Day 3 - Gettysburg-Lancaster-Ephrata-Alexandria
Previously featured:
Part 1: Flight to Newark, Day 1 - Newark-Princeton
Part 2: Day 2 - Princeton-Philadelphia
The morning opened with a Gettysburg battlefield tour, with the tour guide sitting in the car. They had memorials everywhere (though understandably very few to Confederate soldiers or generals), and even one to General John "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-" Sedgwick.
Monuments
Guide and cannon
Eternal flame peace memorial
Unfortunately, the weather from that morning on - for most of our trip - was bad. It seemed to be drizzling more than half the time, which made the otherwise tolerably cool late spring-early summer weather chilly. Indeed, the weather was unseasonably bad for that time of year - more characteristic of London than of the Northeastern United States.
Cannon
The rare monument to Confederate soldiers
The engineer who saved the day
As usual, my sister was making my brother-in-law and I do everything, refusing to do almost anything herself but sit down and make snide remarks. Oh, and drag us on innumerable shopping trips. At least in the UK she cooked (and there was no shopping), but in the US there was no need for that, food being abundant, good and (relatively) cheap. After relentless chiding on my part she was slightly more helpful, but only just.
The next destination was Lancaster and the Pennsylvania Dutch Country which I suspect most people visit so they can laugh at the Amish. My brother-in-law and I were wondering whether we could take photographs of the Amish. Supposedly you can't do so, yet many photos exist, many in printed materials promulgating understanding of the Amish where the publishers (presumably) respect the sensitivities of their subjects. Perhaps it's a devious scheme by merchants of Amish material and memorabilia to increase sales. Or maybe the photographs are taken of the New Order Amish. In any case, as I told him, we could take photographs from the car and drive off - they wouldn't be able to catch us in their carriages anyway.
However, before that we stopped in a Wal-Mart. The experience of walking in and seeing the sheer variety, quantity and price (some things are cheaper than in Singapore) of productson sale is indescribable. As my brother-in-law commented, 'This is why America rules the world'. In there I got an insulated ice keg from which I am now drinking; it has a cloth sheath so condensation doesn't dirty the place. We used it to store ice for cold drinks (though ice/water kept spilling onto/under my crotch when I was performing my bartending duties).
On the way out of Lancaster to Amish country proper, we passed the Lancaster County Prison, whose front looked like a medieval castle. Wth. A picture of its facade may be found on the official website Other photos are also available.
We stopped for lunch at the "Good 'N Plenty" Restaurant before looking for the Amish, since it was quite late in the day. The food was great (and came in big portions, as did all food outside of New York), especially the chow-chow, coleslaw, fried chicken and buttered noodles. There were 5 desserts to sample: I don't know why they had Jello with applesauce, and I found the flavour of the shoofly pie too intense (I'm not a molasses person and besides, it curiously reminded me of nian gao) but the rice pudding and homemade ice cream was good.
Horse and carriage at shop
We drove around but didn't find many Amish, only the odd horse carriage travelling on the road and the odd house with clothes drying on a clothes line. We did however find a shop with Amish products on sale; although it was powered by electricity (the lights and the fridge), there was an Amish man at the counter (aren't they forbidden to engage in mercantilism as well?) New Order Amish, it must be, though that didn't keep the toilet smelling of horse dung.
Someone doesn't like my brother-in-law
Amish boy
Amish girl
After that we went to the Ephrata Cloister - the first Protestant cloister that I'd heard of. And then we went to look for more Amish. However, they'd disappeared, perhaps hurrying to get indoors before sunset effectively plunged their world into darkness.
Flower at Ephrata
Ephrata
Ephrata view from fence
We got into another jam on the 222, where a long stretch was closed for roadworks. This time, we didn't see *anyone* working on the road at all. But at least the traffic flow was more like shark's fin soup than the resin or glass (being a supercooled liquid) of the previous day near Philadelphia.
From the day's start, my sister had been gushing about her El Dorado - some mythical factory outlet, the name and location of which she had no clue to, but insisted was just outside Philadelphia. She was particularly enthusiastic about this one since there was no sales tax on clothes in Pennsylvania. In the end we didn't go there, but I was stuck in a Tanger factory outlet as my sister went shopping for the 2nd time in 3 days (and 2 full days). At least there was an entertaining sign on a restaurant near the outlet: "Tony Wang's Best Chinese!!! Lancaster's most award winning Chinese restaurant" (it was probably Lancaster's *only* Chinese restaurant)
At a petrol station in Pennsylvania we saw Coke advertised as being "Made with 100% sugar". Yay. There was also Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda (as opposed to normal Diet Coke), but I never got to try that in any of the 12 days, so.
Much of the night was spent driving down to Alexandria, a town near Washington DC, where we stayed at the Red Roof Inn.
Sister's food diary: "Day 3 : breakfast at Budget Host Motel, Gettysburg, chocolate donut. Post-Gettysbury tour - breakfast sandwiches from gas station. Real pork bacon. Lunch at Good and Plenty all-you-can-eat family-style restaurant in Amish country. Starters - chow-chow, coleslaw, fresh bread, cottage cheese, whipped butter, apple butter, applesauce. Mains - fried chicken, pork sausage, roast beef, sweet buttered noodles, mash potatoes with gravy, mixed vegetables, corn. Desserts - applesauce jello, rice pudding, ice cream, shoofly pie, apple crumble."
My sister has a doctrine whereby she will only buy things/gifts that are "practical". The trouble is that she gets ten times the amount needed for practical uses (eg Cat plates, fish plates et al when we already have normal plates), thanks to the female gender defect, so instead of having one unit of impractical stuff, we have five units of practical stuff (where one will suffice), and possibly end up spending more.
Most of the school buses we saw in the Northeastern US were very high-tech - when the bus stopped and the schoolchildren got off, a stop sign would unfold from the side of the bus and start flashing, while a yellow bar would be extended from the front of the bus. A measure to ward of litigation, probably.
Quotes:
[On the Amish] I would actually like to see some more freaky people