Sorry for
the delay in adding to our new blog but it is time to catch up.
We left
Fleetwood on Wednesday August 13th about mid-day. Dick really prefers not to drive the
Interstates if there are other reasonably good routes where you can really see
what America is all about in her small towns and rural landscapes, and
definitely does not like toll highways. However
whenever we head west toward Chicago it is nearly impossible to not use the
Interstate toll road system to cross PA, OH, IN and IL unless you want to stop
for lights and triple your travel time. So
to avoid the PA Turnpike, we headed through the hills and mountains north of
Fleetwood working our way up to Danville, PA where we did get onto I-80 and
took it west (not yet a toll road in PA).
We stopped for the night at RV Village Campground and Resort in Mercer,
PA. Getting off I-80 we started off
following our GPS to get to the CG (Campground) and got ourselves onto an
unpaved section of a very small road. It
took us to an intersection that we really thought we would scrape the whole
bottom of our coach to get over the huge hump, but by taking it VERY
SLOWLY, and at a strange angle, we were fortunate to get through. As we registered at the CG the clerk could
not believe we made it the way we had come.
It was a short 250 mile day. Needless
to say when we left the next morning we took the correct routes back to
I-80. Mercer is located very near to
Grove City, PA and since Connie had gone to Grove City College for her freshman
year we took a drive over there for dinner and to visit the huge outlet mall
that has been built there. It is still
about 485 miles and 9 hours to get to where we are headed for a weekend visit
with our friends Jack and Barb White in Williamsburg, Michigan.
Thursday became a full day of
travel continuing on I-80 across Ohio to near Toledo where we turned north into
Michigan. We did not want to arrive at
the White’s today so we stopped at Pine Ridge Campground, a nice campground
just north of Flint, MI after a 325 mile 5 ½ hour day on the road. We got to the campground around 6:10 PM
having had a lot of traffic around Ann Arbor and Flint. Got set up by 6:35 and checked to see what
time the movie The 100 foot Journey
was playing. Yipe it starts at 6:4 5! We immediately jumped into the van and got
there just as the previews were ending.
It’s a really good movie and we both strongly recommend seeing it. After the show and not having had dinner we
decided to stop at a Culver’s restaurant and ice cream place and ended up
having banana splits for our dinner!
Mmmmmm Mmmmmmm Good!
Friday the 15th we
only had to drive about 165 miles to get to the Whites farm so we took a very
leisurely start and then when we were only about 20 minutes from their place
Dick “conveniently” missed at turn and “just had to go ahead to find a place to
turn around” that just happened
to be a casino parking lot! He parked
the RV and he went in and spent about 45 minutes playing the slots while Pat
rested (read that as stewed) in the RV!
We got to the White’s about 4:15.
It was great to see them and we took them out to dinner. Jack and Barb have a Cherry and Apple farm,
actually they own several farms, and they had just finished harvesting their
sweet cherry and sour cherry crops a few days ago. We played cards (Hand and Foot) well into the
evening, with Pat and Barb beating the guys!
Saturday we awoke to rain and
so we all decided to dive to a farmers market where their daughter Joanne and
her family had a booth, called The Farmer’s Daughter (see photo), set up to
sell cherries and peaches in Boyne City, MI about an hour away. We arrived as they were getting ready to
close. Dick also found a booth still open that was making crepes on a large
outdoor pan (see photo) and had a huge delicious caramel crepe.
We returned to the farm and
since the rain had stopped, Jack took the four of us all around to their
various farms and drove into the orchards.
We got to pick a few nice sweet cherries that had missed getting
harvested, (see photos) and even got to pick a few Yellow cherries that are
used to make maraschino cherries.
The cherries are harvested by
using a shaker that grasps the trunk of the tree and shakes the whole
tree. (See the photo of Jack by the
shaker that grasps and covers under half the tree and then again by the one
that goes on the other side of the tree and fits into the first one to catch
the cherries as the fall on the other side of the tree.) The cherries, which have been treated with a
spray that causes them to fall from the cherry stem, fall onto the mat that is
placed under the tree and fed into a belt feeder that carries them up and drops
them into a tub of cold water. The tubs
are then taken to a cooling pad where they are further cooled by cold water
before being taken to the processing plant.
Michigan cherries are a very big business and account for a large
percentage of the cherries produced in the USA.
We then shared dinner with Barb, Jack and their family before we again
played cards. The ladies once again beat
the guys!
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