ANATOMY OF A TRIP Part 4

TRIP DAY 2 Wednesday:

When we got up this morning it was raining. By the time we were dressed and out it had stopped. Since Meryl can be more tactful than me, I asked her to go to the office to ask about our banner. About ten minutes later she returned banner in hand. Someone saw it there when we were leaving for the day yesterday and thought we had forgotten it and brought it to the office. Fine. I don't really get it but the important thing is that we had it back. I staked it back into the ground.

We unhooked the electric cord and the cable and went through our departure checklist which is done every time we are getting ready to drive each morning. All that had to be was disconnected and put away. All that had to be secured was. We were off for the day.

We headed out for our Lancaster "go-tos" (the places in Lancaster that we like to go to) which include Bird-In-Hand Farmers Market, Kitchen Kettle Village, and a craft gallery and fabric/quilt shop in the town of Intercourse. We had lunch at Stolfus Meats in Intercourse which is a meat market and cafe. They make their own sausage on their farm and it is sold and served here. It is very good and a place to try when visiting this area. It is located across Route 23 from the entrance of Kitchen Kettle Village.

The parking lot for Stolfus Meats which shares a small strip of businesses with the Intercourse Post Office and a local court (very small post office and very, very small court - at least from the looks outside) is small and tight. there are a few places that the Roadtrek can park without sticking too far out into the lane but none of those spaces were empty today. We drove around the back to find the very few spaces there were also full. We pulled around the back and through a small access road through a corn field to the large parking lot that we park in for Kitchen Kettle which is across the road. There was plenty of parking there and we went to an empty section and parked. We don't mind walking and we walked back the way we drove on the road through the corn field to go and have lunch and just left the Roadtrek parked there while we walked across Route 340 to go to Kitchen Kettle.

The refrigerator was still inconsistent in maintaining its temperature. Meryl kept an eye on the remote thermometer which is kept up front at the dash and again several times when we stopped made adjustments to the thermostat in the fridge.

As the afternoon moved along we headed into the countryside toward a fabric outlet that we know that sells discounted fabrics and is a good resource for linen for 18th Century reenacting clothing. Despite the holiday week, there were horse and buggies on almost every farm road. I always seem to come up behind them coming up to the top of a hill.Slow down, wait, watch until you can see the oncoming lane over the hill, and then pass - fast without spooking the horse.

Lancaster is all rolling hill farmland once you get off the main roads which take its toll on local gas mileage here, and today we were not getting good mileage driving up so many hills. Fourteen miles per gallon is a lot less than usual for our 190.

On the radio news we heard about the 150th Anniversary of the three days of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg which took place about an hour or so from where we were. This was the last and final day of the battle and the main reenactment of the battle.  While it would have been nice, it also was very crowded, and as we were hearing, difficult to get to and near the town. We had not planned on going though we have known about the event for a year. It is not our period of history though we know a great deal about the 19th Century in American history along with our reenacting period of the latter half of the 18th Century.

At the end of the afternoon we went to a store that we know that is a place to go when you are looking for things that you don't find in the usual and regular stores. Good's Store is in East Earle (there are other locations though not as large as this one) and Meryl had some things she has been looking for. Parking was easy in their large enough parking lot - the Roadtrek just takes two spaces back to front and there were plenty of spaces. Getting out, I turned up to a lane that had been divided with traffic cones right at the point that I had to turn the Roadtrek into the divided lane. There was no way the large van was going to make the turn without hitting the cone or a parked car. We turned the other way and went the long way around to exit. While a Roadtrek can go many places, it is sometimes necessary to make sure you can make a wide turn - and sometimes you can't do that without risking damage. It is really not a problem but does take some thinking ahead rather than just keeping driving.

It had been pretty much dry for the day except for the rain we woke up to in the morning. This was great. At night we did drive through an area where it must have rained heavily - it had not rained at all where we had just been. The roads were wet and flooded along the sides.

We got back to the campground and settled in for the night. Again, tonight when I flushed the toilet sediment was coming out with the water. It seemed heavier this time but again stopped after several flushes. Then the water seemed to be coming out with a little more pressure and was clear.  This is the water in the tanks from home.  Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. The weather reports are scattered but it looks like it will be more dry than wet though every report agrees that it will be hot and humid. The plan for the day is the Kutztown Folklife Festival.

As a late night snack we decided on the popcorn that we had brought from home to make in the microwave. Long ago someone at work showed me a way to make popcorn with no oil and no need for an air popper. Kernel popcorn and nothing else is placed into a brown paper lunch bag, the top is folded over, and cooked in the microwave popping all of the corn. This is about one tenth the cost of store sold microwave popcorn and it is made without the seasonings and the oil that is generally added to those. We have been doing this at home for years but we have not done it in the Roadtrek yet. Meryl made pre-sealed little bags of popcorn of two and a half tablespoons each. That makes enough for a large snack for one person and when popped fills the paper bag. At home I set the microwave on three to three and a half minutes to pop this much popcorn. Thinking the Roadtrek microwave was about the same as the one in our house, I had Meryl set this microwave for the same time. In less than two minutes we could smell burning and we stopped the microwave and pulled out the bag that had started to char on the outside. The popcorn inside the bag was incinerated. I took it outside to the campground trash pail quickly as it started to fill the inside of the Roadtrek with the odor of burnt popcorn. We then went one minute at a time to pop the corn and I figured out that about a minute and a half will do it. We could smell burnt popcorn for the rest of the night and even with washing the bottom plate in the microwave we could still smell it. I am sure we will smell burnt popcorn in the Roadtrek for awhile. Lesson learned: the Roadtrek microwave is powerful. 

END OF PART 4. PART 5 NEXT WEEK.