Fun in PA

In early April, I flew east to visit my father in Pennsylvania.  As always, I had a nice time with him and, as they often do, my daughters came from Florida for the weekend.  I have no pictures of my father or daughters, as they are even more camera shy than I am.

On Friday evening, we all met my only cousin’s only daughter at a restaurant for dinner.  (As you can see, we have a small family.)  The only time we see Rebecca and her husband Terry seems to be at my father’s birthday parties (his 90^th and 95^th, so far) when they are busy handling the food.  They are terrific people and it was so nice to be able to sit and talk.

Rebecca is quite an organizer and even had a suggestion for something for us to do on Saturday.  The Mennonites were holding their 62^nd annual Relief Sale.  Although we had no idea what that was, the ‘girls’ and I went to check it out.  There were a couple of craft booths, but they had two continuous auctions and lots of food.  Laura and Christy enjoyed an authentic Philly Cheese Steak.

The quilt auction was fun to watch.  The beautiful quilts were donated and sold for hundreds to thousands of dollars.  I checked their website later and found the quilt auction raised $115,635.

We laughed at the Country Auction where the items were rakes and hoes, but even that raised $13,877.  (No pictures of the rakes and hoes . . .)

Since we were already in Harrisburg, we decided to tour the state capitol.  Of course we had previously done that, but it had been a long time ago.  We parked around back which gave us a different view of the building.

The building is spectacular and we were just in time to join a tour.

 (The previous two pictures were taken by Christy.)

Looking down from the third floor, I remembered how our school choir stood on those marble steps and sang Christmas carols one year.

The Senate . . .

And House of Representatives are gorgeous.

The House has four priceless murals by Edwin Austin Abbey.  The largest depicts explorers, pioneers, scientists, industrialists, and military figures who shaped Pennsylvania’s history.

The Supreme Court chamber is more intimate than one might expect, but just as impressive,

With a stained glass dome,

And the fanciest thermometer I’ve ever seen.

We also stopped at the cute Appalachian Brewing Company where I had some of their birch beer,

And the girls had a flight.  Not being a beer drinker, I didn’t even know that a flight is a rack of samples.

By the time we returned home, I think my father was wondering if we got lost.

Winter

For those of you who have asked what we’ve been doing since Thanksgiving, here’s a condensed version of our winter.

We spent Christmas and New Years at our lot in the Escapees Park in Benson, Arizona.  Ron sorted some material with his homemade highbanker.  He found a couple of specs of gold, but not enough to retire on.  Good thing he’s already retired.

The park had seasonal activities including a wild gift exchange and a New Year’s Eve dance.  Somebody at our table happened to catch Ron and me out on the dance floor.

We spent several days in Yuma, known for the massive amount of lettuce grown there each winter.  It’s funny to see the green fields in a desert landscape.

We walked over the border to Los Algodones in Mexico, always an interesting experience. 

We had some Mexican food (or since we were there, I guess it’s just food).

But our main purpose was to buy a stained glass window for the RV.  They have hundreds to choose from, but we settled on this one.  It has a clear area in the center so you can see who is outside and the color changes from almost clear to pretty colorful depending on the light.

Next we hit the annual RV event in Quartzsite.  I shamelessly stole this picture off of Facebook, but it's hysterical.

Then it was back home for February and March.  My flowers were pretty this year.  It still cracks me up that you can grow them in the winter.

We didn’t have as much company as we usually do, but Ron’s brother and his wife came.  We have done a lot of things with them over the years, but never took them to Goldfield.  It’s really just a tourist trap, but is kind of cute with the old buildings . . .

And the little train.

We took several hikes over the winter.  Here we were at Silly Mountain with our next door neighbor.

Ron had a few projects too.  He switched out the kitchen light that I hated . . .

For one I bought for $5 at our community yard sale.  It was a lot of work, I know, but, hey!  It was only $5!

We had an outside leaky faucet that required digging into the concrete block.  Ron had to cut blocks to fit into the hole.  I forgot to get a final picture after the caulking and painting, but, believe me, it was perfect.

He also made himself a trommel to help with his gold mining.  It’s made out of a couple of five-gallon buckets.  He found the directions on the internet.

I’m sure we did other things, but if I don’t have a picture, I don’t remember.  :-D