Sunday, September 16, Bond, James Bond 007

Bob's Blah Blog:

First off, I just have to tell you how cool, cold it is here right now. Yesterday, it only got to about 65 degrees for a high and somewhere in the mid 40's overnight. Felt SO GOOD. Hehe. But you know what? I didn't pack any warm clothes to wear. It was 110 in Phoenix when we left and all I could think about was getting north to the cooler weather. So, here we are in Dover, PA and its cooler weather and still 110 in Phoenix...that just seems so right on so many levels.

Been doing a little traveling around the past few days. We went to East Berlin where President Reagen made his famous plea: "Mr. Gorbachav, tear down this wall!" Well, guess what, we found no evidence of the wall and no evidence of it ever even being in East Berlin, PA. Our youngest, Brandon, once visited into East Berlin, GE when he was on an exchange program with a German school. The family he was staying with lived in Berlin, and the father, Dr. Kandlebinder, often would travel to East Berlin, past the wall to conduct business there. The West Germans, from what I hear, were not thrilled with the wall coming down as the East Germans lived under socialism and expected the gov't to take care of them. When the wall came down, they expected the same to continue.

We visited Gettysburg a couple of times, once to do some genealogy and once to go see a movie. More about the movie later. We drove through the Gettysburg battlefield along Seminary Ridge where the Union soldiers held the high ground against the Johnny Rebs. Lots of monuments and markers where the different state militias, armies, soldiers, regulars, volunteers, whatever they called themselves, were holed up for the fight. We will have to go back and take a tour of the battlefield to really get a good understanding of what happened on the 3rd of July 1863.

Now to the movie. We made a specific trip to the Gettysburg Gateway Cinema center to go to a movie. When we got there at 520 p. the next movie to be shown was called Field of Freedom. It started at 530p. We got our tickets, I made a pitstop, if you know what I mean, and Corinne got popcorn and a soda. We got to theatre #2, if your are keeping score at home, and the film was already in progress, but just started. We thought the theatre was empty because we didn't see anyone else, and the lobby was empty except for workers. Anyway, Corinne said she thought we were the only ones there. I agreed and asked if she wanted to get naked and watch the movie. She said OK. But, we didn't, which was a good thing because when the movie was over, 1/2 and hour later, there was an older couple seated right behind us. Yikes! that would have been embarassing (for them), not us, we have seen each other naked, so no surprises there. Now, we certainly did not expect the feature lenght, $8 per person Field of Freedom movie to be only 1/2 and hour long, so when it ended at 6 p, we thought we must have gone into the wrong movie theatre and just caught the end of the movie. We sat there as more people came into the theatre for the next showing and we decided we will just stay and watch the movie when it restarted. Well, when the movie started, it began right where we came into the theatre at 530p. Hmmmm, something not right here. We watched the movie, again, and I thought about standing up at the end and asking everyone if they, like us, thought they paid $8 good American dollars to see a full length feature film. But, I didn't, restraining myself since I have made a jackass of myself on an ocassion or two...or 40 times. What we actually thought at the first viewing was the movie was one of those that starts at the end and then they give a retrospective of what lead up to the point they started the movie at.

Anyways, the movie gave a good overview of what happened on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg, so now, when we go to the battlefield, it will make more sense.

Odd-servations:
1) There is a brewing company in Gettysburg called Gettysbrew. Cool name...wonder what it tastes like?

2) Driving on a road out of the campground, the speed limit changed from 55 to 45 as we approached a cemetery. There appeared to be no other reason for the reduced speed other than ghosts must walk slower across the road than non-ghost.

3) It is against the law in PA to sell postcards. Well, not really, but just try to find one in a Walgreens or CVS store or Wally-World or ???? As former President George Herbert Walker Bush says: "Not gonna do it."

We went to Philadelphia on Friday and took I-76 which is also known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike. You have to pay to drive on it. It is about the worst road to drive on, bumps, holes, speed limits that rise and fall for no known reason, and they charge people to use it. Something wrong here. I think when I get back to Phoenix, I will organize a Phx. based protest the use of the PA turnpike and encourage everyone in the Phx. area not to drive on it. We'll see just how long it takes them to fix it, then.

At Philly (I call it Philly), we ate at the Reading (pronounced Redding, for some reason) Marketplace. It is adjacent to the convention center and has about 50 or so food places, beer hall, farmer's market, steaks, seafood, baked goods from the Amish, etc, etc. etc. We ate at Ricky's Steaks which sells Philly Cheese Steak sammiches. I got a Works sammich and Corinne got a Chicken Parmasaen sammich. Not too bad, but I wouldn't say it was the best I've ever had, because I haven't found one that I would consider the best, yet. We also go ice cream in a cup and took a blueberry/peach pie home for later on.

We took a bus tour of the downtown and points of interest. Was a pretty good tour, except we could hardly hear the guide over the noise of the bus engine and the yakitty-yak women sitting behind us talking about everything but what was on the tour. We moved to a different seat when one opened up and could hear the guide and not the yakitty-yaks. I would recommend, if you visit Philly, to take the bus tour. Saw lots of sights we would have not seen and got some behind the scenes info on stuff.

We went to see Constitution Hall and the Liberty Bell and the national park site in downtown Philly. At Const. Hall, we had a national park guide whom we could hardly understand because of his accent. Don't know what country he was from, but my guess is Massachuchetts. He was kind of wierd, too, zipped his jacket up while inside, but unzipped it to go out. Corinne said he reminded her of someone, but I don't recall who she said it was. Probably Junior Earnhardt.

Giving a shout out to Donna S. who left us a voice mail on Friday cause she didn't know where we were. Donna, we are in Dover, Pennsylvania.

On Friday night, it rained most of the night. During the night, we were suddenly awakened by a loud pop or two or more. We both thought maybe we were being fired upon or someone was throwing rocks at our coach. I finally determined it was acorns falling off the oak trees we are parked under. We cannot figure out why they sound so loud when they hit the roof, but its like a gun going off.

We were forced to move from space 232 to space 105 because some other schmoe wanted to our site. I told "Mr. Park Ranger, Sir" longterm visitors to the campground ought to have priority over some smuch who only wants to be here on Saturday and Sunday, forcing the weekly camper to move so they can campout. Government of the people, for the people, by the people, except, not all the time. Sounds like my experience at the House...the rules apply to everyone, but not just all the time, tho. Anyway, the point of mentioning moving to site 105 is we don't get Dish Network satellite 119, so we can't watch the NASCAR race today.

Met some really nice folks yesterday while we were trespassing on their land. Actually, we thought it was public land as it was across the road from a house and is an old cemetery. The people were really nice, named Bushey. Their ancestors came here in the 1700, and although the cemetery is named after their family, they have nobody living or dead buried there. I knew a man named Bob Bushey when I worked in Buckeye, (Western Gateway to Danger) AZ. Bob owned or leased Tonopah Chevron service station in Tonopah, AZ. Anyways, we stood and chatted with the folks for quite awhile (I thought maybe they were stalling us until the sheriff got there or something.) They were nice, and even offered to let us come to their house and clean up after scrounging thru their cemetery. We did find some Petit gravemarkers, which Corinne believes she has some relation to.

Well, I guess that's about all "I has to say" for today. Think I'll go outside and enjoy the mild 60 degree weather and think about all my friends back in "old HOT Sticker-Town."

Bobo