{"id":2014,"date":"2007-08-10T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-11T00:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/?p=2014"},"modified":"2007-08-10T20:27:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-11T00:27:00","slug":"towanda-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/?p=2014","title":{"rendered":"Towanda day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/a>We began our trip in the Charlotte airport, where Mom had grits with cream and sugar<\/i>. What the…? I could only assume that Mom was trying to ritually banish the South by repudiating its food before we ventured Northward. We few in to Harrisburg, passing alarmingly close to Three Mile Island, and rented a car to drive the remaining few hours to more closely simulate the car trips of my youth.<\/p>\n

Back then, it was my cousins and me jammed into the back seat, reading Richie Rich comics and playing travel bingo cards which our mothers had made for us before we left. Why Aunt Lynne always included an impossible square like “black dog on a red house” I don’t know. Probably to keep us quiet longer. I recall we were a well-behaved bunch, all things considered, but I was a child.
\n

\n<\/a><\/a>Because we were recreating a childhood trip, we absolutely had to stop at the tourist trap to end all tourist traps, the Susquehanna Trading Post. The cigar store Indian in the foyer says it all, folks. It’s a bizarre mix of kitsch and surprisingly nice gift items. We got the traditional maple sugar candy and headed on.<\/p>\n

ETA: I just noticed that my mom and I do the same thing with our mouths and eyebrows when we give our “amused smile.” Heh.<\/i>
\n

\nThis year, something happened that has never happened before. I saw what appeared to be a pack of dogs by the side of the two-lane highway. Looking closer as we passed, I realized they weren’t dogs. “BEAR BEAR! It’s a BEAR! LOOK! BEAR!” I shouted, while pointing. I was like a three-year-old, but driving a car. Sure enough, it was a large black bear with some smaller bears around her. After we passed, she stood up on her hind legs, looked around, then trotted across the road, her three cubs trailing behind. They all made it safely. Wow! I’ve never seen a bear in the wild before.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my digital camera handy, what with the driving and all, so instead here are a few pictures from the Knoxville Zoo<\/a> I visited on the way home from Simucon. One of them’s a black bear. Use your imagination and pretend the rest are cubs or something, I dunno. Off topic, I heartily recommend the Knoxville Zoo to anyone with kids. Very child-friendly.<\/a>
\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

My mom said that she hadn’t seen a black bear up there since she was a child, so that’s the 1940’s. That one wasn’t really ambling along the road – Grandpa had shot it because they needed the meat. Again, 1940’s, and it’s not like it went to waste.<\/p>\n

<\/a>We stopped along the way at May’s Drive-In<\/a>. While we were there, a major thunderstorm started up, so we stayed a while. The barbecue was distinctly Northern (read, “not to my taste”) but the peach shakes were excellent. We saw this sign inside. I’ll give a skein of yarn (or five bucks cash money, if you don’t knit) to what I deem the best description of what the heck “CMP or VMP” means in relation to sundaes.<\/p>\n

We made it into Towanda well before dusk and went over to a nearby eatery, hoping to grab a meal before going up into the woods to look for deer. Unfortunately, things move at a more leisurely pace in small-town Pennsylvania, and it was long past nightfall by the time we got our food. On the up side, when we saw we weren’t going to make it, we slowed down to the town’s pace and got dessert, too. The strawberry shortcake was fantastic. Afterward, we walked back out over the bridge, passing through a cloud of tiny black insects to stand over the middle of the Susquehanna River. Very nice.<\/p>\n

We went back to the hotel and swam in the pool (pictures will NOT be forthcoming) and turned in. Good day. Very good day.
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kissmyknits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}