“It feels like we’re just driving around” “Well, yeah, that’s kinda the point”

June 21, 2006
Outside Shanksville, PA

Kelly and Beth have taken off on their big adventure!

After a yummy breakfast from Msr. Crepe (Beth’s husband Kurt), we installed the snazzy LED marquee license plate frame on T. Snaab, waved goodbye to Kurt, his mom, and nephew Logan, and departed from Delaware at High Noon on the Solstice (plus 21 minutes). The sun was bright, the music was peppy, and the roads were clear!


We headed up to West Chester, PA so Kelly could have a ceremonial drive-by of her old office, where the dream of this trip began (“Instead of turning into this office park, what if I just kept driving? Where would I go?”). We pointed ourselves toward Lebanon, PA, our first destination. En route, we passed through the back roads of Chester County, and on into Amish Country.

This is basically a theme park of a region commercializing a particularly austere religious sect that lives there. Ironically, this religious sect eschews most aspects of modernity, using traditional plows and horse-drawn buggies instead of cars and tractors, dressing very simply, and most do not use electricity, running water, etc. But they live among ‘normal’ red-blooded Americans who like to take pictures and sell stuff ostensibly made by or in the style of the Amish. They sell this at places like “Dutch Country” and “Amish Traders.com”. Hmm. There are many smorgasbords with all-you-can-eat home cookin’ buffets (my dad used to drive us up here on weekends – an afternoon at Dutch Wonderland fun park for the kids and then Millers Smorgasbord for dinner.

Now, these are people of German descent – Beth has heard that the trusty locals misinterpreted Deutsch (which is German for, well, German) for Dutch. Which refers to someone from the Netherlands, which, albeit adjacent to Germany, is, in fact, a separate country.

Anyway, we finally ended up in lovely Lebanon, PA – home of Steve Wheeler AND the famous Lebanon Bologna! In historic downtown Lebanon, we stopped at a malt shoppe and had our bologna sandwiches on pasty, foamy white bread. This is different than your traditional Oscar Meyer b-o-l-o-g-n-a, as it was more purpley in color and somewhat mottled. Almost like salami.

From Lebanon, we pointed West, passing through Hershey, the best-damned-smelling-town in America. Chocolatetown U.S.A., where the streetlights are made of chocolate kisses… yum! We stopped at a Rite-Aid to buy some after sun lotion for the rad sunburns we were working, and picked up a couple of genuine article Hershey bars. Yum! Much tastier than Lebanon bologna. Also a battery for the aforementioned scrolling marquee license plate holder. Which we cannot seem to change from scrolling “Your word on the street!” as we start our way across America. Truckers have been yelling out the window at us “Word on the Street!”. We were hoping to broadcast witticisms like “Smell ya later!” and “Dang – this town smells SWEET!” or “Where’s the bologna?” We’re still exploring the technical problems… stay tuned. Send in your message suggestions – hopefully we’ll have it working soon! (A fun correlary of not being able to change the message is that the same device is also used to turn this marquee on and off. So it’s permanently on with this message until we figure out how to fix it).

We cruised through Harrisburg and then I capitulated and hopped on the Penna. Turnpike as it was already 6 pm and we wanted to set up camp near Fallingwater, some 130 miles further west, before dark. While we did reluctantly forgo a pit stop at the alluring Pigeon World, we did have to pull over for a quick pit stop at Breezewood, PA’s “50 State Souvenier Shop”. What a concept! Why travel to all 50 states to complete your spoon/shot glass/magnet shaped like the state/thimble/sticker/t-shirt/key chains/coffee mug collection when you can get them ALL – Alaska to Wyoming – right there in Pennsylvania?! Also handy were the postcards featuring anyplace remotely of note within a 350 mile radius (Washington, DC to Ohio to New York City). And if geography ain’t your bag, you can buy your Breakfast at Tiffany’s lunchbox, a piggy bank in the shape of Ringo Starr, and I Love Lucy camping chair (Vitametavegimin or the chocolate candy episode!), and, I think you get the idea. There was also a bitchin’ pirate bikini and hot pink cowgirl hats (that’s right)




Betsy, this is where LSS goes to die.
And, don’t worry, Kurt, Beth got you a prezzie!

Now we are camped in a friendly little campground with a lot of RVs near Shanksville, PA. It occurred to me as we were approaching the campground and saw the signs that the name was familiar, and, as it turns out, Flight 93, the fourth plane to crash on September 11, went down about 4 miles from here. On our way to Ida’s Mart to buy food provisions, we passed a chapel that has been dedicated to the flight victims and they maintain a tall light beam in front, similar to the temporary memorial that they had in New York City. At the market, we met a woman who has lived here her whole life and asked us about our journey (it’s a small town). She works at one of the nearby prisons, and was eager to tell us about how that day affected the area… how there was a school nearby and people 5 miles away could feel the ground shake. This really is a fairly rural area and I imagine that on that morning, as the locals watched the events unfolding on TV in New York City and Washington, DC, it must have seemed very scary but also so far away, only to have it brought home so immediately. So, a bit of an unexpected encounter, but extremely interesting.

Now, we’ve pried open a can of Dinty Moore, munched on some Herr’s potato chips and are ready to call it a night. Tomorrow morning, we head for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and then into Pittsburgh as we make our way to Chicago.


*note - this blog entry was posted during a(nother) thunderstorm late Thursday evening sitting in a parked car in a parking lot behind John Glenn's house in New Concord, OH. Thanks to the (now closed) Jitterbug Cafe for leaving your wifi network unencrypted!