Hello from Mechanicsburg, PA (Part 3)
Monday morning – August 29, 2016 (third post of this travelogue)
Just a bit more about Gettysburg. I had planned to show a picture of the VW bus/camper we traveled in to the East coast and took the Gettysburg auto tour (1981) in the last post. We had traveled to the west coast the previous year. In between the trips, I installed a water cooled Pinto engine and that made the VW come alive. We kept up with the traffic, no matter what the condition. What a great way to see this country.
When we did the auto tour of the battle fields, we saw a lot of cannons. I decided to do some research to see if they were reproductions. I came across a site which talks about a cannon restoration shop in the park (link). They mention that there are around 1300 monuments and 400 cannons in the park. The blog says that the majority of the cannon tubes are original, but that the carriages have had to be replaced.
Yesterday we took a driving tour of the Amish country. We drove to Lancaster and then headed east on 340 (the Old Philadelphia Pike) for several miles. We drove through the towns of Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse on that route. We stopped at The Amish Experience complex and had a great family style lunch (feast). The variety of meats and side dishes was amazing. One of the dessert offerings was Shoofly pie (link). It is a molasses pie considered traditional among the Pennsylvania Dutch.
After leaving Lancaster, we saw a very large number of Amish buggies of all varieties. In addition, we saw many Amish in their Sunday best clothes. We saw one wonderful family standing outside of a church with the kids all dressed up. It would have been a great picture, but we are told that they do not like to have their picture taken.
Shortly after we passed through the town of Cains, we turned north on a paved farm road. The rolling country side, green crop fields and huge well kept farm building are breathtaking.
We then headed back west on 23 towards Lancaster (and then back to Mechanicsburg). We passed through the town of New Holland where the New Holland Manufacturing Operations are located. The plant can trace its roots back to 1895. New Holland manufactures agricultural equipment. They were one of my main accounts and I visited the plant often in the early ‘70s. I always enjoyed the area and it was fun to visit again.
That is all for this post.