Stranded

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny fall day (a little chilly, and windy, but nice) , following a rainy, stormy day on Saturday, so we went sightseeing with my parents. They help me out all week, taking care of the house and the kids, so we try to get them to do some "tourism" once in a while :)

While I'm at it, perhaps I should say that my parents love to travel, to walk or drive around and explore new places (so much so that my mom hates the American highways, she claims they all look the same and she can't really sightsee or explore at all) - and I totally incoporated these characteristics from them.

Anyway, we decided to go to Lancaster County ("Amish Country"), which is less than an hour and a half away. This time I let my DH look up places to visit, and decide where to go. We decided to start with something that would give us a "feel" for the Amish way of life, and the "Amish Farm" and "Amish Village" promised that. DH said that from what he read, the Farm was the a more accurate portrait, and an actual house and farm, so we went there. However, when we got to the place, look what we found:We were utterly disgusted!! Yes, a Target store has just been built right beside it.
Now I understand why they only have two dated pictures in their website (which I only checked today):










The first from 1957, the second from 2004.



They are working on the land in front of the house, it looks like a large construction site, but nothing can be done about the SIDE of the house and farm. The curb of Target's parking lot is like 2 feet from the house!!! I couldn't believe it! Look at the sign for the place, barely visible beside the retail giant's sign:
Maybe some people will be happy to park right behind Target on their way to visit a farm that showcases the way of life of the very simple and modernity adverse Amish, but we just couldn't bear to do it, and we visited the Amish Village instead. We then drove through Strasburg, where my son (a train fanatic) visited the ChooChoo Barn with daddy while and I, my parents and the napping "baby" drove around enjoying the scenery. We concluded we'd have to go back some other time to visit the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania because it couldn't be done in an hour (I guess my son's love of trains has contaminated all of us :)

When we were ready to drive home (after filling the tank with "cheaper" gas - 2.28/gal versus 2.68 around here), we noticed that there was a problem with the brakes in one of the rear wheels. Actually, I had already noticed a funny, rubbery smoke smell on our drive there, but DH had said it wasn't our car. DH and my dad took out the wheel and realized that the brake wouldn't "release" the wheel, remaining stuck at most times. While they did that, we enjoyed the view of a farm right behind the station and took many pictures of the boys in the beautiful sunset light (but enough pictures for this post, OK?).

We decided to keep on going, even though we knew that the wheel was getting extremely hot, when DH saw a garage/shop that was open. He dropped us off at a grocery store so we'd be warm (it was pretty cold by this time) and went there with my dad. I couldn't believe it when he called saying that the problem was serious and we wouldn't be able to drive home last night. We'd never been stranded before, much less with two kids and parents in tow! No rental cars were available, and the guy at the shop was kind enough to drive us to a motel with his friend. Even motels were hard to find, we stopped by two before calling and finding out about one that had room or was open. I had bought food and some first necessity items at the store (Kelvin loved his 50 cents new toothbrush and brushed his teeth, stopping once in a while to eat, some 5 times), but it's never fun to sleep in street clothes with excited kids who don't really want to sleep, just run around the bedroom and bathroom, enjoying their novelty. Linton nursed all night long...

This morning we rented a car and drove home (DH will return the rental and pick up our car tomorrow), and I was barely able to work this afternoon, I was so tired!! But it felt really, really good to come home, better than ever before!