Spent a wonderfully relaxing five days at my friend Tom Doherty’s spread in New Gretna, NJ. The spread consists of two houses, one of which is his mother’s “summer place” though she’s currently in Yorktown, VA. Afternoons I spent on either the porch swing or rocking chair. The front porch is screened and I was very comfortable sleeping on the glider out there for the last three nights listening to frogs and insects in the dark. Last night Tom, his wife Simone Ishida and I had a little BBQ on the back porch of his house. Watched a large cotton tail hopping around in the back yard and in a neighbor’s yard on the next block a white tail doe stood looking around at the tranquil neighborhood.
Took off this morning headed to Gettysburg, PA. If I took the Interstate route and paid tolls the trip would only take less than 3-1/2 hours. But I chose the back roads route . Double the time, but a scenic ride through the pine barrens of New Jersey and the Amish farm country of Pennsylvania though I didn’t see any horse and buggies. Lots of twists and turns, sometimes a turn and only go a few hundred yards of less than a mile and turn onto another road. Fifty-five was the top posted speed limit. Sometimes it was only 25 mph. But it was much more enjoyable than the Interstate. Sometimes I’d be the only car on the road in either direction.
Got to where I planned to spend the night, at about 4:30. It’s a big rig rest stop but a section is set off on the side for car parking only. “No Trucks” the signs say. It’s going to be noisy until later tonight since a major highway is only a few yards away.
Since it was so early I decided to try and find an Home Depot and fabricate a window screen hack I saw on Facebook. There was one about a half hour away in Hanover. I got two of the 10″ high adjustable screens, the ONLY TWO in the store, in fact.The were $5.98 each. Then I bought a 4-pack of water pipe insulation for $3.48. This is what it looks like…
There’s not a fraction of an inch around the edges to allow skeeters in. And, when I get the second one installed (getting dark so I only did the one) I’ll get cross ventilation. Neat, huh?
There’s a restaurant here and I had a delicious country fried steak with baked potato and salad. Gas is cher at $3.25 but tomorrow, according to AAA it will be about 26¢ a gallon cheaper. The car ran well today. Haven’t checked the tranny fluid but it ran smooth and accelerated just fine in the steep hills along the route.
Gonna turn in. More tomorrow when I get into the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway.
One More Good Adventure 