Choo-Choos and More in Pennsylvania

WHERE: Lancaster County, Pa.

WHY: A wild ride on a hog (a Harley, that is), the art of pretzel twisting and a whistle stop aboard an old-fashioned steam engine.

HOW FAR: 147 miles from downtown Washington.

For a road trip to Lancaster County, don't limit yourself to one mode of travel. Instead, head out on an exploration of transportation, from old-timey locomotives to gleaming Harleys to the slow-but-steady horse and buggy. Young, old or somewhere in between, this is one journey that will feed your fascination for things that go vroom -- or neigh.

Start at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, located in (and around) a historic roundhouse that boasts the world's oldest American railroading collection. The museum also arranges train rides through southwest Baltimore, along the country's first 1 1/2 miles of commercial track. It might not be the most scenic of sojourns, but it's definitely historic.

As you enter Pennsylvania, pick up some speed with the rumbling, low-riding hogs of York. During a free factory tour of Harley-Davidson USA, watch the experts form and assemble motorcycles piece by piece, then glimpse the person who roller tests every bike that comes off the line. In the mini-museum, climb aboard the latest Harley models. Go ahead, pretend you're cruising down a long stretch of road with the wind at your back -- we know you want to.

It's now time to shift gears into Pennsylvania Amish country. In Intercourse (no guffawing, please), the Kitchen Kettle Village has 39 stores to traipse through. When your feet (or wallet) start to scream for mercy, put them in one of AAA Buggy Rides's horse and carriages. Clip-clop through the countryside for a taste of the simple life: A four-mile ride takes you to a working Amish farm, where you can stop to buy lemonade from enterprising youngsters.

Just down the road is the Intercourse Pretzel Factory, one of the few snack food factories to still hand-twist its pretzels -- and offer lessons in pretzel-twisting. Learn the secrets of the pros, who can turn out 16 perfectly shaped pretzels in a minute using the "spin and drop" method. Tempting though it may be, resist the urge to snatch a bit of raw dough; it's nothing more than flour, water and yeast, which equals bland. Instead, sample the cheese- or herb-flavored pretzels, which owner Donna Clark describes as tasting "like spaghetti sauce without the tomato."

Of course, you didn't come all this way to just eat and shop. Lancaster is train country, with a railroad, railroad museum, model train museum, caboose motel and other rail-related attractions, just east of Strasburg. To get there, take the back roads from Intercourse. Your reward: a calming drive through seemingly endless cornfields and across one of the county's 30 covered bridges. At the Strasburg Rail Road, cruise along in a steam engine for the 45-minute trip to Paradise (sorry, it's only a Pennsylvania town) and back. Take your pick of open-air car or coach, a Victorian-style car that's heated with a potbelly stove on nippy days.

If you have kids in tow, the sight of a steam train sliding into the depot will likely leave them speechless. And for adults who want to ride without the little ones, the railroad recently launched wine-and-cheese excursions, so you can sip, nibble and ride. Now that's chugging in style.

-- Christina Breda Antoniades

Road Trip maps are available online at www.washingtonpost.com/roadtrip, as are addresses and hours of operation (be sure to check before you go). Have an idea for a trip? E-mail roadtrip@washpost.com.