I find it hard to believe how many days have passed since last I wrote here. I’ve driven over 2400 miles on unfamiliar roads, visited all kinds of interesting places, renewed old friendships and established more new ones – and it’s nearly time to leave this vast country. I’m sure I’ll be back!
So- back to Pennsylvania where we spent a day exploring Amish country and discovering American outlet shopping before setting off for Michigan and the wedding that had brought us here.
I loved the change of pace in Pennsylvania ‘Dutch’ country where horses pulled carts and the ladies in their early 1900s style dresses rode scooters or bicycles, the children seemed carefree, unencumbered by the demands of their peers and technology, – but that was just a superficial impression, the truth may be different.
Our first stop that day was in a small town called Intercourse where we ate the best soft dough pretzels I’ve ever tasted in a tiny bakery called Immergut. I chose cinnamon sugar but Somjit opted for garlic- both were pretty potent and the coffee shake I had was the best to date. Sitting outside the little bakery was a great spot to people watch as families drove their carts to the bank or the store opposite us. Going into the haberdashery next door was a treat, too! Crochet hooks were a quarter of the price we paid in D.C. and yarn was cheap so Somjit stocked up!! I took photographs!
Then we moved on to the Tanger outlets near Lancaster and found some really good buys, so we were hooked! Since that day, we have to stop whenever we see an outlet and know we have time to spare. Without spending a fortune we bought clothes we liked, many of which have been worn through the rest of the trip. It was interesting to see how great the reductions were: I bought a number of items at about one-quarter of their original cost and I believe I got good value. I’m certainly enjoying wearing many of the buys.
That evening saw us back at the hotel in Morgantown: fantastic restaurant and reception staff who could not have been more helpful. The food was simple, the choice quite limited but what was there was good. We had a really lazy evening and set off early after breakfast the next day to visit the glassblower before beginning the journey to Muskegon.
Note to self: next time, bring fewer clothes, buy more.
We both enjoyed meeting the glassblowers – husband and wife, who had been neighbours of our friends for years and and who had been at the party a couple of nights previously. Although it was early, we were shown how to blow the glass, warned about the dangers of the heat and able to enjoy the lovely pieces in the showroom – and to buy some to take home. Permanent reminders of a pleasant few days in Pennsylvania.
We headed for Route 30 again to take us through more Amish country to Gettysburg. It was an easy drive past many fields of maize and farms that could have come straight out of a book of illustrations of stereotypical early twentieth century American stories. Advised to stop at New Holland to enjoy their Smorgasbord, we did – and were amazed at the cost and the amount of food. For $12 people were piling their plates high. We were fairly moderate and still felt no real need to eat later in the day.
Gettysburg was near enough for me to feel we must visit, so we decided to make that our first overnight stop en route for Muskegon. We didn’t regret that. The site of the battle has been very well marked and there are memorials to soldiers of the different states all around the vast area. There is also the national cemetery where Lincoln made his famous (at the time perhaps considered infamous for its brevity) Gettysburg address. According to the New York Times comments included:
Chicago Tribune: “The dedicatory remarks by President Lincoln will live among the annals of man.”
Chicago Times: “The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances.”
Springfield (Mass.) Republican: “Surprisingly fine as Mr. Everett’s oration was in the Gettysburg consecration, the rhetorical honors of the occasion were won by President Lincoln. His little speech is a perfect gem; deep in feeling, compact in thought and expression, and tasteful and elegant in every word and comma. Then it has the merit of unexpectedness in its verbal perfection and beauty… Turn back and read it over, it will repay study as a model speech. Strong feelings and a large brain are its parents.”
New York Times. Friday, November 20, 1863.
What did the President actually say?
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Brief and to the point, some might say. There are some pretty important principles in those few words!
Before moving on the next morning, we went back to see the scene at a different time of day – and were just as impressed as we had been the first time. The driving tour is certainly worth doing if you want to gain an impression of all that happened there – and I am no historian!
Surprisingly, I’d have been happy to stay longer – but we’d begun to think we would need to cover a good few minkes the next day, so we didn’t linger. The weather predictions were not good and we’d already had a power cut the previous night – much to Somjit’s amazement: ‘I didn’t come all this way for a power cut!’! No, she didn’t there was a wedding to look forward to still….
Living the Journey 