R and J in the USA

If there is one word that captures the Pennsylvania that we saw, it would be picturesque. Case in point, we have a LOT of pictures of Pennsylvania. It is just that, well, almost every angle of every moment seemed so perfectly picturesque, it was hard to resist snapping a photo to attempt to capture it. Perhaps it had something to do with choosing to drive through it in the blooming colors of springtime, but with or without the near endless perfect blue skies with perfectly puffy white clouds evenly laid out in near every panorama, the way the rolling green hills were peppered with white and red barns weathered just so, whether it was the occasional hillside covered in seemingly perfectly positioned black cows with their amoebic white spots on their sides, whether it was the way the reeds and grasses filled out the edges alongside rivers or ponds or the colors of trees in springtime blossom, whether it was the mountain ridges that ebbed and flowed from a distant to hovering horizon that wrapped it all up in a perfect frame, every new glance up from one’s feet was a blast of some perfect blend of colors from nature’s pallet. In the countryside, it was a bucolic picturesqueness, in the cities, it took on a more industrial or metallic hue – but, either way, it made you reach for your camera.

From the moment we crossed over the border into Pennsylvania, the scenery came into its characteristic shape. Even more so, we were hit by something – especially Julie – we were definitely in our own backyard. The beauty of Pennsylvania is cut from the same cloth as the beauty of our home state of New York, now only one state away. It is the beauty of rolling hills filled with green, trees rich with blooms and foliage, forests and farmlands trading off coverage of the landscape. This is a kind of beauty we recognized instantly as the kind that raised us. 

But even though we recognized the terrain and the particular brand of picturesque beauty we saw throughout Pennsylvania as familiar to our home state, it also had its own unique qualities. In New York, the mountains tend to rise high and create ripples of undulating waves across the horizon when you are driving in them and through them. In Pennsylvania, they line the edge of the picture with long ridges, occasionally turning into small and pointy uprisings, at least in the spots we drove through. 

One of the great joys of seeing all 50 States is seeing all of the different ways that nature has found to be absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. In places like Utah, the beauty is breathtaking in the most literal way, causing involuntary gasps for oxygen. It is almost hard to keep up with it as it is so constantly striking and awe-inspiring. The beauty of Pennsylvania is every bit as relentless as a place like Utah, but it does not cause gasps, so much as deep exhales, equally involuntary. The beauty of Pennsylvania hits you from all sides and somehow seems to wrap you up in it like a welcoming embrace. It seems to invite you to be part of the lushness in bloom. It invites you to lay in the grass and let your eyes wander to the sky and find purpose in simply watching what is fluffy in them float by. It’s a kind of beauty that can put a soul at ease. And maybe we are just biased in that, because it’s a beauty that we know well and have spent hours wandering in and through and staring at from front stoops, front yards, front porches and any manner of motion going from a point A to point B. But, whether it wraps you in the kind of soothingness that comes from familiarity or not, the beauty of it is unmissable, probably undebatable and most certainly unrelenting. And whether or not it causes you to reach for your camera to take a picture, you will definitely know, at nearly every turn, that it is worthy of one.

When we first crossed into Pennsylvania and left the tight twist and curves of Appalachia behind us, there was an almost instantaneous moment of recognition, especially for Julie. You can read more about Julie’s peak experience in our Ruminations section. 

We entered into the expansive greens of farm and forestland near central Pennsylvania’s southern border with Maryland. Throughout our time in the Keystone State, it was rare to escape the subtle clues that we had returned to our own neighborhood and were only one state away and only a couple hundred miles from our own hometown. Whether it was the familiarity of the terrain, or the temperatures fitting what we know as April or the fact that, when we told people where we were from, we no longer got that, “Oh, you are a long way from home” kind of raised eyebrow or comment. We are definitely not from around here, but we are from close enough that no one is surprised to see New York State license plates drive by. We are in a place where saying we are from New York doesn’t automatically mean New York City. We are in a place where we can say we are from Rochester, NY and not only get replies of recognition of where that might be, but maybe even get a comment about the last time they were in that area or a comment like, “Oh, home of the garbage plate!”. Or, as we climbed to the northwestern tip and found ourselves on the somewhat unique and familiar shores of a Great Lake, we could recognize it as a familiar site, but now with the perspective that there are only a handful of states that know what the shore of a Great Lake is like. We certainly knew we were getting close to home when we rolled into Erie and saw a sign on the highway indicating that a Wegmans could be found off the next exit. For those not from our part of the world, that is a grocery store, to put it lightly. For those from our area, you know that if stepping into a Wegmans after the better part of a year away from one is not a homecoming, then nothing is. 

Despite all of the ways that Pennsylvania reminded us of home and reminded us how close we were to it, we also got to spend 7 days discovering it as a place we didn’t know. 

Even though we both had been to Gettysburg before at different times in our lives, we knew we wanted to stop there on this trip. There is plenty there that both of us hadn’t seen and, especially after traveling the country, it was also interesting to see this important place of the Civil War after having seen the stories told from different locations and different vantage points. 

As we mentioned in our introduction, it was hard to stop snapping pictures as the scenes of history’s memories set against the backdrop of Pennsylvania’s beautiful spring setting was stunning.

We had more than a little last minute itinerary jerry-rigging to do. There were some hard choices to make in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania circled around places we wanted to see in the next few days that would also effect the things we’d be able to see later in the state, availability of 5K races and the limitations of when different places were open. We both really wanted to go to Hershey Park. In April, it is only open on the weekends. Julie rode her first roller coaster at Hershey Park many decades hence and hadn’t been there since. Ryan had never been there. We also wanted to get a good hike in. We also wanted to see Pine Creek Gorge, Pennsylvania’s claim as the “Grand Canyon of the East”. If you have been following our blog, you already know what we think of such claims by east coast states, including our own, but we still wanted to see it. We also were committed to visiting the state capitol in Harrisburg, which was only open on weekdays and Julie was dead set on visiting the state museum which was only open Wednesday through Sunday. There was also a gluten free bakery that sold the Pennsylvania speciality of shoofly pie in a form that Julie could eat and it was located between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and it was open every day other than Sunday. Then, there was one more thing. Julie had wanted, if possible, to see at least one professional game of every major sport. We had only done 2 out of the four so far – baseball and football. Hockey was out of the question at this point, and we knew we could catch an NBA game in Philly. It turns out the last home game of the season would be Sunday at 1PM.

When all of this got juggled out, we had to make some choices. We wouldn’t be able to do it all. Ultimately, we sacrificed Hershey Park in favor of the NBA game. We got our hike in at Ricketts Glenn State Park on a hike that boasted 21 separate waterfalls and was worth the time and the drive. It also meant we would have to miss Julie’s gluten free bakery. The only time we would now be driving in its vicinity, would be on Sunday, the one day it was closed.

We finally got it all lined up and went to register for our Sunday 5K in Biglersville, a small town 10 minutes north of Gettysburg. This is when we realized that it had a cap on registration, and registration was closed. Oops. As we have done a few times on the trip, we decided to take a shot in the dark and reach out to the race director. Not only did they let us sign up, they welcomed us with a shower of Pennsylvania generosity and kindness we never knew to expect. You can read more about the wonderful people that welcomed us to that race in our People Along the Way section. 

After we finished driving the auto tour in Gettysburg, we parked in a Walmart for the night before heading to our truly wonderful Biglersville 5K. You can read more about what we have decided was the most beautiful of our 50 state race courses yet in our 5K section.

Though we would have loved to stay and mingle in what was a lovely race vibe post event, we hopped in the car as quickly as we could to make the 2 hour drive to Philadelphia to grab a 1PM 76ers vs Bulls game. Interestingly, though this wasn’t planned, in all of the professional sport games we went to, all sports that Julie followed much more when she was a kid, we happen to be there while the home team was playing Julie’s childhood favorite team. The Blue Jays (we saw them in Minnesota against the Twins), the Bills (we had our hearts crushed in Kansas City against the Chiefs for the playoffs) and now, the Bulls. We arrived a little late and missed the first quarter, but we enjoyed the game.

Though Julie knew she wouldn’t be getting gluten free shoofly pie and apple tarts from the bakery in Bird In Hand, Pennsylvania, we found a gluten free bakery in Philadelphia and Julie went crazy buying some mac and “cheese”, a bagel and cream “cheese”, a cinnamon bun, a thumbprint cookie and a “cheese”cake tart. For better or worse, on this trip, as someone that cannot eat gluten or dairy, Julie has found out that, it turns out the best gluten free, dairy free mac and cheese she has ever had is from a place in Rochester, NY. Though that has meant 11 months without particularly delicious mac and cheese for her, it is good news that her favorite in the country is right at home. She found the mac and cheese from this place almost inedible, the cinnamon bun and the bagel passable, and the thumbprint cookie and cheesecake tart phenomenal. It’s tough to make gluten free and dairy free things as delicious as the real thing. Every once in a while, you find a place that has cracked the code, and for someone with little choice in the matter, it is a thing of beauty when it does. 

After that, we swung by Independence Square to get the lowdown on the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It was already 4:30 and the line to see the liberty bell was too long. We found out that, to tour Independence Hall you need tickets and those tickets are near impossible to get. We tried to get tickets for the 10AM tour that were released at 5PM. We managed to get through to the website by 5:03 and by the time we selected the time we wanted at 5:04, the tickets had already sold out. We found out that there is a self-guided unticketed 9AM slot, so we planned to get there nice and early to line up for that.

Our next stop was a parking spot we found out about on the iOverlander app that was right next to the iconic Philadelphia Museum of art. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have a car pull out of the full lot just as we arrived and to be able to park for free overnight in such a great spot. Not only that, we had been craving Thai food for the last 3 states and struggled to find it. And there was a fantastic Thai food restaurant a 2 minute walk from the van. 

And, as for that picturesque Pennsylvania, even from inside the van, Julie couldn’t help taking pictures of the view out of the window as the sun set stunningly over the park in view.

That night, we ate Thai food and watched as Ben Gates (aka Nicolas Cage) ran through Independence Hall to find clues to a treasure map in National Treasure.

The next morning, we knew we had to get an early start to get in line by 8AM for what we assumed would be a long line to get into Independence Hall.

But, of course, we couldn’t leave without running up the iconic steps and going the distance with Rocky. We rolled out of bed in the early morning hours and made our pilgrimage to the top of the steps. You can read about and see a video of us going the distance here. Yo, Adrian! We did it!

The next morning, we made our way to Independence Hall by 8AM and found ourselves second in line behind a family from Wisconsin that now lives in Connecticut. By the time 9AM rolled around, that line was snaking around corners, so we were glad for our early arrival time. In that hour of waiting, we had a great time chatting with the family in front of us. The father is an engineer with the Navy and the wife was originally from China. We had a great time talking about travels and engineering and getting to hear a little bit about what America and all of this American history looks like to someone originally from another country with a much longer history and a much bigger population than ours. We all became fast friends and exchanged phone numbers for later. 

The tour of Independence Hall was well worth the wait. For Julie, Independence Hall was a definite highlight of the trip. You can read more about the experience and her ruminations on its significance in a separate post.

We then took a walk through the Liberty Bell site across the street. We learned a lot about the bell’s history and Julie found herself already composing a new song in her head reading about this powerful symbol in American history.

There were so many more things worth seeing and doing in Philadelphia, but this being a trip that is about getting the lay of the land, we decided we’d definitely have to return to Philly for a full week in the future and would head out of town for now.

We drove the almost three hours up north towards Ricketts Glenn State Park, not the most driving efficient pathway as we’d originally hoped, but a pathway that was necessitated by our timeline and the things we wanted to be able to do in it. Julie had read about this hike as one of the most beautiful in the US. It turns out Ryan had done the hike some 30 years prior, but, despite there being plenty of Pennsylvania hikes that neither of us had done, Ryan felt it was worth it for Julie to do. With 21 waterfalls along the trail, it did not disappoint.

We had a lovely camping spot on Lake Jean. Unfortunately for Julie’s “swim in Pennsylvania”, swimming was not allowed and Julie wasn’t trying to push it since the water temperature was about 40 degrees. Survivable, but not particularly advisable or pleasant.

We drove back south the next morning to make our stop at Hershey’s Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. We wouldn’t be able to go to the amusement park, but we could go on the factory tour, buy some chocolate and go to the Museum to learn about the history of Hershey the town, Hershey the business and Hershey the man – all of which was fascinating and much of which was quite inspiring. We didn’t know much about Hershey the man and found him a very inspiring character. We were most inspired to find out that he dedicated all of his wealth to starting up the Hershey School that is still in operation, a free school for orphaned children. Not only did he give all of his wealth to create this school, he did it without any fanfare, and nobody even knew he made the donation until 5 years after he did.

Then we made our way over to the Pennsylvania State Capitol. If you just count from the outside, this was our 49th state Capitol. We showed up to Connecticut’s when it was closed and plan to swing by there “on our way” to DC after NY so that we can officially say we have visited all 50. We took a tour of the stunning building. When we stopped in the Senate library after the tour, we had a great conversation with the Senate librarian, George. You can read about that in our People Along the Way section. 

The next morning we had two things planned before leaving Harrisburg, PA. One routine, and one, well, slightly momentous. One, Julie would be heading to the Pennsylvania State Museum. She did, and, as usual, it was great and super educational.

Two, Ryan FINALLY had a haircut scheduled. He had been commenting on needing a haircut since returning from his February visit home. That was a full 2 months prior. His hair was getting pretty wild. It wasn’t COVID length, but it was getting pretty darn close. On this trip, it is funny how difficult it can be to fit in regular things. Hair cuts, a stop at the post office to pop a letter or package in the mail – these things seem so simple, but life on the road, especially at this pace can make them difficult. We found a hair salon across the street from the capitol and they had a 10AM appointment available while Julie would be in the state museum. And it happened. 

Julie’s hair needs a hair cut too, but its a lot harder to tell. With a much lighter head, Ryan returned to the van and we hopped on the road for our biggest driving day in a long time. There was much we had wanted to see that we were going to forgo. We would miss the massive curve in the train tracks in Altoona, PA, we would miss driving through Penn State, we’d already been to Punxsutawney on another trip, but we decided to just do a quick drive through of Pittsburgh “on our way” up north towards Lake Erie. 

On our way, we saw signs for the United Flight 93 Memorial and immediately headed in that direction, even though it would add almost an hour of total driving to an already driving heavy day. We had both forgotten that this was one of the things that we had wanted to see in Pennsylvania and we both felt it was worth the extra driving and the later arrival at our destination. 

It was.

It was a beautiful memorial and we both found ourselves mildly shocked when we realized this was commemorating a now, almost 25 year old history. We were both really glad we made the trip.

We hopped back in the car with still another 3.5 hours of driving ahead of us before arriving at our spot for the night and it was already 2PM. 

We drove through Pittsburgh, gawking at the neat bridges and buildings. Julie had a hankering for ribs and we found a great spot that happened to have gluten free corn bread! 

From there, we hopped back on the road and drove north until we landed at Sara’s Campground right at the base of Presque Isle State Park.

We loved our site looking right out onto the expansive waters of Lake Erie. Julie had yet to get her “swim in Pennsylvania” in. After having decided against trying 40 degree water in Lake Jean, Julie googled the Lake Erie water temperature. Google said 33 degrees. Ouch. Well, Julie thought, I’ve done a polar bear plunge in Lake Ontario in February with ice floating in the water, I should be able to survive ten strokes in this. Add to that, Julie had full wetsuit gear and hadn’t used the full set up yet. She broke out, not just the suit, not even just the wetsuit head cap, but the booties and gloves too. Julie hopped in the water and other than a few holes in the wetsuit and the sting on her face, barely noticed the cold at all. Montana lake swimming in October and Oregon lake swimming in November were both WAY worse. Julie emerged from the water triumphant!

We were both excited to have the whole day available for finishing our end of state activities – writing our blog posts, our postcards and Julie writing her ode to Pennsylvania. We ended up writing way more than we expected as waves of nostalgia and reflection swept over Julie about what it feels like to return to the point in our trip where we had been pointed west with 40 states to go and what it feels to see the natural settings of Pennsylvania that are so much like our upstate New York home after seeing so many different landscapes throughout the country.

We had both hoped to be finished with everything with some afternoon left to spare to explore Presque Isle State Park and relax. We are only just finishing it all up in the morning before we shove off for New York. We got another opportunity to walk to a Thai food place and we finished off the day and our time in Pennsylvania with great affection for the state and our time in it.

There is much of Pennsylvania we didn’t get to see, though it will be one of the states where that will be the easiest for us to remedy on future trips if we so choose, being so close to home. 

What we saw of Pennsylvania was beautiful in such a picturesque way, we have way too many pictures to show for it. It was the perfect state to be state number 49 and an easy one to be sure we will be back in again. 

Next stop, state number 50.