The Allegheny Mts.

Day 2 went well only a five hour drive to Harpers Ferry. The Allegheny Mountains are beautiful.

More guidelines for the road trip, buy gas only from gas stations on the same side of road that we are traveling. Oddly, the only serious traffic jams we hit were in Massachusetts on Rt 495 all the way through to the Mass pike exit. So far the rest of the trip as been nice. 

I know this is only Pennsylvania but I am already noticing differences. At one of our two hour marks we stopped at a convenience store to use the restroom and there was a whole line of what appeared to be slot machines. I asked the clerk and she said they were indeed gambling machines. The rest of the country may be far more religious than New England, but we are far more  puritanical. At 10am there were three people at these machines. Is it really necessary to be gambling at a convenience store before lunch?

However, I am also noticing how much towns are committed to parks and recreation. We stopped at a town park outside of  Harrisburg, PA. to have our lunch. I’ve never seen a town park like it in New England. It had a pool, a stadium for football & soccer, a volleyball pit, tennis courts, bathrooms with picnic tables, a field house, and practice fields in back. It was beautifully landscaped. It was multi generational, we saw people of every age group using the facilities. Micah kept saying it was a school facility, but there was no school and the sign had the town’s name. My mother said that is was very much like Minnesota and the Midwest, towns value and spend a lot on public space.

Sadly, we are in a motel for the two nights here in Harpers Ferry. The weather is perfect here, in fact I thought Harley’s Ferry was always hot and humid based on our last trip two years ago when it was 99 degrees with 100% humidity. No, this whole weekend is high of 80 degrees and dry.  It’s absolutely the perfect camping weather. However, they are getting 79.00 a night to camp and we could get a motel room for 1.00 less, and since this is an economy trip, we go where the bed is cheapest.

Wildlife:
2 deer
2 roadkill (deer)