The last leg of our east coast trip had us driving inland to New Providence, Penn., for a visit with Nonnie and Proxy, my aunt and uncle. We were lucky to arrive the day before Proxy’s 86th birthday and be there the next day to celebrate. While we were there we had a few fun adventures including chasing down a pair of 510-ton 7-story-tall steam generators that were making their way along country roads at 3 mph en route to their new home at Three Mile Island. The generators were built by a company in France and transported overground on 26-axle trucks owned and operated by the Fagiola company of Italy. We caught up to them at an intersection in Lancaster County, somewhere in the middle of their 20+ day trip from Port Deposit and joined a number of local spectators who had come out to witness the spectacle. Another fun adventure we had was being rescued by an Amish gentleman named Eli after getting hopelessly lost in a giant corn maze shaped like the state of Pennsylvania. The adventure started out hopeful as we quickly collected stamps representing Lancaster, Allegheny and Erie counties, but grew more and more hopeless as we failed to find our way to Centre and Bradford. Finally, after passing Eli for the third time, he took pity on us and showed us the way. Along the way Erinn and Nonnie got in some time on the playground at least. One of the best parts about visiting Non and Prox is the food. The feasting began the first night with a trip to a crab shack where were scarfed down a couple dozen blue crabs, joined by my Uncle Mike who made the trip up from Arlington, Virginia. There was also a trip to a goat farm to buy some fresh-as-is-possible-to-get-it chevre. And on our way out Non loaded us up with bags and bags of their gourmet pretzels, which they sell at craft shows throughout the northeast with their business, Pretzelphoria. Check them out at pretzelphoria.com! It was a fun end to a great trip.
