August 15th - Monday - Rainy We have just returned from a weekend in Southern Pennsylvania at a SMART Muster. This is the first one that Lou and I have been able to attend. This was held at Sill's Family Campground which is located near Ephrata, PA. I always enjoy this trip as this is familiar territory to me. My aunt and uncle lived in Ephrata and as a child we visited them often and I always enjoyed the country and and the Pennsylvania Dutch.
It was good to touch base with the other SMART members, many we had not seen since last October when we met at this same location. We have two members that live here year round and they open up there home to all of us. This year we were all able to camp near their home and enjoyed their back yard each evening for a campfire and listening to "war" stories and the happenings of the past year.
Our hosts, June and Steve along with Joan and Bill provided us with a welcoming dinner on Thursday night and Friday evening we all met at 4:30 and drove to a local restaurant for dinner. I chose liver and onions and the portions were huge, many of us carried home boxes to be enjoyed later. Friday was Lou's birthday, so as we gathered by the campfire, we celebrated his birthday by enjoying his favorite cake, German Chocolate. The group gave him a card that they had all signed that even included a dog, as Estee is always along as one of the group. Lou is the one remaining charter member of our group.
On Friday, some of the members that didn't come to camp drove down to spend the day with us, one was Fred Winner and his wife Joyce, Fred is the wood carver and he brought some of his more recent projects. The Goldfinch is one of the birds that he had entered into competition and had won a blue ribbon on, if you could see the detail you could understand why. The other thing he has been carving is golf balls. He does them often for golf tournaments. We all thought they were rather interesting.
Saturday was a free day and we relaxed and chatted with different folks and decided after lunch to go for a ride. We ended up doing some Christmas shopping for the great-grandchildren. Arriving back to the Clubhouse in time for our scheduled Pizza party and a down pour of rain, which continued throughout most of the evening.
Janet and Brion drove out from Camp Hill later in the evening to bring Lou his birthday card, which was really cute with a flying airplane with an attached "happy birthday" greeting and his present. They also brought along fresh produce from their very prolific garden. It is always good to chat with them. They had finally gotten a weekend away from their many duties and spent some time at the beach.
We awoke Sunday morning to wet ground, but no flooding as many places had. We all quickly broke camp and we were on the road for home by 10:00 and arrived home around 4:00 yesterday afternoon.
We have many camping opportunities coming up. Square dancing campout is next, then another SMART muster, and back to Ives Run with friends the end of September into October. The RV goes back to Camping World the 30th of August for repairs, but still not the bed, the saga of the bed continues!!!
Now we are going to work outside and get things done there, have a fence to get scrapped and painted, bushes to get trimmed, house to get washed down, windows to wash, cause you know what winter is coming......
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