Back in Johnstown

Brian again - If you've seen the pictures on Facebook, I'm sorry, but not everyone that reads this is a FB user.

    Man, oh man, what a pleasure!  Corn season just started here, and we went up to the corner and bought some from the back of a pickup truck in a parking log at the end of the road named after my Great Grandparents.  They pick it in the morning, and come and sell it.  We boiled it up, and had corn for lunch.I only ate 6 ears this time.  Good eatin'!

     One of the things we used to do while on the road was play the license plate game.  Kris would write all of the state names on a piece of paper (she sang the song when she did it - the way she memorized the states in alphabetical order as a kid) and we would check them off when we saw them.   Well, this is the first time we haven't done it.  I don't know if it is because it is hard to read the names of the states because my eyesight is worse, because of the fact that license plate holders block the names, vanity plates make it hard to know which state they come from, or [most likely] geocaching makes us stop more often, so I don't need the distraction.

     I buy coffee a lot while on the road, mostly when we stop to use the restroom and don't buy gas, and I've noticed that the price varies a whole lot.  Sometimes they just say to take it without charge, other times it ranges from $ .50 to $ 1.79 for a refill.  It doesn't make sense,  but I've learned to ask how much before filling up my cup.

     We don't miss TV AT ALL!  The only time we see it is when we are eating at a restaurant or visiting someone, and then they usually turn it off when we get there.  When we are at home we don't watch much, but on the road, it just doesn't happen.  If anything important happens in the  world, we know about it through Facebook, or on newspapers in the rack.

     Those were things that crossed my mind while driving.  We've put 3,500 miles on the truck in the first three weeks, so I've had time to think, and my mind wanders.

     Now for things we've seen...  While travelling through Ohio, we ran across the largest Amish community in the United States, Middlefield.  Never seen so many horse and buggies!  We were there on Saturday, so I guess they were all headed to town to do business.     Clip Clop, Clip Clop!  One of our geocache stops was at the Largest Horse and Buggies in the  world - a wooden piece of art.  The back wheel is 7 feet tall .  It was in Mesopotamia, OH.  We are world travellers. Mecca isn't far down the road.

   

Culture Clash?

     We ran across a mural (again at a geocache) that had the history of the town in picture.  We love it when we see murals in small towns.  I've often thought that it would be a good idea for a coffee table book, but I don't know who would buy it, and I don't have a good enough camera.  I never would have believed that so many towns have them.

     Pennsylvania and Ohio have  a lot of covered bridges.  Most of them are old, but we saw the United States' Longest Covered Bridge this week.  It is only about 7 years old, but it was something to see.   (yes, there is a geocache there, but no, we didn't try to find it}

The longest covered bridge in the USA

Probably the smallest

     In Hermitage, PA, we ran across a really awesome cemetery.  There is a tribute there to the Iran hostages.   A resident of the town placed a U.S. flag for every day they were held hostage, and keeps them up to help us remember.  There is also an  eternal flame for the soldiers that died in rescue attempts.

Eternal flame

     We are looking forward seeing my cousin tomorrow.  She lives in Holidaysburg not far from here, so we will be driving up for a visit.  Then we will take it easy for a few days.  Kim is flying up on Thursday, and will be here for the family reunion on Saturday.  Mark, Logan, Caleb, and Joel are flying up on Saturday.  They will miss the reunion, but will get to meet some of my cousins and their families in the evening.

Geocache Warning!

#1 - we finished our DT grid!  It  wasn't hard [it required a 0.16 mile bushwhack].  The series was probably put up to help fill the grid, but who cares?

#2 - I've managed  to find 2 Wherigo caches and 2 webcams so far.  I like to look for different types of caches in each state. Kris goes along with it, but doesn't really care about them.  Neither do I.  I guess it started with a Challenge we did.

#3 - Kris likes to pick up new counties, so we roam around trying to get them.  It isn't quite like Pokeman - we can't get 'em all, but we are working on it.  It is a great way to get off of the Interstate and really see the country.

#4 - We did a series of 94 puzzles that form a geo-art picture of a Jeep.  I solved them at home, and we spent most of 3 days finding them.  The cache owner helped a lot, and we found 89 of them.  We didn't feel like hiking again through soft, squishy marsh to find three of them that we missed the first time we tried, and there were a few plain DNFs.

#5 - Finished the entire PA State  Star.  That was where I saw the bear.

#6 - Earned our Event Souvenir this weekend.  It was a paddle event, and we showed up to talk to non-paddlers, went to our campsite for a shower, and came back an hour early for the potluck that was scheduled at 4 o'clock.  When we got there, they had already finished, and most of the people had gone home.  It was nice to visit with a few people, but would have been nicer to have met more.

    

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