In 1972, I had a year of work under my belt, plus a second year of Co-Op work experience. This being a Federal Government job (at the Navy lab in Dahlgren, VA), I had earned 6 weeks of vacation. I took them and did an epic cross-country journey in my Datsun 2000. When I returned to work, there was an attractive young lady working in my section as a Co-Op. I was giving hints to one of my co-workers, but he was being dense. Finally, I asked him outright to introduce us.

Now that same young lady is traveling with me on my second, and her first, epic journey. This time, instead of driving to CA and back in 6 weeks, we are driving to Pipe Spring in two (plus a couple of days). So far, this journey has been even more fun than my first.

Barbara Fritchie Restaurant

Barbara Fritchie was born in Lancaster. She famously said “Shoot if you must, this old grey head, but spare your country’s flag.” — or so said John Greenleaf Whittier. Whether the incident is true or not, the poem is popular. Ammon E. Cramer liked it so much that when he opened his candy shop in Frederick in 1910, he called it “Barbara Fritchie Candies”. This business morphed and relocated and eventually became the Barbara Fritchie Restaurant. It is in my story because this is where we had the only restaurant breakfast we will have on this journey. The rest of our breakfasts will be included with our hotel room. This restaurant has everything. Besides the broken sign, it has lots of guys in pickup trucks hanging out and talking, plastic-topped tables, pies and cakes in the display case, a candy display near the register (complete with Necco Wafers – they’re just like I remember them), and of course very good diner breakfast options.

Sideling Hill

We decided to take a short detour from I-70 to avoid the better part of PA, with their eternal infernal road construction and took I-68. This Maryland Interstate is in very good condition. It features ear-popping mountains, the most famous of which is Sideling Hill. There used to be a small museum discussing how it is that the mountain goes up and the strata go down. The museum had placards filled with geological this and billion year old that. The museum was closed during the MD budget cuts. Recently it was re-opened. Unfortunately, the museum material had been donated to the Hancock Museum. The only thing at the stop was brochures, bathrooms, and bottled Coke. But it’s still a very cool place to stop and walk around. The parking court has a nice view of an amazing vista, making it the real Vista View Court (as opposed  to the street we used to live on).

By lunch time, we were at the Salt Fork Park in Ohio. Ohio’s largest state park is a lake with surrounding land. Budget cuts are evident in the grass growing through the asphalt roads, and not many people were at the nature center where we stopped for lunch. But the park is free, the picnic table was in the shade of a tree, the weather was beautiful, and the lake view was very nice. After lunch, we played 18 holes of mini-golf. By 3:30, we were in our hotel in Cambridge, Ohio. This was our longest drive. Hopefully, those roads we ended up taking through PA will be the worst roads we encounter.