I'm Home........

Once again, I’m playing ‘catch-up’ – but it’s the last time for this trip! Honest. Trust me!!

Photos at:

http://web.mac.com/goodlenora/iWeb/Site/Library%2019.html

(Library 19)

We left Kay K’s yesterday, about noon. It rained on and off during the morning, preceded by thunderstorms which I slept through.

New Jersey is a beautiful state, and we enjoyed driving up Highway 206 until we turned left onto I-80. We stopped at the Tuscani Bistro in a small town, the name of which neither of us can remember, but the food was delicious. (BTW, I asked the owner if “Tuscany” is pronounced “Tus CAHN i” per a certain commercial seen on TV, of if it’s pronounced “Tuskeni”. It’s the latter.)

Once on I-80, we still enjoyed the countryside but at a much higher rate of speed. When we reached Pennsylvania, we were greeted with a toll booth. I asked the gentlemen what the toll was for the whole state (I didn’t want to be nickel and dimed to death en route and not have enough nickels and or dimes) – it was $.75 for the whole state! I figured I could afford that ;-)

We drove to Clearview and decided that was far enough for the night, and got a hotel room. Just for grins, I went through the phone book looking for relatives (none), but when I closed the phone book I noticed we were in the same area as Punxsutawney and Phil, so this morning, Kay and I drove there, and saw Phil and his mate – they live in a special area of the Library – then we drove up to Gobbler’s Knob, where he makes his annual prediction.

Visiting Punxsutawney is like, well, visiting Punxsutawney. Both my twin and I were born on 2 Feb, so it’s almost obligatory to stop and see Phil if one is close enough to do so. Fortunately, I was. Phil was not impressed. But, I was;-)

Punxsutawney is a real example of small town America. The statue of the Seneca Indian warrior was donated by a high school senior who raised the money for him. Of course, there are statues of Phil all over the place, and on the road going up to Gobbler’s Knob, there are white footprints from Phil. The school metal work’s class has made and donated several items to Gobbler’s Knob, and, I imagine, other places.

After leaving Punxsutawney, we headed back to I-80 and eventually reached Ohio. The first stop was the Ohio Visitor’s Information Center just over the state line. The rest rooms were clean, and the grounds keeper friendly. I mention those two good points because when I get home, I’m writing the Governor of Ohio a letter explaining the bad points!

The people who greet at these stations are, literally, the face of the state. They are they official greeters and welcomers. Of the two women who greeted us to Ohio, one:

1. Fed her face. She sat behind the counter, over by the window, and glared at us as she stuffed food into her face. She made no effort to excuse herself, to go to a break area to eat, or even to put down her food, apologize for eating in front of us, and she certainly couldn’t come to help us. She ate and glowered.

2. The second talked on her cell phone. When I had the temerity to stand at the counter, she gave a pout and asked if the person she was talking to could wait a few minutes, then asked me what I wanted. I had interrupted her and she was not pleased. She did answer my questions but was not at all happy and did so only with grudging “I got to do it” attitude.

Fortunately, when we left, the grounds keeper smiled so I know that all people in Ohio weren’t grudges and or glowering people. Unfortunately, I’d already formed the opinion that I just wanted to get the heck across Ohio and away from these rude people!

So, Kay and I opted to spend the $9.25 to drive on the Ohio Turnpike and get the heck outa Dodge ASAP! We stopped for a bathroom break at the Service Plaza at about mile post 100. Since we couldn’t leave the Pike without paying, they put gas stations, and food courts about every 30-40 miles. Anyhow, in this visitor’s center we met Tom, a delightful representative for the state – except, he works for the Ohio Turnpike people, not the State. Too bad. Had he been the ‘official’ greeter when we entered the state, we’d have a whole different attitude about Ohio.

We’re not really sure what the $9.25 toll goes for, it certainly doesn’t go for keeping the Interstate in excellent condition. Does anyone out there know why our freeways, i.e., interstates, are toll? I thought turnpikes were toll, but interstates were freeways and therefore ‘free.’ Guess I thunk wrong, huh?

We continued to drive, and instead of taking I-80/90 to Chicago, and paying more money to Indiana, we got off just before the state line, and took I-69 south to Ft. Wayne, where we are currently ensconced in La Quinta. Tomorrow, we shall head down I-69 a few more miles, take a right on highway 30 and head toward the south of Chicago. We might make it as far as Omaha, if we’re lucky, and there are no tornadoes or horrid hail storms ;-)

Gas has gone up to about $2.25-$2.30/gal now. I understand it went up 17c overnight in Florida. Guess it’s May – Mother’s Day is Sunday, and then in a couple weeks is Memorial Day, so the summer gas prices are upon us.

Gas prices going up, tolls on the interstates, grumpy greeters, one thing is for sure, we aren’t bored! For the most part, we’ve met some really great folks on this trip. I’d say about 99% of the ones we’ve met are great. They’re friendly, helpful, cheerful. This morning in Punxsy’s town, the gal in the grocery store walked me out and showed me where the library was, rather than just tell me. I’ll visit Pennsylvania again, if I get the chance! Especially if it means I can visit Princeton, too;-)


I forgot the name of the town we stayed in, but think it was Des Moines, but I couldn’t get connected to the Wi Fi, which is why this one, the last of the Trip Blogs, is long, and ‘catch up’

At any rate, going through Iowa, I saw a sign for Amana Colonies, so, of course, we turned right, and drove through the seven Amana Colonies. The first stop was the Quilt Store. I was quite surprised at all the ‘modern’ fabrics and ‘busy’ quilts. Didn’t seem a bit Amish to me! However, I did find some fabric, and a pattern to buy. Next stop was the Visitor’s Center, where the lady, who was quite friendly and obviously not from Ohio (by the way, I have lots of friendly family in Canton, Ohio-or they were friendly when I met them years ago. By now, who knows?) showed us the map, and pointed out the wineries. Yes, plural. I expressed amazement that the Amish could make wine, at which point she laughed.

It seems that over 75% of the people who come through there think the Amana Colonies were Amish. They were not, and are not. They are a Protestant group, breakaway from Lutheran (probably under the broad umbrella of ‘Anabaptist’ which includes several other breakaways, but I’m not positive). Anyhow, do a search on Amana, Amana Colonies, Amana Religion, etc. if you want more information.,

We did stop off at one of the bakeries and bought one of the best loafs of Black Forest Rye Bread I’ve ever had, and stopped at a couple of wineries, and bought a couple bottles of very good wine. One Shiraz and one Merlot. I, of course, had to try the Catawba wine. It is made from the Catawba grape, not by the Catawba Indians. It is a white wine, and very, very sweet. I prefer my red, and love the Cabernets!

We eventually turned north on I-29 heading toward Fargo. Somewhere along the way, I remembered I’d always wanted to visit Pipestone, MN, so we took a short side trip to Pipestone. This is a National Monument, where the red stone is quarried (by Indians, only) and carved into the ‘peace’ pipes. The stone is soft (about the hardness of fingernails), red, and the Indians make pipes, amulets, etc. from it. Pipes ranged in price from $19.00 up into the hundreds, depending on the size and the carving. Each piece is signed by the artist, and when you buy something you get a bio of the artist, and information about the piece.

From Pipestone, we went on to Fargo, where we stayed a few days with one of Kay’s friends, Donna. Donna is a good friend with Kay’s kids, as they all went to school together, and we met up with her while we were at Mark and Terry’s in Scottsdale. It was then she invited us to stay a while when we came through, and I’m really glad we did. There was room in her garage for Suvie as well as her truck, and so both vehicles were safely tucked away when we had the hail storm!

Donna is a lot of fun, and though she had to work while we were there, that was OK as we had laundry to do, and Kay had other friends and family to visit.

From Fargo, we headed north to Highway 2. Our original goal was to take Hwy 2 across into Washington, with a slight detour through Glacier.

When we got to Rugby, the weather was pretty well socked in, and we were fighting head winds. Rugby is the Geographical center of North America, but the weather was too lousy to get out and take too many photos, but I managed a few before we left for Minot. We fought headwinds the whole way, and watched the Average Miles Per Gallon indicator in Suvie go from 25.8 to 18.9! She’s now back up where she belongs;-)

Have you ever been to Minot? It’s called “The Magic City” and when I asked why, no one could tell me, though one person thought it got the name because nothing was there, the military moved in, and ‘overnight’ a city was born.

The next morning was cold. There would have been frost on the pumpkin had there been a pumpkin, instead, there was ice on the car! Kay scraped ice while I checked us out of the hotel, and we kept on down the highway. Alas, there was a funny little light on the dash telling us the tire pressure was low. We stopped and checked and the tires looked ok, but there just ain’t no Subaru Dealers out on highway two, so we kept going. (There weren’t any full service gas station/garages, either!) We stopped at a place in Williston to use their phone book to find (hopefully) a Subaru dealer. No such luck. However, the gal wanted to know what the problem was, and we told her. She checked the tire pressure, and the tires were exactly where they should have been, so I thought it would be safe to go on.

In the meantime, Kay called Glacier National Park, and yes indeed, they were open, all the roads were open, for 2-3 miles, except the main, scenic one which was closed. We decided to turn Right at Williston and go through the Roosevelt National Park to I-94. Of course, the road through the Park was closed, so we drove down the blue highway until we got on I-94.

Montana is like Texas. It takes forever to drive through it! There is a whole lot of sky, and a whole lot of land! We made it to Bozeman before stopping. We’d been rained on, and the sky looked pretty bad. The next morning, Kay called 511 (road reports) and discovered that I-90 had some construction between Bozeman and Spokane. She also called on Hwy 12, which we considered taking out of Missoula. Alas, it seemed to have more construction, and we couldn’t find out what the weather was doing in the mountains, so we opted to head on out on the Freeway (note: it is a FREEway, not a TOLLway! meow!!) and were back to my house by 3pm on Friday.

We must have crossed the Yellowstone River a dozen times, and then we crossed the Clark Fork at least that often. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many places to pull out on the freeways to take photos as there are on the Blue Highways.

We missed most of the construction. There were some areas where it was marked, but no people and no barriers. There were a couple places where it was down to one lane, but the traffic was light, and we zipped right on through at the posted speed limit.

I must admit, I love eastern Montana, and the Plains States – they are a lot like the Palouse region of Eastern Washington – lots of wide open spaces, in places mountains or hills to be seen in the distance, but not crowding me. I could live in Eastern Montana, but the operative word is ‘could’. I don’t want to move. Ever again. I love my house and my town.

We drove 11,500 miles on this trip, about 70% on the ‘Blue Highways;’ we saw lots of beautiful places and met many, many nice people—honest hotel maids, helpful strangers, fun friends and family...but, as Dorothy so eloquently said:

There is no place like home!