Saturday, December 2, 2023: This trip became a bit of a personal trip for me because my mother was born in Haycock Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1925. I wouldn’t give the exact address because since 1937, different people have lived here through the years. According to my mother and her siblings, when they lived there in the 1920s and ‘30s, the house was a two-story log cabin with a tin roof and a root cellar, and the grounds contained about 20 acres. A few times in the 1960s, my parents would drive by this location, and my mother pointed out the house, which by the 1960s had changed a lot. Recently, using the views on Google Earth as a reference, we drove by this place first on the date above, and we noticed even more changes. Then we headed to our first destination: Raven’s Nest Tavern, 625 Old Bethlehem Road, Haycock (or it is listed as Quakertown because Haycock Township uses the Quakertown Post Office), (215-536-5369). In this place that dated from the 1700s, I ate a reasonably priced lunch, and the staff seemed friendly and efficient. Afterward, we stopped at Lake Towhee Park, 800 Old Bethlehem Road (215-757-0571). This Bucks County park offered chances to go boating, fishing, and hiking, as well as a playground for children, a ballfield, and a picnicking area. Finally, I stopped at an event run by the Haycock Historical Society: Kringle Christmas Shoppe at the Haycock Community Center, 1014 Old Bethlehem Road. This has been the 20th year that the Historical Society played host to this event during the first weekend in December where I saw plenty of vendors selling different merchandise in arts & crafts, clothing, jewelry, holiday decorations, books, edible stuff, and other things. Overall, this made for a pleasant day, and it was not far from Quakertown and the Quakertown Farmers’ Market!
