Our Camping Weekend

September 25th - Sunday - Sunny

We have just returned from our last SMART Muster of the year. This one was held at White Oak Campgrounds in Quarryville, PA which is about three miles from Strausburg, PA. This is one of my very favorite places in Pennsylvania.

We left home at 10:00 on Thursday morning and arrived at the camp ground at 3:00 pm, it was overcast and much warmer than at home. We were able to get set up and we all met for dinner at a club house close to our campsites and enjoyed catching up on the happenings with everyone since we last met and some of us played games and some played cards and come just chatted. We dined on home made chili that our hosts had supplied and it was really tasty and spiced just right. One of the members brought along cooked rice to put the home made chili over and that was a new one for me, but I found it also very tasty and very filling. For dessert we had carrot cake and pumpkin cake all very seasonable and again tasty for everyone.

There was a beautiful sunset that cast a beautiful glow on the clubhouse and we all remarked that perhaps the weatherman was wrong and we might have a good day on Friday, not the case. It started raining about 11:00 pm and it continued all day night long and all day on Friday. In fact, I never left the RV during the day. I was able to get caught up on the reading of many blogs that I had not had time to read in some time, answered some e-mail that I was behind in and Lou finished a book he was reading and started on a new one.

We did notice that the horse and buggies still traveled up and down the road that went past the entrance to our campground and I shall never tire watching the Old Order Amish. I have great admiration for all of them, it dates back to my Uncle George and Aunt Wilma that lived in Ephrata and they instilled in us their great admiration for them. Aunt Wilma great up in Blue Ball among them and learned to cook as they did and thankfully, many of her recipes have been passed down and we still enjoy them as favorites to this day.

Friday night, we all ventured out in the rain and drove three miles to Hershey Farm Restaurant to have dinner. Some ordered their dinner, as I did and some had the smogs board as Lou did. Both of us enjoyed our dinner. I had roast turkey with stuffing, and Lou had everything imaginable.

On Saturday, it was overcast and I was determined that we were going to do something after spending the money for gas and fee for camping, so I went on line to see if I could get tickets for Sight and Sound to see Joseph and I was fortunate enough to find two tickets at the 1:00 pm performance, so I purchased them and we quickly had a bit of lunch and left and we are so glad that we did. It was a wonderful production. The strange part is, I am reading a book by Pastor John Hagee, Can America Survive, and I am to the part where God gave Egypt to Joseph. Therefore, it all played out together.

Last evening, we had out pot luck dinner, then we played games and cards until 10:00. Lou and I played Rook with the Youngs and had a great time. That was my father's favorite card game, so that brought back a lot of good memories.

I was in hopes that I could see the families as they were going to church this morning; however, it so foggy we couldn't even see the highway, so all Lou and I could do was to pray for their safety as they traveled and we decided to await the lifting of the fog before we left for home.

We enjoyed our trip home and especially the fall foliage, and I couldn't resist taking pictures on the way home. We are off again next weekend and that should be a pretty weekend, where we can enjoy the leaves. Hopefully with no rain.

A Visitor From Louisiana

September 22 - Thursday

This has been a very busy and eventful month thus far. We h ave had an abundance of rain, part of it has been from Hurricane Lee which left us with over five inches of rain. Once again out barn lot was flooded and kept us from cutting the grass for over a week.

I have replanted lettuce in many different varieties hoping to have a nice fall crop. Our green beans and cucumber are still rendering weekly pickings and our green peppers are blooming again. We have been cutting the grass twice a week again, almost like spring again.

We have been enjoying the f all mums and our roses are more beautiful now than they were in the summer.

I have been looking forward to my girl friend's visit for six months. She flies in from Louisiana twice a year and we had chosen the weekend of the 16th of September way back in May not knowing that a death in the family would change plans, so after making changes we finally got together on the 18th after church and Trish, Lou and I went to the Wheel Club for dinner then Lou wanted to do some exploring so we traveled on some back roads we had never traveled, arriving home after dark, but having a great day.

Trish and I spent the next day doing what we love to do, looking a real-estate and of course, it wouldn't be a day of exploring for us if we didn't get lost, but this time, it was rather interesting, we thought we were in Texas, we found Long Horned Steers, Trish thought their hair dos matched hers!!

All in all it was a great day and it ended too quickly and she was on her plane heading back to Baton Rouge to return again in the Spring. Both of us having added a few extra pounds from the wonderful desserts we found, but maybe we laughed several of them off, as we sure laughed a lot in the few days we spent together.

She also got to see baby Matthew and he thought she was pretty special also, as we all do, it is great to have him just next door, and he even goes to church with us, and on Sunday he crawled from me to get to his Grandpa, who Matthew thinks is pretty special.

We are off to Quarryville for a SMART campout. In the heart of the Amish

country.

RV is Repaired Finally

September 4th Sunday Warm and Humid

After a long battle with Camping World in Bath, New York - We finally have our motor home back home and have most of the repairs completed. Lou left here last Monday telling me goodbye and stating he would return when he had the repairs completed. He called me on Monday night to tell me that he would not be returning. Thankfully, I had sent him on his way with a refrigerator stocked with food and drink, from the weekend of square dancing in Morris, for our annual square dancing get together.

When they finally did the trouble shooting on the mattress they found that someone in the Winnebago assembly plant had made a mishap installing the mattress and tried to patch the mattress and glued and clamped the mattress only to find that it did not hold, thus the reason for the mattress to fail and the reason for the problems with my back pain. I was not a pleased camper!! At 5:00 pm on Tuesday Lou called me to tell me the replacement mattress had not arrived and he would not be home on Tuesday night and as we were talking, the part arrived, so the kind gentleman, Kevin that was working on the motor home stayed over and replaced the mattress and Lou did get home late on Tuesday evening.

Several things still have not been finished; however, the parts will be sent to us here at home and Lou can complete the job here at home. This has been going on since the 16th of June. We certainly could not suggest any of our friends take the route we have taken for these repairs.

Lou went to his house to help Preston work in the basement on Thursday, so I took advantage of the day and got the outside of the motor home washed down, polished the tires and wheels and washed the windows and after Lou returned we got it into the barn for safe keeping until our next scheduled outing on the 22nd and the 30th of September. Thankfully, I was able to get the inside cleaned on Wednesday.

While Lou was gone I went into overload mode and worked like I used to do prior to knowing Lou and did I get a lot accomplished. All of the grass got cut, the weed eating is finished, mums purchased and planted, decorated for fall, garage washed down,decks washed, laundry and ironing caught up from camping, car washed and cleaned out, correspondence caught up and filing done.

It looks like we are going to have an early fall, so feels good to have a start on our fall jobs. I want to start the painting of the board fence this week, also have the little barn to paint and the grass needs to be cut again.

Lou and I took the day off yesterday and went to the Williamsport Mall yesterday, I had gotten him a couple pair of dress slacks when Michelle and I went school shopping and I had picked up the wrong length, so we returned them and picked up a new pair of shoes for him and we ended up at Borders to check out their final sale and of course had to purchase several new books. We are in hopes to go to Florida much earlier this year, so want to have extra books on hand this year. I found a book that I started last evening that I will enjoy that Pastor John Hagee wrote, Can America Survive? Probably shouldn't have started it, as we sat up in bed reading it late last night, and had to get up early for the Fly-In Breakfast this AM!!

We took time yesterday to tour Grizzly"s Tools yesterday, what fun that was, made me want to take a class in wood working again. It was a neat day, we ended our day with dinner at The Red Lobster, (Thanks Preston) this is always special and our meal was wonderful, never had a bad meal there. We both had broiled fish platter, and Lou had a peppered steak added to his fish platter.

It was dark when we drove home and there was lightening all around and the sky was just beautiful, just had to have a picture of the sky as we left Williamsport.