Cruising down the road to normalcy is touring business Blessed Friends Travel of Mathews. Owners Nancy Rowe and Valerie Bass took a bus of 39 passengers to Lancaster, Pa., last weekend after a year of postponements and reschedules.

Last weekend’s trip was originally scheduled for April 2020 and was rescheduled several times. The pandemic kept the Mathews-based business parked in the county in 2020 but now Bass and Rowe hope they can keep wheels turning from here on out.

Blessed Friends Travel has made a number of trips to the Amish country over the years. While in Lancaster, Bass and Rowe take their groups to shows and keep them amply fed. Their weekend trips also feature antics and entertainment provided by the owners themselves.

Though Blessed Friends Travel has made trips as far south as Savannah, Georgia, and as far north as Niagara Falls, Lancaster is its most frequent destination. Rowe said that Lancaster has had a slow reopening to bus tours since the pandemic started ...