A week ago we picked up our hire car and headed off eastward towards Bethlehem PA. The 400 mile drive was supposed to take 8 hours, but the rain didn't stop and it was dark, so we took closer to 9 hours. Part of the journey took us along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which after my visit to the museum of American History I knew to be the oldest in the US (I think). We paid our $12 or so and made use of one of the two rest-stops en route. You definitely have more choice when you leave the highway, but the Midway rest-stop was pretty ropey and the mushrooms on K's pizza looked grey in the wrong kind of way.
Before we got the Thanksgiving on the Thursday, we had the pleasure of seeing Rich and Vicki on the final leg of their round the world jaunt. K enjoyed her 10 year high school reunion and the three of us enjoyed a burrito (one each) at Tulum (K's favourite, much-talked-about burrito bar) and a slightly overpriced drink at The Bookstore, which was a pretty well done speakeasy cellar type place and certainly one of a kind in Bethlehem.
Thanksgiving day brought a bit of American Football before the feast, seeing Green Bay continue their unbeaten run at Detroit. For the first time the 26 pound turkey was cooked in a bag (in the oven). All went down well and K and her mom probably tied the battle of sweet potatoes.
Not content with the usual choice of three deserts, the anti had been upped to a choice of FIVE. I started out with the traditional slice of Apple and Pumpkin pies (above). We got to some Pumpkin Roll later on too, no complaints. After a bit more football on TV the English element got out for a walk. The sun was out and there was no real need for a jacket. Later in the evening we spent (maybe a bit too long) watching Pumpkin Chunkin on the Discovery channel. Essentially this is a competition to see who can fling a pumpkin the furthest. I think one or two may have gone beyond 4000 ft and they seemed to come from some sort of air rocket type set up.
After a spot of breakfast at Billy's Dinner on Friday morning, the Hembrows were off on the bus back to NYC. We decided to avoid any potential pepper spray or gun attacks and not take a Black Friday shopping excursion.
Saturday meant a drive to a fairly nearby IKEA to squeeze some flat pack furniture into our Nissan hire car. It was much the same as the one in Bristol, though maybe a little less busy for a Saturday. We also went to a Christmas Craft market thing down near the steel stacks in Bethlehem. They either made a poor choice on the artists (?) they selected or the painted eggshells at $60 weren't quite doing it for me.
The highlight was a large christmas tree adorned with thousands of "Peeps" (above). The Just Born candy company (from Bethlehem) makes all sorts of marshmallow shapes for all the holiday seasons. We made sure to pick up a few snowmen...The drive home started in sunshine, but ended up in the same torrential rain we had left behind in Ohio a few days earlier. The highlight of the journey was using our Giant Eagle grocery rewards to pick up gas at $1.19 a gallon rather than $3.39. We felt smug.
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