Escaping Bad Weather

Well, we left New York amid snow flurries and escaped to Pennsylvania where we found about 2" of snow on the ground. We kept heading south where we had glorious weather for a few days, then hit a Nor'Easter on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and hunked down in a Wal Mart parking lot for the night. Is it time to go home yet? NOOOO!!!!

As long as we were so close to Hershey, Pennsylvania, we decided we really needed to see where our favorite chocolate is made. So, we took the tour and bought some goodies. Hershey is a phenomenal town where Mr. Hershey was the moving force behind the community: a home for orphaned/abandoned boys, a sophisticated medical facility, and employee housing....all done in red brick with white trim. Truly a beautiful town. The Hersheys never had any children of their own and left a good portion of their fortune to the continuation of the boys home. We would have liked to go to the museum, but it is currently being renovated. It was such fun to see how the Kisses are made! Not what I would have thought...now I've got you guessing, huh?! And we think they "test" new products at the facility as we found cherry fondant and peanut butter Kisses there that we've not seen elsewhere. (Yes, we shop for chocolate on the road!)

From Hershey, we went to a far more sobering place: Gettysburg. Many of our National Parks have brand new visitor centers and displays. For a World's Fair around the turn of the last century, an artist depicted the Gettysburg battle on a huge elliptical canvas. That canvas has been restored and placed in a circular theatre where we felt we were right on the battlfield with all the soldiers. We walked through Gettysburg National Cemetery at dusk. Clint wishes he'd brought his flute to play an homage to all who had fallen. We stood on the site where Abraham Lincoln stood to share his Gettysburg Address with the crowd. Very moving. We felt so badly for the town of Gettysburg who had thousands of injured and dead to care for at the close of the three-day battle. The town of Gettysburg is beautifully historic and full of life. Good to see.

And since we're curious to learn how things are made, we went to the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and the Harley-Davidson assembly line in York, Pennsylvania. (Clint can't get enough of those Harleys!) The Martin Guitars have been made since 1833 and is still owned by the Martin family. The museum showcased guitars, mandolins, and banjos made by the Martin factory...especially those owned by more famous artists like Elvis, Eric Clapton, and Joan Baez. The guitar shown in the photo in this blog is nearly completely inlaid with mother of pearl. A true work of art.

Then it was time to head to the Shenandoah National Park where we drove the Skyline Drive (much like the Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier National Park and the Rocky Mountain ridge road) along the tops of the mountains (such as they are at 3,500 feet). We camped in the National Park and saw lots of squirrels and deer--some with 10-point antlers! Believe it or not, we're STILL among colored leaves. This has been quite an autumn!

Since I've always been a big fan of Thomas Jefferson, I was anxious to see his home--Monticello. We were able to tour it on a hot, sunny day and with a fabulous tour guide who really made Jefferson's intelligence come to life for us. In the lobby of Monticello, we saw some of the treasures brought back to Jefferson by Lewis & Clark. Amazing! This home was styled like many of the plantations of its day with the "dependencies" (kitchen, smokehouse, wine cellar) under or to the side of the house. In fact, Jefferson devised a pulley system to bring bottles of wine from the cellar to the dining room! My kind of guy! Our next stop was Michie Tavern, in existence since 1784, and still serving meals and ale. It's a gorgeous building full of history.

The next day, we headed to the Colonial Triangle: Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown. But along the way, we discovered Shirley Plantation--the ancestral home of Robert E. Lee. It is the oldest plantation in America, founded in 1632 on the banks of the James River. Believe it or not, the last surviving family member of the Lee family still lives in the upstairs portion of the mansion. The most interesting story we learned about his particular plantation occurred during the height of the Civil War. The men had all gone off to fight the war and two women (Robert E. Lee's grandmother and aunt) were left with some of the slaves. After a serious battle nearby, General McClellan of the Northern Army decided to use the home and grounds as a hospital. Without sharing the family tree, the women helped the soldiers and when McClellan's army moved on, he left orders that not a head be harmed on Shirley Plantation. Had he known this was Robert E. Lee's grandparents home, would have done so? We'll never know.

We found Williamsburg to be interesting...especially the bits we learned about trials and wigs! Did you know "Powder Rooms" were originally made for men to powder their wigs and shake off the excess? Not for women to powder their noses! We enjoyed the fife and drum corps. The young people have been playing and marching there for 50 years. Very moving. Williamsburg was the first capital of Virginia and, once the Jamestown settlers grew weary of fighting the swamps and mosquitos, Williamsburg became their new home, too. The archaeology work being done in Jamestown is very surprising. One always thinks of digging going on elsewhere in the world--not in our own back yards.

From Jamestown, we took the free ferry (take a note Washington!) across the James River to an old-fashioned restaurant, The Virginia Diner, that has been existence since 1929 and partook of some traditional southern food: collards, hush puppies, southern fried chicken. Yummy! Needless to say, no dinner was required that night. And it's a good thing 'cause that's when we hit the Nor'Easter on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The wind and rain blew so hard as we crossed the bridge over the Albemarle Sound that Clint put the truck in 4-wheel drive for extra traction. The weather hadn't seemed that bad until that point--just a bit of rain and a breeze. But, boy, once we got on the Outer Banks, it was a different story. Since we didn't want to cross that bridge again, we got as far as Kitty Hawk and learned all about those boys from Dayton, Ohio, who asked the National Weather Service where the windiest places in America were. Sixth on their list was Kitty Hawk (I hate to find out where the top 5 were!) where they so bravely explored the skies. Since we learned from the locals that those who live on the Outer Banks would rather have a hurricane blow through than a Nor'Easter, we wondered why. Well, the hurricane blows hard for an hour, then it's done. A Nor'Easter beats the shore for 5-6 days. At that point, we figured we weren't going to be able to tour the Outer Banks down to Hatteras as we'd hoped. So, we parked the truck in the lea of the big movie theatre building and went inside to watch "Nights at Rodanthe" which took place right down the road out of our reach. So, we did the best we could.

We slept pretty well that night behind a bank of trees in the WalMart parking lot and left via Roanoke Island bridge the next morning. It was still blowing like crazy and the road down to Hatteras was still closed--bulldozers needed to plow away the sand from the highway. And within 30 minutes, we found ourselves in the sunshine and headed to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where we wanted to tour the Airborne Museum on the Fort Bragg base. I was beyond bummed, though, when I learned that their simulator was broken. I was really looking forward to feeling like I was jumping out of airplanes, being yelled at by a drill sergeant, and trying to survive amid gunfire. Oh well...the museum was still VERY well done and told the stories of the airborne troops from WWII through current day.

As I write this, I'm in the coziest, most beautifully-outfitted library yet! Bishopville, South Carolina, where we'll tour the Cotton Museum and topiary gardens. I asked Clint to take a few photos, so you might see it on the next installment. Until then...