Monday, September 3, 2007

Bob's Blah Blog:

Howdy, all. Been awhile, as you have probably read. Now in a small burg named Dillsburg. Central Pennsylvania, south of Harrisburg.

Getting down to business....a few odd-servations of mine.

Some gas stations in PA, West VA and maybe even in North Carolina have different names for the different grades of fuel. One, BP I think, has Regular, Silver and Ultimate. Silver and Ultimate WHAT?? Did you know there is a Bank of Gassaway in WV? Have banks opened branches in gas stations to help finance a fillup?

For those who have issues with people getting on to freeways, or should I say not knowing how to get onto freeways, accelerate to the speed of traffic on the highway. Don't putz along at 25 - 45 miles per hour praying someone will let you merge. Pulling a large trailer and confronting merging traffic is dangerous. These morons just drive along like they are Aunt Bee on a Sunday afternoon drive. "Shall we drive?" Some are on cellphones, some are talking to their passengers, some have their heads where the sun don't shine.

Passing through West Virginia, we came across a place called Fancy Gap. Not to be outdone, down the road was the town of Bland.

We camped one night at Sutton Lake State Park. We were right on the lake and had a great view of water not flowing or moving or doing anything. It was a long way off the highway and up on top of a hill or something since it seemed we drove uphill most of the way to get to it. We did see some really nice and some not so nice houses and farms. I kept listening for banjo music, if you know what I mean, Vern.

We were in Kannapolis, the birth place of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and someone's (and I mean Corinne) dream boyfriend. We toured Lowe's Motorspeedway, as I wrote about earlier, but nobody challenged me on calling it the "Monster." Truth is, I was testing y'all to see who really was NASCAR savyy and who wasn't. Lowe's is the "Beast of the Southeast" not the Monster. Did I mention we got to ride on the track at 83 mph in a nine or ten passenger van? Zoom-Zoom.

Anyways, we visited Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI) and Jr Motorsports, along with Hendrick Motorsports. All three had great museums, with Hendrick being the best. Lots of cars, displays, trophies etc. All had gift shops, too. Imagine that. At Jr Motorsports, Dale Jr. had a small musuem, most of it dedicated to his liking of Elvis. He even had a lifesize (if there is such a thing of the KING) statue of Elvis. When I stood next to it to get my picture taken, he poked my belly and said in his drawl..."hey, lets get a sammich." Sounded good to me. The story behind the statue was someone in Dale's family found in while on vacation somewhere and thought Dale Jr. would like to have it. However, being on vacation posed a problem, so, like in Family Vacation where grandma dies, they just tied him to the roof of their car and drove him back to Kannapolis. Can you just imagine a Trooper stopping the car and Elvis saying, "hey, lets get a sammich, Trooper."

Also at Jr. museum, was a Madame Truseau full size wax figure of Junior. It was so life like I swear I saw his hand grab Corinne's or, vice versa. This same thing happened in Hawaii on our honeymoon and we saw Tom Selleck on Halloween filming for Magnum PI, only Tom wasn't a wax figure. I guess since Corinne left with the one who brung her, I must be more specialer.

We made it to Pittsburgh last Friday afternoon and to Brandon's house with the coach. The Queen (the Garmin GPS) took us in a couple of odd directions, but we got there. Also, had a brief rainstorm while parked in a grocery store lot trying to find a camp or RV park. Ended up at Indian Brave campgrouds about 25 miles north of Pittsb. Located in a small town named something I don't recall now. But, we made a wrong turn and ended going the wrong direction on a very narrow street. It was a classic main street town, with shops and busineses in old buildings and what looked like friendly people who stopped and pointed at us. I guess they were friendly.

We had dinner with the kids at an I-talian family restaurant. We had eaten there on our last time in Pittsb and decided to go back there again. Not too busy, good food, reasonable prices. We stopped at a Bruster's Ice Cream store (good Ice Cream if you haven't tried it yet). Corinne and I shared something that I can't remember at this time. Whatever it was, it had ice cream and pecans, and chocolate fudge and caramel sauce. Oh, yeah, it was called a Pecan Ball. Brandon doesn't care much for ice cream since his illness 2 1/2 years ago, so he didn't have any, which was a good thing since he was driving our truck and we needed to get fuel. Sam's Club on top of the hill had diesel and we were running on fumes.

The next day, we were just leaving the campground when we decided we better check with the management to see if it would be okay to stay a few more days. Because the office was closed, I called the number I had. At first, the lady said it would be okay, then said "no, at least not at the same site we were in." Seems she had some folks coming in later and they wanted two sites together so they could be "best camping buddies" or something. She said we could move to site 300 if it would work for us, so we drove back into the campgrounds and "schecked it out." 300 would have been okay, so we went back to our coach to either move to 300 or find another campground to move to. Just as we got back to the coach, Brandon or someone called and said they found a cat sitter and we could go to Hershey, PA for the weekend. We then spent the next hour and a half trying to locate a campground in Hershey area that wasn't booked up for the Labor Day weekend. Finally, we found the Wal-Mar Manor or whatever it is called and they said we could drop anchor there. Yeah! Anyway, we met our next door neighbors at Indian Brave and they were from Denver. They said they wanted to buy an Alfa Coach but were told their Chevy PU wouldn't pull it. They have the same size truck as I do, so I and they don't know why they were told that. They have a 100 pound freezer in the basement of their coach. Pretty cool, or is it Pretty Froze? We talked for quite awhile and they are fulltimers with 3 storage lockers full of household goods back in Denver.

On the road to Hershey, we got on the PA Turnpike, which for you keeping score at home is a toll road. The crazy thing about it was you never knew what the speed limit was. It went from 55 to 65 then back to 55 and back to 65 for no apparent reason. Whatever the speed limit was and whatever speed I was going, I was always being passed. We got off the turnpike in Carlile, PA and what a mess it was. I guess every trucker on the road got off there too. We found the Flying J and got fuel. It wasn't all that busy, which was a surprize. We also caught up with Brandon there. After fueling, we made our way to this campground and dropped the coach. Some guy here, who reminded me of Ron Bruce (retired AHP and now a Sheriff in Colorado) came over to talk. He just looked like Ron. Maybe his brother or something. Anyway, he told us about where its good to eat in Dillsburg. We ended up at Baker's Restaurant, which is a diner-style eatery. The food was good, varied and a great selection. I had fish, Corinne had chicken with brocolli sauce. The kids had breakfast.

On Saturday, we went to the Hershey amusement park. It was lots of fun, crowded and warm. We rode many rides, especially the old wooden rollercoasters. Those new-fangled steel upside down, roll you over spin you around coasters are just too scary for us (and I mean Corinne and me). We like the old school coasters...they are scary enough. Times past, we have ridden those new coasters, but now, we are retired and want to live to enjoy it.

Leaving the park at closing time, we were entertained by fireworks. Good show and I honked the car's horn to let Mr. Chocolate Bar know our approval. Did you know chocolate straight from the factory tastes different that chocolate that has been sitting on a shelf for a while?

Sunday, we visited the Hershey Gardens which are fabulous. Roses, trees, rocks, grass, butterflies, other flowers. Very fragrant, and beautiful. I think we all enjoyed the gardens. We also toured the Hershey Museum, which had some nice exhibits, but wasn't all that great. There was an old clock called the Apostolic Clock which took its creator 11 years or something to finish. Multi-function and intricate action every hour at a quarter to the hour, it would operate. It was built in 1887 something like that.

The weather has turned to cool, for the most part. Nice not to have the ever present humidity. The truck has developed some type of vibration which we will need to get checked out. Not sure what it is, but rattles when at idle.

Happy birthday to Brandon's grandma, Hope, who turned 86. The kids went back to Pittsburgh this afternoon so we are again empty-nesters.



Before the kids left, we visited the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. What a fabulous place. The Senate, House and Supreme Court are all housed under the same roof. Probably the Gov, too, but not sure. Ornate, gold leaf, paintings, marble, granite, and that's just the restrooms. Actually, makes the Arizona Capitol look pale in comparison. I used to have tourists come into the House of Reps to see our building and Chambers. After seeing other state's facilities, visitors probably are not very impressed by AZ. Bill Y., I will be sending you some literature to share with the troops.


We visited a cemetery near York today. Saw a couple of headstones worth mentioning. One was LEASE. Lease what? The grave? The headstone? Not planning to stay long enough to buy it outright?



Another was TEST. Again, Testing what? Whether you are gonna like it? Too hot? Too Cold? View not good enough? Don't like your neighbors? Not sure you like being dead, so just giving it a test drive..er...lay?



The third was FAMOUS. Famous for what? The Really silent partner of Amos? Predecestor to Almost Famous? What is fame, anyways?


As Alannah Myles sings: "Black Velvet and that little boy smile, Black Velvet and that slow southern style. A new religion that'll take you to your knees, Black Velvet, if you please."


I'll have my sammich with bananers and bacon. Thank you, thank you very much. (curled upper lip)


Bobo has left the internet.