Meeting Friends and Surviving Pennslyvania

We left New Jersey and the eastern seacoast to join friends in Pennsylvania.  Our first stop was in Cordus State Park in Hanford, near Gettysburg.  Doug and April Almond drove up from West Virginia to meet us in the beautiful wooded area of eastern Pennsylvania.  Beautiful weather and great friends made our four day stop feel like a totally new vacation.  We think we have enough pretzels to last until we get back to Colorado since we made two trips to their Hanford Pretzel factory  company store.  If you ever get to Hanford, a must stop should be the Amish outlets if for no other reason than to eat at their restaurant  -- the food was all hand made with fresh eggs, meat and bread, it was  delicious, and cheap.  We decided that we should try our hand at disc golf - it was fun but think we will stay with regular golf (no golf carts with disc golf), but now we can remove that from our bucket list.  The state park had many walking trails and we almost got lost trying to follow a map that we later found out was wrong - a special thanks goes out to the hikers we met in the deep woods  that steered us back towards our motorhome.    What a great time but it passed all too quickly and we headed to Karthaus to meet Tom and Maryann for the second time on our eastern swing.  Karthaus is near State College, home of Penn State.  As we were traveling down I-80 we heard a thunk in the motorhome but nothing happened so we kept going down the interstate.  Our campground was on top of very large hill with a 7 % grade on a very narrow road --- BAM!  Our motorhome started to make extremely loud noise and immediately overheated.  We were broke down on a very narrow road with gravel trucks barreling up and down the hill.  Long story, short--- we picked up something on I-80 (remember the thunk) and it took out our clutch fan and the surrounding shroud, the water pump and we were faced with getting the motorhome repaired before the July 4th holiday.  Thank goodness Tom and Maryann were about 35 miles away staying with her mom in Karthaus.  We had to order parts from Alabama (overnight shipping ($$$$) to beat the July 4th closing of repair shops) and we stayed at Maryann's mom's home while repairs would be made to our motorhome.  The good news was Maryann's mom is a wonderful young lady who invited us to share her home, Tom and Maryann were perfect hosts and drove us around the beautiful countryside and we had a wonderful time exploring the "strippins" and the "camps" in central Pennsylvania.  The repairs were completed about 5:00 on July 3rd and we were on our way early on July 4th.  Since we were close to Ohio at that point we changed our plans and drove to Ohio to have Pat's brother check out our motorhome before we went too much further.  All was OK and we got to see a great July 4th celebration at Chas and Sharon's house put on by their daughter and son in law, Christian and  Kelsey.  The fireworks show they put on was better than some county fair's shows lasting over 45 minutes.  We left their house and drove up to the Kenton area to see George's family, play a few rounds of golf with his brothers, and hook up with friends in the Kenton area.

 

 

 

Our home at Cordus State Park, PA

 

Our friends from West By God Virginia, Doug and April Almond

Pat throwing a disc during our disc golf outing

A beautiful start to a walk in the woods, yes we got lost but it is now another great memory

 

Ouch...you never want to see your motorhome hooked up to a tow truck but it is just another  story to tell to our friends --- no one injured so this was just another adventure on our road to see the backyards of America

Pat with Tom and Maryann - We wanted to visit with them not necessarily stay in their mom's house with them, but they made us feel like family - it was great that they were there for us and we hope we were not too much of an inconvenience..

O-H-I-O

Tom is an Arizona Wildcat fan but who can resist?  BTW isn't that a big truck?

 

We saw a lot of these big fellows while touring the "strippins" around Karthaus

Eat your heart out Kris!

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That little lady between Pat and George is Maryann's young mother who invited us to stay with her while the motorhome was in repair.

Another great picture of Tom and Maryann Graue -- They are truly like our family and it's never a dull moment with these two -- thanks for putting up with us in three different places this summer!

Only one of several hundred shots, each better than the previous.  You can not image 45 minutes of non stop fireworks in Chas and Sharon's backyard!

 

 

 

Pat barely got in the picture with George's family - l to r... sister Patsy and  Bob, Connie - Max's wife, Paula and brother Chuck, Karen and brother Dick relaxing before the big meal.  A night out for the Cannode family!

 

Aunt Martha and Pat...She is sharp as a tack and looks younger than her 96 years.

 

George, Bobbi Wiley, and Pat  

 Bobbi has been a friend for over 55 years .   Who else but a friend could put up with George for that long, except maybe Pat!!!!

 

Did we mention that David and April are going to have a baby girl?  Yippee!!! 

 

We are a little late posting this latest blog but with the change of plans, not having any cell phone or Internet service for about a month and just visiting and having fun have all taken a front seat to sitting down and recording our adventures.  Hope you all are having a wonderful summer.  We also hope you don't have any major disasters happening to you this year.  We have taken care of that  for you -- don't thank us, we are glad to handle that for you!!!