Chambersburg, PA

Hi everyone, we are now just outside of Chambersburg. I am sorry I haven’t written for awhile. We have just been having way too much fun. It is hard to believe that we are down to out last 24 days of riding!! And the big question is are we tired of riding our bicycle after almost a year of pedaling? That would have to be a great big NO! Would we change anything about the last year? No, when we rode out of our driveway last May, we made the decision that we would do everything that we wanted to, if we wanted to stop and see something we would. We didn’t want to get to the end of the year and say, we wish we would have done…..that! I am happy to report that is just what we have done.
Now, about the last week………..we decided to spend a couple of days in Lancaster with Fred and Will. Fred was the person who hired Hap at RCA back in 1971. It was so good to spend time with him. We are only sorry that Rae Jean, Fred’s wife couldn’t be there. But we promised Fred that we would be back. He took us out for a drive into the Amish area. The first thing we noticed was how huge the Amish farms looked compared to the one’s in Ohio. The scenery was spectacular. While we were there Fred went out of his way to feed us with some great food. It was just a nice and relaxing few days.
We left Fred’s house and retraced our path back to York. We are riding on the S Pennsylvania bicycle route across southern PA. Getting into York was alittle tricky with all of the traffic. We did our usual thing though. If you are riding through a town, usually you can go one street parallel to the main road and find a less traveled route. In this case it ended up being an alley. We took the alley up to Rt 30 where we had a hotel reservation and ended up riding right into the back of the hotel parking lot. Just like we knew where we were going! Right next door there was a grocery store so we walked over and got us a bag of salad and salmon for dinner.
The next morning our goal was to ride to Gettysburg which was off the S Route. But first we had to figure out how to get out of York! Which wasn’t easy….. Somehow we missed our turn, went down a big hill and THEN noticed that we missed our turn. Why is it that you find out about the turn at the BOTTOM of the hill? In York we were constantly going either up or down anyway, we didn’t really need an extra one. Finally we made our way out of town and onto Rt 234 east. It was a beautiful road for riding on. We stopped on top of a big hill and ate our lunch (apples and peanut butter). Once we reached Gettysburg we ran into lots of traffic, and this isn’t even the tourist season. Oh, I have to tell you about this one idiot……driver…..sorry….but …..he….was… Here’s what he did. We were riding on the side of the road, and a car came up beside us going very slow. I was watching him and apparently so was Hap, because both of us at the same time yelled, He’s going to turn right. Remember he was right beside us?? Thank goodness Hap saw him because he hit the brakes and sure enough the idiot…driver..turned right into a parking lot and stopped to park! Do you get the picture? I have no idea what this person was thinking. It makes you wonder doesn’t it?? In Gettysburg we wanted to go to the Visitor Center before going to the campground which was 5 miles out of town. You would think that would be easy wouldn’t you?? Ok, maybe if you are driving a car and not have to climb the hills, watch out for the tour buses, watch out for the idiot in the truck. Finally we found the visitor center, but then we discovered there was a new visitor center and it was on down the road (at the bottom of the hill, do ya know what that means?). We rode to the visitor center and went in to check it out. They had just opened this one yesterday. It was pretty cool. We watched a movie and then decided to come back tomorrow to look at the museum. Now we had to find the campground. We took a shortcut through the battlefield so that we didn’t have to dodge the tour buses again. The ride to the campground was a beautiful ride. Everything is just so green. The battlefield is very impressive. And everyone is driving very slowly so it was a nice ride. We arrived at the campground, set up camp, cooked dinner and went to the rec room to play cards. It got pretty cool at night, down in the low 30’s, but Big Agnes (sleeping bag) came through for us and kept us plenty warm!
The next morning we rode back into town for breakfast. Then we took a bus tour of the battlefield. It was good because it really gave you an idea of what happened in the battle. So many lives lost in such a short period of time. It is hard to imagine what that is like. After our tour we went back to the visitor center to the museum. Then we stopped for groceries before riding back to the campground. For dinner we had stir fry. It was pretty good but I really need to perfect my technique. It is really hard to make stir fry in a 5 inch fry pan!
This morning we got a late start as usual. But we planned a short days ride anyway so that was fine. We cooked oatmeal and had bananas for breakfast. The riding today was tougher than what we have been having. We had some really steep climbs today. It was in the 70’s and felt really hot after all the cool days we have had. But it was a beautiful ride again. I had no idea that PA was such a pretty state. We are starting to see more buds on the trees finally. In Chambersburg we stopped at a grocery store for dinner supplies. I’m going to try something new. I bought frozen salmon, rice and peas. We’ll see how the frozen salmon works in our little fry pan. We rode 5 miles out of town to the campground. It wasn’t much of a campground. And I had to take a COLD shower. So you know how I feel about this place. Later.