I have written once before about French Creek State Park in Pennsylvania. It's 50 miles west of Philadelphia south of Route 422 near Elverson. Part of the park is the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, which is a preserved 19th century iron making village.
The village has the forge, the remnants of a working farm, the company store, the owner's home and several homes of the iron workers.
This is one of the earliest locations where the industrial revolution started in the Unites States. There was coal, iron ore and water power all near by. Most of the work here was in producing cast iron stoves for homes and kitchens.
During the week they have scheduled demonstrations on iron making mostly for school class trips. On the weekends the village is pretty much empty except for a few park employees and only a handful of visitors. Most of the buildings are open to tour and the illusion of going back in time works best when there only few people around.
Max and Chloe, both Percherons and probably just like the big draft horses that pulled the ore wagons over 150 years ago. Max and Chloe are retired plow horses from local Amish farms. 
If you look in the lower right hand corner of the map you'll see St Peter's Road.
By trail St Peter's Village is about 3 miles east of Hopewell Furnace. St Peter's Village it self is not in the park, actually it is separated by 300 acres of state game lands. There are connecting trails but they are not well marked but you'll know that you're close to St Peter's Village.
If you don't feel adventitious it's only a 5-10 minute drive to St Peter's Village. The village is big enough to justify spending a pleasant afternoon there,
The Inn at St Perter's Village is a bed and breakfast as well as a restaurant. There's an open dinning area on the side that over looks the creek.
A few doors down is the bakery. Excellent coffee, confections and light meals. Sometimes they entertainment too. They have a balcony in the back with the best view of the creek.
Outlet for the West Hanover Winery and for the Halloween season there is a "haunted" tour of the town.
And my favorite place is the Village Arcade. There they buy, sell and trade pin ball machines and other similar arcade attractions. They are open every Saturday and Sunday and best of all you can play with any of the machines on display.
Right now the autumn are reaching their peak colors and the weather had been unusually mild. Last we we got hit with an unexpected Halloween snow storm that blocked the roads with fallen trees and left many of the local residents without electricity.
Other than another freak snow storm Hopewell Furnace and St Peter's Village combined make an excellent day trip before Thanksgiving, Christmas and winter get here. best of all it fits in with my own philosophy in having fun without spending a lot of money doing it.
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