Intercourse, Pennsylvania

Today's post could be a study in contrasts from the last three days. We were transported from the land of glass and steel into the land of plain and simple. We left Jersey City, New Jersey, and traveled the turnpikes most of the way to our RV park in Ronks, Pennsylvania. Ronks happened to have the RV park, but Intercourse is our destination in Lancaster County. We passed by Newark along the way. You can see it off in the distance. It is heavily industrial all around.

We had to take a ticket at a toll booth on the way out of town. We drove approximately 60 miles when we passed through another booth, turned in our ticket and were asked to pay $33.45. Yikes!!

From there, we crossed over a tall bridge

that took us over the Delaware River, and, we presume, across the state line into Pennsylvania.

It's the second time we've passed into Pennsylvania this trip, and neither time did we see a welcome sign. What's up with that Pennsylvania? How do you feel knowing you could be the only state in my blog to not have a welcome sign? Sheesh. No shortage of toll booths, however.

Here we drove about 20 miles more for the tidy sum of $10.45.

Our entire trip yesterday was about 140 miles, and we paid nearly $44 in tolls. How do working families afford this? Mike used to travel to New Jersey on business, and he knew a salesman there who traveled the roads frequently. He said his tolls for using the roads exceeded the cost of his lunches.

It wasn't long after passing by Philadelphia that we began seeing some barns. It was good to see them after such a long stretch of skyscrapers.

These were big farms...spread out...with lots of land.

Soon, we began to see the warning signs, letting us know we were in Amish country.

Not all of these farms are Amish, of course. Some have propane tanks and diesel-powered farm machinery that give them away.

As we pulled into the RV park, we saw this horse and buggy.

After we got settled, we had some lunch and Mike took a nap while I did some embroidery. As I sat listening, I could hear the clip-clop of horses hooves on the main road. When Mike was ready, we went out for a bit. As we left the RV park, we had to wait for these two to pass by before pulling out onto the road. The buggy in the rear was being driven by a child of about 5 or 6.

When we checked into the RV park, we inquired where one could obtain the best shoo-fly pie, and we were told this was the place.

Outside they had a huge stock of Indian corn

and pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Must be fall.

Inside, they gave us a sample of pie and then encouraged us to shop their souvenirs. Most of it was cheap, made-in-China crap, but I did like their display of kitties. These I resisted, but they were cute.

It's true I'm a sucker for anything cat. They had some Amish dolls...which I love...but these were poorly made. I examined them closely, and sure enough. Each was tagged: Made in China. Nevertheless, I did pick up a refrigerator magnet.

This one was actually made in the USA. This was the tag included in the packaging.

And as long as we were there...I definitely needed this. Please take your mind out of the gutter.

They let us sample their Shoo-Fly Pie, and it was good. We bought a 9-incher. This was the top of the box.

Here's how the pie looked inside. I've heard of shoo-fly pie, but it was our first time tasting it. If you're wondering what it's made from, here's a link to a recipe in the New York Times. There are lots of recipes online, but the New York Times rarely lets me down with their recipes.

The Amish can be seen everywhere on the roads. We needed to pick up some potatoes for our dinner.

And I'm just going to say right here that grocery shopping is the most painful part of RV travel. It makes sense, doesn't it? Even at home grocery shopping is painful. For all that I love cooking and baking, I hate the grocery shopping that goes along with it. At home, I know where the stores are, and I know my way around them. When we're on the road, it is sometimes surprisingly hard to find a grocery store. We looked and looked, and enlisted the support of our navigation unit and Google, but the closest one we could find was 20 minutes away in Lancaster. And here's the thing: along the way, we saw every single big box store and every single outlet mall you can name. At each of these commercial hubs, we looked for a grocery store and found none. How can so much commerce be transacted without the benefit of food?

Finally, we passed by a Walmart, and we absolutely HATE Walmart...except for overnight camping...then we love them. But, anyway, the potatoes were up so high I had to stand on tip-toes to reach them. I could barely see them, and the ones I could see were sprouting. Geez. I did manage to find a few that were still acceptable, and we picked up some oven cleaner. Our new rule is that we will only shop for non-food items at Walmart. If it goes into our mouths, we'll look elsewhere from now on.

Okay...so rant over. Just take a look at these beautiful kitties! They'll put you in a better mood. They're always tired when we arrive at a new place, but they're very glad to look out of the window and see something other than our neighbor's RV window.

It's ever so much more soothing to look out on an Amish farm.

Smitty seemed to want to get out of the trailer, but ran for cover every time I suggested he put on his harness. He does this. When we get to a new place, he wants very much to get out and explore and have some nibbles of grass. On the other hand, he's just fearful enough that the sight of the harness thrills him with dread. He'll probably guts up enough to get outside today.

Oh yes, and don't forget the shoo-fly pie.

It was a perfect way to end the day.

In a few hours, I'll be meeting up with my friend Robin, and we'll be spending the day on a quilt shop extravaganza. I'm warming up my debit card right now.