Thursday, June 2, 2011

Pennsylvania Amish Country

(Gordonville, Lancaster County, PA)  Hi 80 Lo 50, very windy – The thump in the RV continues.  Jim got up at 4:15 and sat outside. I woke up when he opened the door to go out but I didn’t know that was the problem. I’m so tired I slept through the thumping. We're thinking it’s something to do with the Big Foot leveling system (jacks).  We’re waiting to see if it continues after today's move. We'll let you know.

We were up early to get ready for the move. Early for me anyway... 8am. We had to leave our site by 11:00.  This will be the last time we have sewer hookups for a while, so Jim dumped the tanks and did a good back flush of both the black and gray tanks. The back flushing cleans the sensors so the gauges aren't stuck on 3/4 full all the time. At least they work correctly for a while anyway. We pulled out by 10:50. 

Our route was about half interstate and half rural roads.I was thinking the traffic would be terrible on I-95, but it wasn’t bad at all.  The trip was real smooth and we got to Country Acres RV Park in Gordonville, PA a little after 1:00.  We’re in the middle of Amish country in Lancaster County.  The scenery around here and on the trip up was beautiful. The fields on the rolling hills are freshly plowed and very pretty.

Today's trip included a tunnel under the Baltimore Harbor.
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Now what's up with tolls in PA? The sign says $2 for each axle, I paid $5, and Jim paid $9 then the second one was just before our exit and it was another $5 for me and $23 for Jim, that's sure not $2 an axle. Needless to say we won't be doing that again if we can find another way around it.

Entering Pennsylvania
Pennys sign

Country Acres is a really nice small park. We have a wooded site with water and 30 amp electric. They have a separate section with full hookups for big rigs in the back of the park, but we're only here for 4 nights so we can get by without a sewer hookup. So we decided to save some money and dump our tanks at the dump station on the way out Monday. The site is gravel and very un-level. This is a time we're glad to have our Big Foot system to automatically level us. We're right next to the bath house. The free park wi-fi is fantastic! It feels strange not having our Droids wired to our laptops. :)

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We’re in the trees. (But Jim still managed to get the satellite dish hooked up.)
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The front of our rig is sitting higher than it ever has in the past. Jim can walk under the front end without ducking. And the first step up to the door is higher than usual.
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Here are some views around us.
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We decided to go out to dinner tonight so we went to the nearby village of Bird-in-Hand to an Amish Smorgasbord. The food and the service were both excellent.
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I had a big slice of strawberry rhubarb pie, one of my favorites as a kid. It was sooo yummy!
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We're not sure what we'll end up doing the next few days, but come along with us as we see new things.

7 comments:

A couple of newer paintings 2019 said...

Looks like a pretty little park and a beautiful area. My stepdaughter and her husband went there for a vacation without the kids a couple of years back and really enjoyed themselves. I can't remember the name of the town they stayed in though.

owensontheroad said...

Such a nice area of PA..I really love that part of the state. Have a good time there!

Gail Houle said...

Go to the Bird in the Hand bakery for fresh cinnamon rolls...the ones with pecans on top...to die for! If I lived there, I'd weigh 500# !

Jeff said...

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in that area 4 years ago. Hope to get back there later this summer/fall before heading back to FL. Be sure to catch a meal at The Shady Maple. Talk about buffet-unreal. Have fun-we're following your adventures.

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

Wow, can't believe you got thru the Baltimore tunnel with your RV, they don't allow that and fine people huge bucks that do. You were very lucky! I have to take the 695 beltway over the Key Bridge to go thru there. Maybe you can buy a lottery ticket for me? ;c)

I think you're on the right track with the levelers making the noise. On our previous MH, that would happen every once and a while. Never did solve the issue, it was so rare that it didn't bother me enoungh to spend time troubleshooting it. I took the easy way out and bought a new MH...

Budd said...

We found that the West Virginia turnpike does have an RV class of vehicle. Under it, the cost is $3.25 for however many axles it all has.

I was driving a Volvo HDT with 3 axles and pulling a 40' 5th wheel with 3 axles. In the two trips over it from Virgina to Charleston, WV I paid 9.75, $6.50, $9.75 going north. Coming back, I paid $3.25 at the last toll booth on the south end. He said I have an RV and the rates are different. A passenger car is $2.00 and an RV is $3.25 regardless of how many axles or its weight.

I don't see any chart like this for PA so maybe they really are just about axles numbers.

This trip to WV taught me to always ask for an RV rate before they wrung it up. Each toll taker had a little different slant on what we had but only the last one saw it as an RV so we paid $21 more than we should have due to how the takers saw our rig.

Jesse, Ginger, Bayer, Buddy, and Mr. B said...

You lucked out. Propane is prohibited int both tunnels in Baltimore. The Key bridge is a good alternative,,,fwiw.

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