Tuesday we left St Louis later than planned; when we were hooked up and ready to leave, Randy discovered our tow-light system wasn’t working, nor was our brake-buddy (that’s the system that helps stop the car we tow, if we have to brake suddenly). There wasn’t anything we could do about the brake-buddy, but the light problem was a blown fuse, so Randy replaced the fuse and we left. Later we stopped at a rest stop and discovered - another blown fuse. Randy determined that the problem was probably in the wiring between the RV and the car, but there wasn’t much we could do about it then. So he drove on, getting into the Indianapolis area where we parked in a Walmart parking lot for the night. We always ask permission when we do that - the past few years some RVers have abused this privilege so not every Walmart will allow it any more.
Wednesday was another day of just driving, and another night in another Walmart parking lot - this one in Somerset, Pennsylvania. The parts of Pennsylvania that we’ve been through have been quite pretty - rolling hills, cultivated fields, and farms that look well cared-for. On the other hand, the tolls are very high, especially since the roads just aren’t in that good of shape. And fuel is expensive here - when we found a station with regular gas for $3.99, we jumped on it.
Thursday morning we decided to take a little side trip in the car. We drove to “Gravity Hill” - a nondescript stretch of back road where, if you put the car in park, it looks like you are rolling uphill. Not much uphill, just slightly, but it is odd. When I took this picture, we were rolling backwards . . uphill.
From the ridiculous to the heartbreaking - on the way back to our RV we stopped at the Memorial to Flight 93. They are in the process of building a big memorial - in the picture below, the two parallel wall sections indicate the flight path. So just beyond those walls is where the plane when down.
Nearby is a small building with information about the tragedy. I picked up what I thought was a book with black box information, but instead I got a book with phone conversations from the passengers. So many calls, mostly to answering machines, all with the same message - “I love you, I love you, I hope to talk to you again”. But they couldn’t. I couldn’t take much of that, so I picked up the other book about the black box, but after reading about someone begging for his life to someone else who was shouting “Allah is merciful” while I knew what was going to happen, I couldn’t take it any more.
Can’t handle this.
So we drove back to Walmart, got the RV, and drove to Gettysburg. I know, I know - Gettysburg is also about people dying. But it’s different, somehow, probably because of the time involved. The people on flight 93 would still be alive today if that hadn’t happened. But the people at Gettysburg were from several generations ago. They would not be alive today, even if Gettysburg had not occurred. Plus, thanks to President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, there is a feeling that something was built from that tragedy. So while Gettysburg has it’s own feeling of great loss, for me, at least, there is a lot less anger than Flight 93.
Well, I can’t do anything about Flight 93, so I am going to compartmentalize that anguish and move on.
Gettysburg - I do love history. We got into town too late to tour the battlefields, so we drove downtown and walked around. Gettysburg is a small town, probably because it is surrounded by a National Monument so it can’t expand. And while it is filled with tourist places, they have kept a lot of the original buildings. We had dinner at the Springhouse Tavern, which is in the downstairs of the Dobbin’s House. The house was built in 1776 by Reverend Alexander Dobbin. It is believed to the the first station on the Underground Railroad north of the Mason-Dixon line. In-between the ceiling of the downstairs and the floor of the upstairs is a small gap of about 3 feet high. This is where the escapees could hide; it would not have been comfortable, but it would have been worth the discomfort.
And that is enough for one day.
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