New Wilmington, Pennsylvania

New Wilmington is the area where I, Terry, grew up. The town is largely surrounded by farm land of which a very large portion is Amish. The Amish of the area are an old order which means they are stricter about their lifestyle than some of the Amish in other areas such as Lancaster, Pa. or some that are in the northern Indiana area. No cars, phones, electricity, etc. here. They also do not like pictures taken of them so in respect for their beliefs there will be no pictures here of them. However, I’ll post a couple of pictures of their farms.

New Wilmington is also home to Westminster College, a private college that has always been an integral part of the community. The campus is beautiful making the educational process a great experience.

The surrounding farms and the many back roads of the area make for a great place for exploration. One such neat place is a covered bridge, still in service, that is located about 4 miles out of town.

Another place to visit is Johnston’s Apple Castle. The Johnston’s orchards are located along Rt. 18 south of Rt. 208. Besides apples they sell lots of fresh vegetables of which their corn is of special note. They have a nice store that anyone can stop by to browse and pick up items: canned goods, apples, veggies, and baked goods. Stop by, you will not be disappointed. By the way, they have a festival in October. We have not had the opportunity to attend, but we hear it is a good time.

Now if New Wilmington just didn’t have typical snowy winters it would be perfect!

Jonesborough, TN

Having some free time today, I decided to start taking making some posts about some places that we did manage to visit but did not get posted. Today will be about our stop in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

On our way north, we stopped for 6 days in the Johnson City area of eastern Tennessee. This is an area that we have read about and will consider as a new home area should we decide to move from South Florida. Our initial visit to the area was positive so we are planning to return and stay for a month to get a better feel for the area.

Linda likes the mountains, so we concentrated our looking in the Jonesborough area which is about 6 miles southwest of Johnson City.

Jonesborough is Tennessee's oldest incorporated municipality and was once the state capitol. There are numerous old well kept buildings in town with shops, a few restaurants, and most important of all (to Linda) a quilt shop. Of course this is not any old ordinary quilt shop but a shop with one of the best fabric selections in the nation. We did not get in and out of there for free. Linda also found another of her favorite places, a coffee shop! We didn't get out of there for free either.

The next few pictures will show the downtown area of Jonesborough including the main street, the county county court house, and a very old hotel and a couple of other buildings. These are my first post of pictures and I had some

difficulty in positioning things. I'll have to go back to the tutorial to figure this out. Click on any picture for a larger view.

Restaurants of western PA

Our time in western PA has largely been used to help my mother clean up the basement of the house and garage. This has been time consuming. We even started trimming trees in the front yard that need such attention. This left little time for other activities but we did visit a few restaurants in the Mercer and New Castle areas, and I’m glad we did.

Over the years we had lamented the fact that there were few really good restaurants in the area. We compare the restaurants that we visit in our travels to the restaurants we frequent in our home area of South Florida. South Florida has many fine restaurants with Chefs that do an amazing job with preparing fine food for your enjoyment.

One local PA restaurant that we want to mention is the Springfield Grille, 1226 Perry Hwy, Mercer, PA, 724-748-3589 (this is Rt. 19 south of Mercer and south of I-80). We enjoyed ourselves so much we went to the Springfield Grille 3 times in two weeks!

Our first surprise was the ability to get a Mojito for a drink. Mojitos are not unusual in South Florida but was a real surprise for us when in western PA. Our bartender, Alexia Zdral, who has honed her skills in the Washington D.C. area, made us a mojito as fine as any we had ever had anywhere. But it did not end there. Alexia had something special for us to try.

Ever had a Besito? Who would ever guess you could make a mixed drink with basil and vanilla vodka and have it taste so good. How about a Pinecone? A cocktail made with sage and gin! Alexia fine tuned the Besito but collaborated with Chef Nate Barker on the Pinecone. It is their original recipe and only available at the Springfield Grille. So there you have it, health drinks!

Speaking of Chef Nate Barker, you have to try any of his entrée’s that feature lamb. We zeroed in on the lamb and had two versions of lamb on different nights. The food was fantastic and I’ll say again, a surprise for western PA. We also enjoyed a spinach artichoke dip that makes for a fantastic appetizer. You can also have crab added to the dip to take it to another level. Lastly, don’t forget the turtle soup. The farm raised turtles used in the soup are delicious. The soup is served with a shot of sherry that you pour into the soup and adds just the right additional spice to the mix! We will be back to try more of Chef Nate’s preparations in the near future.

We also want to thank Teresa Decker, General Manager of the Springfield Grille, who came by and talked to us and made us feel welcome in her establishment.

The Springfield Grille is the type of place you just want to go back to every chance you get. Good food, fine drinks, and new friends- it just doesn’t get better than that.

Nailed; plus 1944

Our stay in western PA has me working hard in Florida like weather. It was in the high 80's the last couple of days and 92 today. We are helping my mother clean out her garage and basement of 49 years of accumulation. My father did not throw anything out. Might need it someday.

My mother rented a 15 yard trash/junk container and we have pretty much filled it up. During the process I stepped on a board with a rusty nail. The nail penitrated my shoe and into the ball of my right foot. So I had to make a trip to the doctor for a tetnus shot.

By the way for you people who have Cigna health care. I called them to find out which doctor to go to. Cigna said it didn't make any difference: I didn't have any standard health coverage since I was out of my home area! However, I could go to any emergency room! So for you fellow Cigna people, don't travel out of you home area, you have no standard health care coverage- even if you are in a Cigna area other than your home area.

We are taking the weekend off to go do fun things, then back to work on Monday.

Now for 1944. While going through some of my fathers papers, I came across his federal income tax return from 1944. My father, age 22 at the time, spent '44 as a bomber pilot in the 15th Air Force first based in North Africa then based in Italy. He flew combat missions over the Alps to bomb Germany. For this he was paid $870 for the year. He was an officer/pilot and supposedly paid more than GI's. I can only imagine what the infantry was paid.

Lastly, let's not forget the tremendous bravery and sacrifice made by Allied Forces on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. American casulties exceeded 5000 that day . The Brits and Canadians also sufferd heavy losses. We owe them more than we can express or repay.

Electrical problem: converter

I realize that so far I’ve not posted lots of fun stuff, but it will come. However I’m documenting the way it is with life on the road. Same as at home, the house needs maintenance and is part of the trip. In this case it was an electrical problem.

In short, our converter quit working. So what’s a converter you might ask? (You experienced RVers or boaters hang in there for a minute).

Most RV’s are equipped with two voltage systems, a 110v AC system and a 12v DC system. The TV’s, air conditioning system, washer/dryer, convection microwave, and outlets on the walls are the 110 volt system everyone is used to at home. The 12v system runs the controls for the refrigerator, the furnace, the hot water heater, and the interior lights. The 12v system works in conjunction with 4 house batteries to provide the 12v. The converter takes 110 power and converts it to 12v power and charges the house batteries. If the house batteries are not charged, the 12v appliances in the coach will not work.

This is a simplified view but good enough for this post.

I noticed that our battery gauge that we have in the coach was going downward indicating that we were losing charge from our batteries. To shorten up the story, through lots of testing and work, I confirmed that the converter had failed.

After calling the few local rv stores in the area, no replacement converter could be located. However, they would be glad to order one for me.

It was time to call the manufacturer of the converter, Iota Engineering located in Arizona.

Good thing I did. I talked to Jay in the technical advice department. He explained a common problem that I might be able to tackle that might fix the converter. Following his instructions, I opened the converter, located the offending part, made a jumper that by-passed the problem, soldered it, and placed the repaired converter back in the RV.

I’m happy to report the converter is converting and charging our batteries. Not exactly heart surgery, but I’m proud of myself none-the-less.

Plus I didn’t get electrocuted in the process.

Fuel!

I was really going to rant about fuel costs, so I waited a couple of days and decided to tone it down.

We filled up the coach with diesel prior to leaving Coral Springs. The next fuel stop was in Wytheville, VA, 986 miles later. The cost, $543 for 119 gallons of fuel! That's $4.65 per gallon and the price is still rising. I remenber the days when diesel was only... well it doesn't matter now.

Everybody wants to blame somebody for the current fuel situation. But us Americans can only really blame ourselves. How's that you may ask? Well we let Congress get away with listening to the wacko leftwing enviro-terrorists....oops, sorry, I said I wasn't going to get carried away. Congress and former President Clinton refused and Congress currently refuses to do what is needed to be done. We need to drill in Alaska, drill off the west coast of the US (thats right, near the wacko republic of California) and drill off the coast of Florida (thanks alot Gov. Bush) and any other place we may find oil.

When the enviro- extremists start screaming about the caribou, polar bears, or the endangered trowser lice, we have to be aware that they are complaining about the oil industry drilling practices of 50 years ago. Modern drilling techniques are vastly improved and can be done with very little impact to the animals or their enviroment. Somehow Congress just can't get that.

We need to drill, drill, and then drill some more. Yes it will take several years to get things going, but there's no better time to get started than right now. While we are drilling, we should build 3 or 4 more refineries. Everything could come together in 5 to 9 years and reduce our dependancy on foregn oil. If Pres. Clinton had done the right thing 10 years ago, we might not be in this current situation.

Speaking of refineries did you see where the govenor of Kansas just stopped two gaint construction projects in Kansas., one of which was a 15 billion dollar refinery. She did a double wammy on her state- a loss of $25 billion in construction and the loss of employment for the people of Kansas. Not to mention a swift kick to the rest of us in the loss of future refining capacity.

Well, all of this has caused us to alter our travel plans. We originally were going to travel to PA and MI for the months of June and July. Then we were going out west to Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, etc. We would have returned home early November. Traveling out west would, at the current price of nearly $5 per gallon of diesel, would have cost us $3000 in diesel fuel alone. We have decided to eliminate the western part of the trip, stay east, and pocket the $3000. We still plan on returning home November 1.

I hate the enviro-wackos, I hope they get a bad case of trowser lice!