Day 23 - Scrapple and Kitchen Kettle Village

Woke up a little later than usual today, just felt tired for some reason. I bought some scrapple yesterday and decided to fry up a piece today for breakfast. For those that don't know what scrapple is, it's made of pork scraps and cornmeal. When I was younger, I didn't like it at all. But as I got older, I started liking it more.

Mmmm...scrapple!

After lunch, my grandma's neighbor brought over a Lhasa Apso she was dogsitting. Her name was Ginger, and she was the sweetest dog. Didn't bark at all. I walked her around the courtyard a couple of times so she could get some exercise.
Then we were off to Kitchen Kettle Village, a tourist trap with a jelly shop, smokehouse shop, and other places to spend all your money.
Our first stop was the jelly shop, which has free samples of jellies, jams, marmalades, relishes, salsas, pickles, pies, and other yummy stuff. You can make a meal out of everything you sample.

David trying out the jellies

After purchasing a few jars of jellies, we picked up a cool refreshing birch beer before heading to Immergut Pretzels. We usually share just one but this time we had to have our own.

While we were sitting there, eating our pretzels, we saw this sight at the bank across the street. I bet you don't see this every day at your bank drive thru window:

Not sure what we're doing tomorrow, although there is an ice cream social at the main retirement village building. Mmm...ice cream...

Day 22 - Just Relaxin'

After finally getting to sleep in a little, we decided we were just going to relax today. Of course, that also included getting the Prius serviced and going grocery shopping at Yoders. We got our apple cider, sweet bologna, and of course scrapple! Watched a few too many episodes of Wizards on Waverly Place, then played "Hand and Foot", a card game we always play here. My grandma kicked our butts, her score was almost as much as Jenn and mine combined! Ended the day by going to the village's computer room for a bit, although I was disappointed that I couldn't install Adobe Flash on the machines because I didn't have administrative priviliges. So no Facebook games for me!

Tomorrow, off to Kitchen Kettle Village for some birch beer and soft pretzels!

Day 21 - Driving to Pennsylvania

Woke up today to rain and after finding a cache in WV (after DNFing another one), we headed for PA. It was cool, driving through the WV mountains and seeing the mist/fog all around.
Along our drive, we came across some carnival trailers. Here's the pizza trailer, there were also cheesteaks and fries trailers.


Got caught up in some very slow holiday traffic going through Maryland and after not listening to our auto GPSr and taking another route (a better way at that), we made it to PA.

Welcome to Pennsylvania, our halfway point

We pulled into Garden Spot Village about 9:30pm, with our trip (CA to PA and everywhere in between) odometer showing:

Here's a map of the route (more or less) we took. Not quite directly from CA to PA!

And finally, here's our States Found map, we plan on hitting the missing states on the way back to CA.


We'll be spending time in PA for about a week, mostly just relaxing so we'll see if I have anything exciting to post. Thanks to everyone for all the great comments and for following along with us on our adventures across the USA!

Day 20 - Great Smoky Mountains and the very first KFC

We woke up today in the city of Asheville and made our way to the Great Smoky Mountains. Before getting to the National Park, you have to pass through the town of Cherokee. It was pack with tourist, checking out the Native American stores and Fourth of July festivities. After moving slowly through the town, we got to the NP visitor's center. I got my passport stamped, including one upside down (oops). Then we started our drive through the Mountains. There were only a few places to stop so we didn't get many photos. But here's one with Jenn and the Smoky Mountains.

The bluish haze gives the Smoky Mountains its name.

After leaving the NP, we passed through Pigeon Forge, TN. My mind was practically blown by the amount of attractions and things to do, including Dollywood. There were tons of mini golf parks, pancake houses, country music theaters, magic shows, etc. The town seemed to go on forever...it must've taken us 15-20 minutes to drive through.

An example of what you can see in Pigeon Forge.
Or you could stay at this hotel.

We finally made it through and headed to Kentucky.

One the way to West Virginia, we stopped at the very first Kentucky Fried Chicken, in Corbin, KY. We didn't buy anything to eat but we checked out the museum they have within the restaurant's building.

Sander's Cafe
Jenn with the Colonel
The First KFC Kitchen

Throughout driving through Kentucky and into West Virginia, it rained, which didn't keep the fireworks from being shot off. Apparently, thing thing to do is go to the rest stops in WV and shoot of your fireworks there.

Tomorrow, off to Pennsylvania!

Day 19 - Driving, driving, driving, and BBQ (yes, once again!)

We checked out of our hotel after our first hot breakfast of our trip (made-to-order omelettes!) and were off in search of an Alabama cache. The first cache we DNFed and since I only had two AL caches on our GPSr, I hoped we'd find the second. We got to the second and Jenn made the find. Phew!

As we've been driving through the midwest and south, we've notice fireworks stands, stores, and warehouses. This one claims to be the world's largest fireworks store. It was a huge building so I can only imagine how many fireworks were inside. And these stores are open year round!

We were then off to Georgia, where we finally got to eat at a Chick-Fil-A for the first time this trip. We wish they had them in the Bay Area! We zipped through Georgia, and got to South Carolina. Stopped only to grab a cache, then off to North Carolina, where we had BBQ for dinner. Yep, you must know by now we love BBQ. So now we've had KC BBQ, Memphis BBQ, and North Carolina BBQ. And yes, we've also had Texas BBQ, just not on this trip. The restaurant we ate ate had a stage and there was some great entertainment tonight, a bluegrass band and cloggers. Definitely brought some authenticity to the area.

Welcome to Georgia!

Welcome to South Carolina!

Driving to North Carolina

Pulled pork, coleslaw, sweet potato fries, hush puppies and a bottle of cherry wine!

Tomorrow, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Day 18 - New Orleans and Driving Through Florida and Alabama

After checking out of our hotel, we drove down St. Charles Ave. to see the wonderful old homes.
We then drove back to the French Quarter to pick up a muffuletta sandwich from Central Grocery Co. Salami, mortadella, ham, Provolone cheese, and olive salad, yum!

On the way through MS, we came across this sign, are we in Hawaii?

We then drove through Alabama, on the way to Florida to grab a cache.


We then drove back up to Alabama, spending the night in Montgomery, AL. Tomorrow, driving through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

Day 17 - New Orleans

After checking out, we drove south through the rest of Mississippi to Louisiana. We came across the first welcome sign in another language.

It was a fairly short drive to New Orleans, including a portion over swampland.

The drive took about a couple of hours and after doing an Earthcache and grabbing some lunch, we checked into our hotel and headed to the French Quarter for some early dinner. We asked our hotel bellman what restaurant he would suggest and he said Denny's. We thought it was quite funny, but he said, no not THE Denny's but another Denny's, a local seafood restaurant. We discovered it was actually Deanie's. Instead of bread, they give you potatoes they boil in the water they use to boil the seafood in. It was good but we discovered the the potato skins themselves were HOT!!! Jenn ordered the barbecue shrimp appetizer for her dinner since it was a big portion and I ordered the stuffed crab.

Jenn with her bib
Stuffed crab!

After dinner, we walked over to Bourbon Street and walked a portion until we had enough of the "2 for 1" beer specials being offered to us up and down the street.

Bourbon Street (I didn't take photos of the non-kid friendly establishments)

We then headed for Cafe Du Monde, for their beignets and iced cafe au lait.

We finished up the night with a walk along the riverwalk and the mighty Mississippi River and a short (losing) trip to the Harrah's Casino.
Tomorrow, Alabama and Florida.