RV Home Yet?

Got milk?

The last time I visted Hope Acres Dairy in Brogue, PA was two-plus years ago. This dairy is unique in that it is a robotic dairy. Daughter Rebekah and three grandkids - Robby, Timmy and Shannon - were enthralled! On this visit to Baltimore I wanted to share that with George plus show him where Bill (my late husband) and I lived before we hit the road.

After a drive by our old house and a hike down Muddy Creek where we'd scattered some of Bill's ashes, we were ready for lunch and a tour. Rich, Rebekah's husband, and Bethany (Bill's daughter) and her son Benjamin joined us. We met at the Brown Cow, which includes a restaurant, gift shop and Hope Acres' delicious ice cream. Tours meet here.

After lunch, we caravanned up to the dairy for our tour. The barn is cool compared to the outside temperatures; it was very hot and humid this day. Fans draw air through the barn. Between that and a mechanized pooper scooper, there were no flies and little odor. We watched cows scratch their necks and backs on the automatic back scratcher. And, a steady stream of cows filed into the robotic milker. Most of the cows are Jersey cows, known for their rich milk with a couple of holsteins and two red holsteins thrown in.

Each cow wears a collar with a computer chip that contains her history and the times she should be milked. Because the cows get a delicious chocolate cookie when milked, they go into the milker several times a day. If it isn't their time, the gate swings open and they leave. If it is time, the gates shut and the milking machine swings down. It first washes off their teats (pictured), then, using programmed information from the chip and lasers, it latches on to her teats.

From the inside of the milker shed, we could see the machines and the tubes that carry the milk to a container and then the tank. A computer readout tracked her progress. Before you know it, a gallon or so of milk was down the tubes, the gate swung open and another cow stepped in. Robby and Timmy found it especially fascinating and had lots of questions for our guide.

After the tour, we could turn in our wooden tour chip for a free ice cream made from milk from their own cows. Delicious!

York County, where the dairy is located, offers many factory tours. Harley Davidson, Utz and Martin's Potato Chips factories, Snyder's Pretzels are a few. During 2007 Made In America Tours celebration November 1-3 in York County, PA, more than 20 factories will be open for free tours. Other times of the year, see York County's website.

I'm not crabby I'm cute!

So says the t-shirt. Coming back to Baltimore where I lived before hitting the road meant having steamed blue channel crabs one night. Daughter Rebekah is highly allergic so son-in-law Rich stepped up to the plate and offered to take us to his favorite, Bo Brooks, at Lighthouse Point in Dundalk. Grandson Timmy, who is game to try new things, decided to come as well.

Crabs are more expensive than I remember - the large were $54 per dozen going up to around $100/dozen for the jumbos! But, you only live once so we ordered some. Timmy wasn't sure he'd like them but as soon as he saw the mallet, that's what he wanted to try. What kid could resist?

They spread brown paper over the table - eating crabs is messy. You pry the crab open with a knife to get inside. Then you use knife and mallet (or just the mallet) to break open the claws.

I loved lobster in Maine, but I think steamed crabs edge them out. Maryland crabs are steamed in Old Bay Seasoning, which makes them much more flavorful than lobster with butter. Maybe I'd better try lobster again, though, just to make sure.

Here come da judge!

We are in Baltimore, Maryland. Conveniently, my daughter has a hookup in her driveway since the previous owners were RVers who sold their house to go full-time.

Saturday George and I were judges. A brother-in-law of my son-in-law has a Harris-designed miniature golf course, ParTee Golf on Joppa Road and was holding his first annual tournament, "Festival of the Tees." The two top scorers would go to the National Harris Cup Miniature Golf Finals to be held in October in Clarks Summit, PA. Athan needed judges at each hole so we were sort of volunteered.

We arrived that morning, put on yellow ParTee Golf t-shirts, loaded up on donuts and coffee and were sent to our respective holes — George at #4, me at #5. Our jobs were pretty simple. Our main task was to make sure each golfer recorded his/her score correctly. We also made sure they followed the rules.

Forty-one contestants vied for trophies and the two trips. One of the contestants was quite serious about the whole tournament. We found out later he had called Harris to find out all the other qualifying tournaments in the adjoining 3 states: he was bound and determined to go to the finals. Some were families. The Outback Steakhouse fielded four players (at Hole #4 - see photo below). A young teenager with spina bifida played from his wheelchair. The benefactor of Athan's "Festival of the Tees" was the Kennedy Krieger Institutefor children with cerebral palsey and spina bifida so it was fitting he played. A doctor from the insitutute was judge at Hole 3.

A number of businesses had donated nice door prizes so besides 4 trophy winners (a tie for first, plus 2nd and 3rd), many were winners. Our serious contestant qualified as did a 16 year old young man with scores of 44.

All and all the tournament was a great success. Athan shamelessly promoted the tournament and it made the local news! And even better, he was able to donate about $3,000 to the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

You never know what connections in an area will bring to your travels. It was fun to be part of this event and we each have a new t-shirt. Of course, an RVer has to be careful about how much "stuff" is in the rig, so a new t-shirt means we each find an old one to get rid of. Maybe George will get rid of two.....

Avoiding a Tire Disaster

Sunday we were traveling down I81 in Pennsylvania towards Harrisburg. We had traveled over several rough spots and potholes. We hit the worst pothole as we pulled off to fuel and have lunch. After we ate, George walked around the 5th wheel, checking it. The back curbside tire had no tread! It must have separated at one of the potholes. The tire sensor had not gone off so as of yet we hadn't lost air. The tire wouldn't have lasted long, however.

George changed the tire and we went into Harrisburg to camp. The next day he called around and found a Goodyear commercial tire dealer - Wingfoot Commercial Tire Systems - off I81 that had a G614 RST tire in stock. He took the old tire up and had a new one put on the rim. The tires showed little wear so should have been covered by Goodyear's warranty. Plus, the tire was undoubtedly defective. The manager at Wingfoot asked us to bring the trailer back up so he could measure the tread left on the other tires.

Back the next day, the price was adjusted. Best of all they put the new tire back on. The tire, costing almost $300 new, cost us $114 for everything.

We were lucky in that George spotted the missing tread before we had a blowout. We were also lucky to find a commercial tire dealer with the tire we needed in stock so close. And we were lucky the separated tread did not damage the wheel well or hydraulic brake line.

TIP: Check your tires visually each time you stop.

We recommend Wingfoot Commercial Tire Systems in Harrisburg if you ever have a problem. We were in and out quickly both times with friendly, helpful service. Jaimie