September 5, Deep In Amish Country

Jeff left the Walmart parking lot fairly early, but ended up going the wrong way at a crossroads. That added some miles that we didn't need! Poor guy, his feet are really toast, although they don't appear blistered or anything. They just hurt him all the time. I took off back into State College to get dog food and people food. We were getting low on both!

On my way out of town, I made an attempt to get some pics of Penn State University. I drove all over that campus, and found little of interest. The buildings are almost all newish, brick and glass, and there was no real "heart" to the campus that had one of those old buildings with character. All I found that even identified the school was a pillar, and the picture is not even legible. I know there was a wall on one of the main streets that said Pennsylvania State University, but I couldn't find it!

I knew I had a lot of pics from today, but I just loaded them into Blogger. Almost 100! I mean, really, 99 pics.... Clearly, both Jeff and I enjoyed the area and thought it was beautiful enough to continue taking pics! And I didn't even choose all of Jeff's pics. I will now have to cherry pick the ones I really want to use, as I cannot put that many in here!

The other stop I made on my way to find Jeff, was the Pennsylvania Military Museum. I didn't actually go into the museum, which I'm sure was fascinating, but I didn't need to. There were a lot of things to see outside. Guns, tanks, and memorials.

              

                

                  

                    

                    

                   

The other stop that I made, which was coincidentally right across the street from the museum, was this historic memorial to the ladies that began Memorial Day. I never knew where it started or how. Memorial Day and decorating the graves of soldiers, apparently originated here in historic Boalsburg..

                 

I know that today is titled Deep in Amish Country, but I will show you a few things that we found along the way, then I will address the Amish. First, the flowers. We both got good flower shots today!

I know this is not that pretty, but I found
it very interesting. I have never seen
it before.

 

Jeff likes the morning glories, I like the purple cone flower!

               

These looked like itty bitty snapdragons!

Have I mentioned how beautiful the area is? I will always love the rugged beauty of the western mountains, but this is really something to see! It is just lush farmland with rolling hills, lots of woods and streams.

               

                     

               

And the road ahead is different around every turn!

There is still no shortage of funny or interesting things along the road. Even in this deep rural area, people definitely have a sense of creativity and humor about life.

            

               


And here is today's killer doggie! I just love the little Chi's, they are so fierce!

Now about those Amish. They live in a truly beautiful area of Pennsylvania. I'm sure they are spread out to other areas, but we saw a lot of them here. Many horse drawn carriages passed us, and I saw a bunch of kids going home from school on their scooters that looked like bikes. I am simply amazed at the women in their full garb out working in the garden, also. And they have marvelous gardens!

I was sad that I couldn't eat any baked goods!
I'm sure they were amazing!

             

Their tobacco fields.

Add caption

                     

The harvest of tobacco.

Big farm machinery attached to a horse drawn contraption.

  Of course, I didn't take any pics of the people. But the ones I waved at or said hello to all responded positively.

Jeff made some friends today, as well.

This lady stopped and gave him some water and bread.

These ladies worked in the pharmacy that he stopped at for water.

                     

A couple of guys that wanted their pic with Jeff as he passed a liquor store.

One little problem that we encountered, which could have been totally avoided. I had placed a case of water in the little outside galley, and sadly it somehow slid FORWARD and turned on the water in the little sink. Since the generator was running, neither of us heard the water pump. By the time I noticed  some sound, it had pretty much emptied our fresh water tank! And there was no where around to dump or get fresh water. Good thing we had all those water bottles! We used them to flush the toilet until we stopped for the night. At one point, we passed this spring coming out of the mountain. There were several people pulled up there, filling big bottles. How cool! My first thought was to fill the tank with spring water, but sadly there was no spigot that I could screw the hose on to.

The spring was on state lands

               
Speaking of the Amish, I think this little town that we passed through was predominantly Amish. I'm not sure what makes me think that, but I just got that impression. While Jeff was sitting in the front of the little post office, waiting for me to get to the coach, someone pulled up and told him he couldn't park there. Grumpy old couple. So he moved! I buy stamps... I support the post office. We should be able to park there for a few minutes! Geez. Anyway, the town was very small, and very cute!

                       

                       

                   

And it had this awesome little stream running through it!

                   
Notice the wonderful chinky log cabin? We found several of those today! And it was pretty interesting, that the further east we got, the more houses the little towns had, with very little else, and they were much closer together. In fact, they got closer and closer to the road as well. There was one town that I could barely get through, and due to the buildings keeping the road so narrow.

                  

                      

                   

                  

And this was really bad news, as we thought we actually were under 200 miles to go!

I had us aimed towards an RV park just outside of Lewisburg. Once it was full dark, we ended up driving through that town. Apparently it must be a college town. It was such an interesting little town! There were people walking everywhere, too. Quite a busy little area for restaurants and such. I might actually be interested in returning for a bit to check it out once this is all done. The RV park was a bit off the route, but not by much. It was a Yogi Bear Campground. It is obviously set up well for families and kids. Even though quiet hours started at 10, the family next to us hooted and hollered until after midnight over a card game. Made me miss our card games with the Finns! Can't wait to get home and re-connect with all the folks at Robson Ranch Texas!

So, this one has gotten a bit long. Hard to decide which pics to use and which to not. I hope you enjoy the ones I used! Last but not least, the Mailbox of the Day.