Hershey PA Upper Black Eddy, PA

It's been a few days since we posted, so I'll catch you up on Hershey. Delicious! Is that enough? Pennsylvania was absolutely gorgeous, with the rock walls, Victorian homes, and lush countryside. Every home appears to have a personal gardener with beautiful, cascading flower pots and gardens bursting with color.

After eating our fill of chocolate at Hershey's Chocolate World, we headed over to Lancaster in search of a restaurant run by Mennonite women. It was awesome! This past spring we went to Paula Deen's restaurant in Savannah...and it wasn't nearly as good for the price. Of course the Mennonite ladies have know idea who she is, so the compliment was lost on them.

Our next stop was the Upper Black Eddy, and the campground was one of the nicest we've ever seen, and we weren't afraid to put our clothes in the washer. It had a water fountain, a really nice putt putt course, and a fancy splash pool for the kids. We purchased some chinese lantern string lights for the trailer in the camp shop. This place rocks!

The next days' activity was probably the most comical of our trip--so far. We went tubing on the Delaware river! Imagine four adults and five kids in tubes for three freakin' hours!!! Oh, yeah.

This could have been great fun with a beer and one of those floating lawn chairs, but working our way in and out of the tube to rescue a kid or drag everyone over for the free hot dog was not easy, especially after having recent knee surgery.

A stint trying to get off a stone-covered shoal with Carsyn almost put us both over the edge. While Cheryl lost the over/under on a pair of sunglasses I bought for Carsyn, it was actually me who lost them in the melee. When we finally got ourselves free, Carsyn spent the next 10 minutes crying for her daddy, and when I couldn't get her back in the tube to cross some rapids, her little fanny dragged across the rocks and that was it for her.

To reiterate: this is the kind of outing that needs to be enjoyed with beer and NO CHILDREN. Until my kids can fend for themselves, we'll stick to the lazy river at the water park.

The next day we went to the Crayola Factory in Easton, then on to Bethlehem to shop at the Moravian Book Store. Heavens, the shopping up here is really great. Now I know what Raleigh is trying to achieve with the shopping, etc. Every little town up here, it seems, has a robust shopping district. Even the small communities have specialty shopping, ie. antiques, coffee, etc.

On to Saratoga Springs!!!

Camp Ramblings

If you've never camped in a trailer campground before, I recommend it be added to your bucket list, along with more lofty goals such as climbing Mount Everest or sailing around the Greek Isles (wink wink Jay and Alicia).

It's a true study in humanities. You have your high-dollar rigs, like mom and dad's, and you have everybody else.

The big rigs usually have a nice screen porch with chairs, tables and a little sign out front announcing their name and where they're from. They are often out walking their teacup doggies.

Everyone else is the middle-class set, and it appears that they travel with no less than 10 to 15 to a trailer. It should be noted, however, that even the trailers aren't cheap. You can't even get a small pop-up for less than $4K, and most pull-behind campers are in the $15K an up range. I guess if everyone pitches in together...

Anyway, most have set up elaborate campsites complete with decorative lights, camp chairs, screened porches, makeshift kitchen set ups, and fake flower arrangements. The adults are usually slung back in one of the camp chairs zoning or people watching... I suspect that most are trying to take their mind off of a factory job they left behind for the week.

The kids, on the otherhand, are busy. If they aren't in the pool or running in and out of their camper, they are riding their bicycles, round and round the campground. They also love a campfire, especially if there are marshmallows and sticks around.

Clothing is optional. If you've ever been to Emerald Pointe Water Park, you know what I'm talking about. Lots of cleavage and tattoos that most of us would rather not see. Not even a hormonal teenage boy would enjoy some of the skin we have seen. Ladies, keep it under wraps, please!!

All this said... Cheryl and I really need to trick out the trailer. We have no pink flamingo lights, no fake bouquet and no matching lawn chairs. I can probably yank my tank top down a bit because we like to think we are the best-looking people out here.

Awww heck. We're rednecks, aren't we? Friends, I'm sure you've been afraid to tell us all this time, and we surely appreciate it, but from the looks of our dirty, beat-up kids with stringy hair, riding their bicycles around the campsite and playing with fire, we are just one string of tacky lights away from fitting right in.

Baltimore, Annapolis, and Gettysburg

We've only been away four days, and we've already hit three destinations -- quite a contrast to last year's trip out west. We spent a day in Annapolis, seeing the harbor, touring the Naval Academy, and eating crab cakes. The Naval Academy was beautiful...if you looked closely, the decoration on the buildings had naval themes, with boats, fish, and rolling waves. John McCain attended here, as did Ross Perot and Jimmy Carter.

The shopping alone was worth another visit someday, and, of course, when you're travelling with children, there's no time to shop.

Baltimore was wet, and the children learned a new term: panhandler. We focused most of our time on the Chesapeake Bay-area of the city, touring the USS Constellation (civil war-era sailing ship) and a submarine from WWII.

We packed up and headed to Gettysburg for a day touring the battlefields and a brand-new museum. As we passed through the town, Cheryl and I salivated at the sight of more cute stores... no... we are here to honor the dead... so get on to the battlefield, people!

It was an awesome sight. The shear number of monuments erected on the 10-square-mile site a testament to the importance of this place in our country's history. Tens of thousands of men died over a four-day period. It's still hard to believe that American men could just run at each other like that. Honestly, you really need a couple of days to fully digest the magnitude of the battle and what was left for the people of Gettysburg to clean up afterwards.

We are now in Hershey, Pa. for two days. Thanks for traveling along with us!

Jennifer

Off to New England

To borrow a phrase from Willie Nelson....

"We're on the road again. Here we are back on the road again. Our friends and family think we've lost our minds, but then, we can't wait to be on the road again!"

The Holland extended family crew is back on the road this summer, and while we saw a lot of corn in 2007, we expect this trip will be marked by lots of traffic.

We have headed north for three weeks, with a northern-most destination of Bar Harbor, Maine. On the first day (yesterday) we made it all the way to Annapolis, Maryland, with few complaints. Even the campground is fairly decent. I don't know if we've just lowered our expectations or if the "new" of traveling has just worn off or if I am just a little more excited about our itinerary, but it seems that we just got in the car and took off this time. No drama, no nothing, just gassed up and went.

That said, my mother spend two weeks cooking ahead of time, and Cheryl bought new tires and a vanity plate for her pull-behind camper, so I'm sure someone put in some work before we piled in.

This year, we should be posting a lot more, as I have an Alltel wireless internet connection. No more connecting in the laundry room, middle of a field, or at the mercy of a coot in the middle of nowhere. Where is the fun in this trip???? It's only the second day... I'm sure there's an overnight in a Wal-Mart parking lot somewhere in our future.

It's time to shower our dirty children. I will post pictures from our day in GORGEOUS Annapolis, MD tomorrow.

Ode to the Fish

We have two fish: Mr. Fish and Mister Fish. Mr. Fish is a big, fat, fantail and Mister Fish is a black moor who has a swim bladder condition that causes him to spend most of his day floating upside down. When people come to visit, we have to explain to them up front that Mister Fish is not dead, just resting until he regains his equilibrium. I don’t know what is more sad: Mister Fish floating helplessly while being pelted by the water flowing from the filter, or Mister Fish trying in vain to swim down to the bottom for a morsel of food, only to have to give up and pop to the surface like a cork in the ocean.

Anyway, I started to write a song about our fish, which is an offshoot of a song our daughter, Carsyn, made up one afternoon in the car, titled, “Old Darn Fish.” It goes like this:

Old Darn Fish, Everytime our eyes meet
Old Darn Fish, They want something to eat
Old Darn Fish, One swims upside down
Old Darn Fish, While the other swims around

I know, pretty bad. Today, something happened that prompted me to scrap the song and write a short children’s story instead. Here goes:

Two fish—Mr. Fish and Mister Fish—lived together in a spacious albeit sometimes untidy aquarium. Somedays, Mister Fish would get this strange sensation that caused him to float upside down while Mr. Fish just kept on swimming, swimming, swimming, never offering him any help.

To most people, Mister Fish looked dead, but he wasn’t. Until one day, he was.

The end.

I would like to say that Mr. Fish misses Mister Fish, but so far he has said nothing of the sort and continues to swim around as if nothing is wrong. Go figure.

Hold my hand, PLEASE!

It was bound to happen, and today my six-year-old son decided to cut the public apron strings by passing up an opportunity to hold my hand on the way into school.
Not willing to miss an opportunity to embarrass him, I called out loudly to the principal who was standing by the door.

"Mrs. Swaim, Mrs. Swaim!" I called out. "This young man needs to go to the office for failing to hold his mother's hand on the way into school."
Of course she played along, admonishing him for shunning the woman who carried him for nine months, labored for eight hours, and gave up countless hours of sleep to ensure his very existance.

Good thing I've been expecting this, as there was a time I, myself, had no parents. Sure, there was this "guy" who drove me to school in junior high school and insisted on a kiss in front of all of my friends. He was relagated to dropping me off a block away to ensure no one saw him.
Yes, I looked a lot like him. Yes, he was in my baby pictures... but father? No way.
Same with the lady who sometimes hung around too long when she dropped me off at the skating rink. The same guy sometimes picked us up from there, and often he showed up in work boots, army pants and a v-neck t-shirt. He was instructed to stand outside while Cheryl and I changed from our skates into our Candies high-heeled shoes (combined with the green eyeshadow) that made us look more stupid than he ever did.

I still wonder where along the way kids get the idea that the very notion of "having parents" is not cool. I mean, where do they think THEY came from? Do we need to start sex education a little sooner?

Who decided it was cooler to have parents who were "invisible" than a cohesive unit who actually cared?

Good thing this phase is usually fleeting. It turns out that my parents were quite popular among my friends, and by high school I was pleased to have them nearby.
Still, I will probably never forgive my father for his choice of clothing when picking us up at Skateland. He loved to embarrass us; it was a game to him that he enjoyed immensely.
And to my own son, Cameron, I say... let the games begin!

We are back

It has been two weeks since we arrived back home, and for some reason our last post does not show unless you click on August. I'm putting up this test message to see if it helps.

We had a great time and are already planning our next trip, possibly to New England. The kids are back in school and we are settling back into a routine. No sweeping Michigan soil out of the trailer in Wisconsin, etc. !