October 9, 2022 Day 1 Philadelphia PA to Cumberland MD 234 miles
This day actually started very early in the morning. Connie’s flight from Minneapolis was over two hours late. They were waiting for a pilot to be flown in. She arrived at the hotel about 2 am. We did go to bed and slept in some so our driving start was later than usual. The car started without needing any assistance. It took us over an hour to get out of the suburb of Philadelphia and into the countryside. That was a welcome relief from the traffic and stop lights. We drove up and down hills and around curves. The roads are usually narrow. The trees are beginning to turn colors. Sometimes multiple colors on the same tree. Some are very bright reds, yellows, and oranges. Others are more dull. We passed through small towns, farms and forest. Horse jumping must be popular here. We saw more horses and a few small jumps in pastures. One however looked like a real steeplechase course. They had water hazards and jumps made of logs. There were also numerous horse trailers. We came to two short stretches of road that had large dots painted in the middle of the road. The sign said to keep two dots between cars. Must be a social distancing thing. A lot of trees along the road had dropped what we thought at first were apples. Turns out they were walnuts. Obviously people don’t want to bother picking them up, removing the outer husk, drying and cracking them. The wind has picked up to add to the driving hazards. The next area had an Amish population. We saw at least four buggies going down the road. One even had two horses pulling it. Most of these buggies had glass windows. We stopped for lunch at a local drive in. A lot of cars were there but most people were ordering ice cream of some kind. They had many flavors and ways to serve it. The current special is soft serve pumpkin and hot apple sundae. We tried the latter which was similar to eating apple pie ala mode without the crust. Rob had a cheese burger and Connie had a turkey melt. Now the turkey melt was quite different. It was served on a kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato, cheese and bacon. The turkey was several slices of deli turkey and all but the lettuce and tomato were hot. It was messy to eat but very delicious. Back on the road we saw several fields with larger than normal mules. They appeared to be a cross with some kind of draft horse. We wondered if the Amish used them as work animals. The radiator is leaking again so we stopped at Advanced Auto Parts for more stop leak. Rob put it in but the hole must be getting too big. The car continues to overheat. The going has been very slow because the engine just doesn’t have the power it used to have. Unfortunately that means it is getting dark. That really adds to making driving challenging. The car really overheated this time. It was too dark to see the temperature gauge. We pulled off the road and opened the hood. It’s too hot to add water. Eventually a man from West Virginia stopped to help. He pulled us to the nearby Love’s truck stop where we could get more water and be off the road. Rob added more water and we ate at the McDonalds there. We have about ten miles to go to get to the hotel. Luckily the car started and we were able to get there by about 10 pm. We were both very tired so it was straight to bed. FYI: The tracker is working again. The password is “Rob”.
Spoffords Travel 