BERMUDA AND NEW ENGLAND IN SPRING - PA

Monday 15 May 1995 Churchtown PA

Slept very well last night after a very nice meal at an Italian restaurant – Hey! I suddenly realised I had written up that bit. It must be the jet lag. We packed everything up again after breakfast. One of these days I hope we do a non-business trip so we don’t have to lug around and mollycoddle all these darned ‘formal’ clothes. As usual I was in a bit of a  state about fitting everything in and also about picking up the car. There is always an edge of panic at the thought of driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road which usually recedes once I get behind the wheel. We wandered down town, looking at some of the places we had whizzed by on the trolley yesterday.

It was sunny and pretty warm most of the day, as predicted. We dropped Matt a line from the first Post Offce in the US which was initiated by Ben Franklin and then caught the subway out to the main railway station to pick up our car. I had some difficulty in understanding the clerk in the booth where we had to buy our tokens. He was behind what looked like bulletproof glass, with no microphone, a cleft palate and what sounded to me, from the snatches I could catch, an Hispanic accent. Anyway, by dint of sign language and shouting through the slot for the money we worked it out, only to be further frustrated by the fact that the tokens were firmly encased in a plastic bag which was almost impossible to open.

All was well in the end although we were a bit lost at the main station and it took a while to find the Hertz office. Rab took me to task with unfortunate timing, as to why I had not asked for better directions when I had booked. I tried to point out that the agent taking the booking had been in an office in Oklahoma at the time and was hardly in a position to tell me more than she had done. We found the office in the end, of course, tucked away behind a pillar in the main concourse of the station. I must say that the main railroad stations we have seen in the US knock any airport terminal into a cocked hat as far as grandeur is concerned. They are vast and magnificent.

Running a little later than we had intended, we grabbed a snack of chicken gumbo at one of the shops before getting to the car. After the usual problems and one false turn we were on our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags. We were given a resounding send off by Antonio, the general factotum – it is only a small family hotel – and then we were on our way.

I had plotted our route with some care to take in a scenic drive through the Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish country. This involved heading down the freeway initially and then virtually doubling back on secondary roads. It was a great success since, although Rab was nodding off at one stage, she woke up once the scenery improved. We did not see many Amish people initially although there were a couple of farms where we saw ploughs being pulled by horses.

Amish girl on a bike!

By the time we got over here to Churchtown, there were more signs – horse buggies and the like – and this evening we ate at a Mennonite run restaurant where all the staff in the restaurant – and many in the mall attached were rigged up in very plain and matching clothes: a small skull cap made of fine netting with two ribbons down their back: a bibbed top, presumably to hide their breasts: calf length socks to match the calf length hems of the dress: flat shoes and no make-up.

The food was good though – all you could eat at what they called a smorgasbord for $11.00 a head. Drinks were on the house although of course there were none which were alcoholic. We thought it was a similar approach to the Sizzler restaurants in Australia from Matt’s description of them. We had two good helpings of salad each and with the second had a portion of fried kassler plus a barbecued sausage with a corn dish that was rather like lentils in consistency but like sweetcorn in taste and some lima beans that had been cooked in a way that was reminiscent of or sousboentjies. A tad of pumpkin pie finished of a grand meal.

And so to bed in this garishly over furnished very kitsch restored “country mansion”. Frills and  furbelows abound, as do the written rules of the house. It must be the religious fervour of the district I suppose, but there are admonishments everywhere. It will be interesting to see if their advertised five course breakfast lives up to its reputation.