Thursday, 8-21-08
We left Maryland at about 3:30 am. We had no sooner crossed the bridge into Calvert County when Bob and I saw some deer on the side of the road. During the rest of the drive to Western Maryland, the closest we came to wildlife was the occasional whif of skunk.
About 6:30, we took a short break at a scenic overlook and then drove into LaVale to the Denny's for breakfast.
After breakfast we continued our journey to Pennsylvania and arrived there around 9:30 or so. Our goal was to get on the Laurel Highlands scenic byway, which we did. It was very scenic. We drove through a small town--but an old town by the looks of the architecture--called Confluence, PA. Then continued down the Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway. At one point we spotted a deer and a bobcat.
We made our way along that route to the Laurel Caverns--arriving in time for the 10 am tour. The tour was about an hour. Our guide was Maise (sp) and she was very good. She works there over the summers while she is home from college. One of our fellow tourists was a young man named Christopher. He must have been 4 or 5. He was so cute and a real chatterbox. He walked along with Maise--forget Mom. She was very good with him, too. He was telling he things and asking her things. She would let him hold her flashlight.
The caverns were cold and damp, as I expected them to be. I actually like them better than the Lurray Caverns in Virginia. Don't get me wrong, the Lurray Caverns are very nice--but they are extremely crowded. It was hard to walk around in there and see because of all the people. At the Laurel Caverns they only take you down as a tour group and tours run every 20 minutes.
As we walked along, she pointed out some places where people had written the year they had been at the caverns. We saw 1864, 1915. Then, there was "Bob." We all teased Bob about writing on the wall.
That was a good break. Good exercise for me—we did lots of walking around and uphill work.
I do recommend it it you are in that part of Pennsylvania---south of Pittsburgh.
After we left there we went to a place called Ohiopile, PA and saw the water falls they have there. Very nice falls. Then we went to Laurel Ridge State Park and had a speedy picnic lunch. Speedy because the gnats and flies were so bad we ate fast and left. We headed to the Pennsylvania turnpike and then the Ohio turnpike and headed to Cleveland.
We took a fast ice-cream break just outside Akron then continued to the hotel in Cleveland. We arrived there about 4:30, settled in and headed to Therese and Kevin’s house about 5:30. They put steaks on the grill and had all the best side dishes. Potato salad, tossed salad, bean salad, mashed potatoes, fruit.
After dinner, Kevin built a bon fire. I love sitting around a bon fire. After a while we had to leave since we wanted to get up early for our drive to Grand Rapids.
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