Jen and Pete Visit USA - 2015 - Part 1

This is the 3rd year that Jenny and Peter (our Australian friends) have joined us during our RV travels in USA. Murray and I were staying with our American friends Jan and Dick in Frederick, Maryland, when Jen and Peter arrived, and Dick kindly drove me into the middle of DC to pick them up and 4 of us could spend a night with them on their 8 acre Frederick property. Dick cooked us up some delicious steaks for dinner, and afterwards we enjoyed an early evening stroll during which we saw a deer, and literally hundreds of fireflies. They were magical. 

The next morning we said our goodbyes to Jan and Dick, and drove 1.5 hours to the Cacapon golf resort in West Virginia. The Course is rated as 'one of the 130 best-designed courses in the United States'. The guys spent several hours on the well manicured course, while Jen and I watched some ground hogs nibbling on the grass, had lunch in the resort dining room, and downloaded our photos. The chimney you can see us standing in front of is on the putting green, and is the last remnant of the original farmhouse that stood on the property: the chimney is featured on the Cacapon merchandise including the golf shirt and cap that Murray purchased. We had dinner in the lodge restaurant and later took a pleasant after-dinner stroll to see the chimney - and caught the deer nibbling on the grass. 

The next night the four of us stayed at the historic Michael Cahill Bed and Breakfast in Ashtabula, Ohio, right beside Lake Michigan. The home was built around 1887 and has 4 bedrooms for guests' use, each with an en suite. Not only did our bed have a canopy, but so did our bath tub/shower (see in photo below). Very quaint. The home is owned by Pat and Paul Goode and they served us up a delightful breakfast to send us on our way the next morning. Also staying at the house were a couple from Georgia, Page and Bruce. They are in the photo with us at the breakfast table, and they joined us in a stimulating discussion over breakfast. Our travels are not only about the places we visit, but also the delightful people that we meet on the journey.

Across the road from the bed and breakfast, we came across the Hubbard House - The sign accompanying the photo gives a snapshot of its history, but here is a summary of the Underground Railroad for my Aussie family and friends who may be unfamiliar with the term. "The 'Underground Railroad' was the term used to describe a network of meeting places, secret routes, passageways and safe houses used by slaves in the U.S. to escape slave holding states to northern states and Canada. Established in the early 1800s and aided by people involved in the Abolitionist Movement, the underground railroad helped thousands of slaves escape bondage. By one estimate, 100,000 slaves escaped from bondage in the South between 1810 and 1850. Aiding them in their flight was a system of safe houses and abolitionists determined to free as many slaves as possible, even though such actions violated state laws and the United States Constitution." (http://www.historynet.com/underground-railroad). Amazing to witness a remnant of this history.

Jen caught these young Ohio Amish lads taking hay from their field to the family dairy up the road

Amish buggies everywhere

The next day we drove in grey, drizzly weather to have morning tea in Michigan before driving back south to Shipshewana, Indiana, where we witnessed a strong Amish culture. The town attracts over 1 million tourists every year and is the only Indiana location listed in '1,000 Places To See Before You Die'. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000_Places_to_See_Before_You_Die). Despite the rain on the windscreen, we were able to get several photos. The Amish people were first officially documented arriving in the USA in 1737, although some were already in the country following persecution in their original home of Switzerland, and their 'new' homes in Germany and the Netherlands. They initially established farming in Pennsylvania, and later moved west to Ohio and other USA states and to Canada. Amish children usually cease school in Grade 8, and while the females generally help in the home with cooking, sewing and minding the children, the males help in the fields, dairy, furniture building and so on. Traditional Amish families have no motor vehicle and use only horse drawn carts. As most Amish object to having their photographs taken, we had to be sensitive when taking the photos above. The youths in the yellow framed photo waved to Jenny as she took their photo.  

After Indiana we continued westward (felt a bit like Lewis and Clark) through the state of Wisconsin, passing by its oldest city of Green Bay. Known as 'America's Dairyland',  Wisconsin is one of the country's top dairy producers, especially renowned for their cheese production. Every where you looked there seemed to be dairy farms, and the countryside was lush and green. So beautiful. While passing through this state we learnt about 'barn quilts'. It is not a quilt made of material as we know it, but a 8 ft x 8 ft block of wood or metal, painted to look like a quilt, and hung on a barn (usually). The latest cult to paint and hang barn quilts started in Ohio in 2000 (wiki), although decorations of barns is a centuries old tradition. Once we heard about them, we saw them everywhere. 

'Quilt Trails' can be found in 43 of the 50 US states: you drive or cycle a route following a trail (map provided) where you see quilts hanging on various properties along the route. The photo above shows just a few of the ones we saw.