Advertisement
Spirits are a little low after the intense traffic in Washington D.C.- not even caused by the holiday weekend or rush hour work, but a terrible accident with major carnage that blocked up the road for almost 2 hours. Made a 7 hour trip into a 9 hour trip, which makes a big difference when the sun sets and you are still an hour away from your campground. Miraculously we managed to find it, even though the AAA directions left us in the center of Wilson with no campground in sight. A gas station employee pointed us towards the route we were looking for, even though his English was barely better than Vincenzo's and he had never heard of an RV campground. Shortly after I left, a woman wearing a very very small yellow terrycloth towel, I mean dress, walked by a man in what looked like a jail-stripe shirt....we quickly left the premises.
Flashback to this morning in Dutch Country, PA. We got up at the usual 6am with our trusty Quarta espresso from Brindisi and used the campgrounds shower (Gramma and Grampa Butterworth were right, the RV shower is a great wardrobe, but I don't think we'll use
it for actual showers when we can use the campground's showers). The only noise at this hour was the clip-clop of the Amish early risers' horse and buggy. I respected the request to not photograph them, but I definitely was ready to snap a clandestine profile shot against the sun that rose over the hill our camper was backed up to....and no one passed so that will just have to remain in your imaginations.
It was very quiet and peaceful- not even the giant rooster that attacks dogs was to be heard. We drove down to the QUILT MUSEUM and I took a bunch of photos, mainly for the Butterworth girls (esp. Edith!) Then we went on a quest for our very own honeymoon quilt....but whoah! Who knew they'd cost from $600-$1,000! So I bought a "quillow" instead...which I just found out actually has a little blanket inside as the pillow stuffing- awesome for $39! Of course I chose Vincenzo and Sara theme colors....green and orange. Since I saved us so much money on an entire quilt blanket we went for a buggy ride! Driven by our Amish guide, John, who- no lie- used to build the Shasta RVs-
the exact same model that we are driving! We had the special "honeymoon seat" which meant up front with John for Vincenzo and me on a bench with a heart-cut-out at Vincenzo's knees. Up close and personal with John, too. Seeing all the hanging laundry really made me feel like I was back in Brindisi...except my clothes were a little more colorful. Our horse's name was Mary and on the route we ran into Homer and a little girl selling pretzels and horshoes named Little Becky. When I paid with a 10 for the $5 horseshoe and John started to pull the buggy away, Little Becky came running behind waving the five dollar bill.
The other people in the buggy asked a lot of questions beginning with "Do the Amish...." When John once retorted with something like, "What do your people....." it kind of struck me. At first I naively thought "your people" was referring to the other passenger's kin from Western PA....then, duh, he was obviously making a point about all non-Amish people poking and prodding and generalizing about all the Amish. In fact, when we went to the quilt store earlier we walked into a HEATED debate
between the store owner and another town member about the Old Testament and letting go of sacrificing lambs in today's time- enough to render the store owner very sour.
After the carriage ride it had gotten late and there were nearly 400 miles to our next destination, Wilson, NC. The entire drive through Pennsylvania was beautiful and a nice change from 95, 495, 695, and all the other damn 95's out there. Route 95 in Virginia looked just about the same as Maryland, and New Jersey, maybe a little more looming and wild than New Jersey.
We have been seeing a wide variety of Road Kill that I'd like to keep track of right here on this blog! Watch for updates on this! Here is the roadkill I've witnessed from MA-NC: raccoon, groundhog, fox, um marmot or similar indistinguishable brown furry lump, rabbit, an ENTIRE DEER (this was pretty incredible after I had just written on the map where I had seen a deer grazing and specified "Saw Deer- live".), and finally and most depressingly a Jack Russell dog with a blue collar. No alligators yet, but oh am I ready for those. I'd also be very willing
to recuperate the carcass of a donkey, mule, or ass if one should run into the misfortune of my bumper.
Speaking of donkey meat, there are quite the chorus of donkeys braying right this very minute outside my window....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.036s; cc: 13; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0482s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
love the pix
So, how was last nite? 100 or so miles to the s.e. in Wilmington, they got 6" of rain in acouple of hours! hope it was better where you were. Love the pix of Vinny the American!