Monday morning started off really well. A few minutes before 9 it looked like we were going to be on the road to Pennsylvania and happily settled in at our cousin's house well before dinner. At 9 it was apparent that the slide - the one that was stuck IN a few weeks ago - was stuck OUT. This is not only deeply annoying, it means that we wouldn't be driving anywhere anytime soon.
I don't wish to belabor this point. Partly because I don't want you, dear reader, to endure this. Mostly, though, I don't want to think about it any more. In short, a mobile tech showed up and cranked it in manually; we spent much of the driving on the phone tracking down RV repair places and parts; we arrived at 10pm; we were at a repair place at 8:30 the next morning.
To the good, our 48 hour visit with cousins was doubled. This means twice as many evening conversations on a comfy living room sofa. This means twice as much time for our four kids and their two cousins.
To the bad, we faced an existential crisis on the foolhardiness of spending two months at the mercy of a flawed machine. Precious hours have been spent dealing with RV repairs.
Let's get to the adorable pictures.
On Tuesday night we went to our nephew Cameron's soccer game. Cam, a freshman, is playing for both JV and Varsity. He got playing time in both games and scored in the JV game. We brought the RV and did some honest to goodness tailgating (at a high school soccer game). It was terrific!
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| Cameron, in flight. |
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| Ali, Jon, Betty, Henry, Cate, Elise, Lily, Connor, Keith |
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| Lily and her cousin Connor |
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| Tailgating at Biglerville Canners soccer |
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| Keith, Kathy, Elise, Jon |
On Wednesday we toured the Gettysburg National Military Park. There are a lot of ways to do this and true fans would probably spend many days here, absorbing the nuances. We started at the recently-renovated visitor center, which is awesome. We took in the overview film (about 20 minutes) and then the famous cyclorama (about 20 minutes) and then tackled the cafeteria before venturing out in the 90+ degree heat. We focused on Little Round Top, in part because we had seen a monument to Josh Chamberlain in Camden, Maine. The kids completed the Junior Ranger Program here, as they had in Acadia and Massachusetts. It was a good day.
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| When you complete a park's junior ranger program, you get to take the junior ranger oath |
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| One piece of pre-departure advice was: look for things that kids can climb on. Check! |
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| Atop Little Round Top, where the strategic advantage of high ground is obvious |
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| Please open this panoramic shot to enjoy the view from Little Round Top |
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| Six of us in one picture! |
On Thursday, after several hours of school, Lily and Henry went with their great-aunt for a tour of an apple processing plant. Lily reported she chose the biggest apple to eat. I don't have a picture to prove it but the highlight of Henry's afternoon was 90 minutes of fishing in a farm pond, where he caught five sunfish.
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| Evidence against the future case that they hate each other. |
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| Lily ate an apple at it was THIS BIG. |
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| Where do all those shiny honeycrisp apples come from? My uncle's farm, if you're lucky. |
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| How 'bout them apples?! |
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| Where the apples are frozen and deprived of oxygen |
A few other parts of the Pennsylvania visit. A horse lives down the hill from our family's house.
But seriously. Here's a picture of the two things making us crazy. Coming soon to Yelp and Google is a review of the wonderful folks at John's RV and Trailer in Jacobus, Pennsylvania. They are everything you would hope for when you feel your entire trip is on the line.
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| Cylinder is the motor, which died. You can also see the chains/pulleys/cables, which "failed." |
What is it doing in the ceiling? Loved the apple farm pictures and everything else as well. I feel like the bad stuff is behind you at last-or will be tomorrow after the repairs are made.
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