SMART NATIONAL MUSTER - Centre Hall, PA

Special Military Active-Retired Travelers (SMART) National Muster

Centre Hall, PA

September 7th - Tuesday

Lou and I arrived at the Muster on Monday (Labor Day) around 3:00 pm. Good friends had saved us a spot as we were supposed to report on Saturday and opted to attend a family picnic to be able to see Lou’s grandson that was home from the service for the weekend. After the picnic we went to my daughter Susan’s house to see my grandson that just returned from a special schooling with the Marines, where he finished with a 96.8% grade. Travis, Noell and little Wyatt will be moving to a suburb of Philadelphia, so we are all thrilled with this aspect, as they will be much closer to home. After two tours in Iraq this is a very welcoming news.

After we arrived at our campsite, we got settled in and after saying hello to our many friends here, we had a quick supper, as we had missed lunch altogether. One of our friends came running over as we were finishing dinner and wanted us to come to their RV to play Hand and Foot, a new game that Lou and I learned at the last Muster. Sad for Shirley and I the guys beat us by 2,000 points. Oh well, we have a week to score victory.

We were all up early this am and Lou had parking duty and I was off to the First Aid station. One other nurse and myself are going to man the station from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm each day working in four hour shifts and them each of our RV’s will be the station in the evening.

Lou and I briefly met for a few minutes to have lunch together and he was off to off load the food for tomorrow. $500.00 spent at the grocery for lunch for everyone.

When I got back to the RV tonight we had an hour to grab some dinner and be ready to set out flags with two other guys at 6:30 pm. Steve had told about a great little place to eat, but when we got there found it was closed on Tuesdays, so we drove into town and ate at a new Italian Restaurant and their special for tonight was Shrimp Scampi and it was loaded with garlic, but was wonderful. It was served with a beautiful Italian salad and freshly baked garlic rolls. We just had to have the Factory Cheesecake with Raspberry sauce and two forks for dessert.

While Lou, Steve and Bill placed 84 flags in the ground, Estee and I took a long walk, checked out the shower houses, and tent city. You will note from the pictures, the huge number of tents that the fairgrounds put up for the fair. I understand that there is a waiting list for people to get into them. People even bring their televisions and such to use while here. The tents all have electric, rather amazing.

I am going to show pictures of the camping area as of today and tomorrow is the opening day, when we expect the majority of the people to check in. The whole day and evening are full of planned activities, starting at 6:00 am, so will try to keep you updated on the happenings. I don’t have internet coverage here, so will have to find someplace with WiFi.