Luray Caverns: Just
minutes from our camping spot was a set of caverns. Having gone
spelunking last year with the grandsons, I was feeling a little wary of
signing up for the tour. We stopped on
our way to dinner to check out what was involved. When the attendant told me we could bring
the pugs in pouches strapped to our chests, I concluded we would not be
wriggling through holes. Do not miss these if you are in the area. Without the pugs, Peter and I embarked on a tour of some truly beautiful caverns. The most magnificent feature was the
reflecting pond, which is always absolutely still and provides a perfect mirror
image of the stalactites and stalagmites.
As you can see it is difficult to tell where the water meets the land.
The next day it was on the road again, this time for a
two-day stop in a KOA northeastern Pennsylvania. It was
a long and horrid trip. We paid tolls
to drive on turnpikes that appeared to me had not been repaved since the
1970s. Narrow lanes, lots of fast
traffic and a jolt and a jounce every 300 yards. Tired and cross we pulled off the exit ramp
to the road leading to our camping spot.
Confronting us at the bottom of the exit ramp was an enormous
Westinghouse plant-----think something slightly smaller than Boeing in
Everett. As we turned another corner I
saw a sign directing delivery trucks to the “plasma center”. “Good heavens,” I said to Peter, “What is Westinghouse doing
with blood?” He didn’t reply. When I looked over at him, he had one of
those, “Oh my God, she’s lost it” looks on his face. Much later we both had a good laugh when I
realized Westinghouse was building plasma TVs.
Another trip north and up a much better turnpike brought us
to one of my favorite stops. Marblehead,
Ohio. We were camped on a peninsula
jutting out into Lake Erie. The state
park had long sandy beaches for walking that allowed dogs. It was very odd to walk along a beach with
waves with no tang of salt in the air.
Walter couldn’t get used to the fact that he could drink the water
coming in-------he wasn’t making the connection that this was a lake either. We had some great laughs by Marblehead
lighthouse where, to save the shore, the community had put riprap (big concrete
slabs and hunks). As the waves came in,
the water would rush up into the spaces
between the chunks and Walter would race down to get a drink, only to get
splashed in the face as the next wave came in.
Lots of barking and yipping.
Edison’s birthplace:
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, a place that looks remarkably
like the town from Back to the Future—right down to
the town square with the clock tower.
We took a day trip to see Edison’s childhood home. He was quite the handful as a child. He lasted 3 months in the public school
before his mother decided to homeschool him.
His first invention at age 20 was a stock ticker for the stock
exchange. He sold it to the president
of Western Union for $40,000. The story
goes that Edison told the Western Union president that he would have sold it
for two or three thousand dollars. The
president responded by saying that he would have paid $100,000 to have it.
What
impressed me most was the relationship that developed between Henry Ford,
Carnegie, Rockefeller and Edison. So
many smart men meeting and talking together.
It reminds me of Seattle with Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet,
Richard Branson and the Boeings. All
kind of working together on and off and developing some really neat things.
enoying your updates, Mardean!
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