Italian style pizza; wished I’d looked a bit closer at the menu because it looked like the possibility of great Spanish food as well.  The owner was there and couldn’t have been nicer.  We talked of teaching second language — I think there was a class happening just as we entered — and of the growing Latino population in small American cities.

Hooray Lancaster!