Millersville, MD --> Allentown, PA

Sabbatical Day 14 | June 10, 2011
Millersville, MD  -->  Allentown, PA

Today was scheduled to be a pretty long driving day so we tried to head out as early as we could. If you look at a map, its only like a three hour drive, but Matt had us going the loooong way so that I got to see a few more states. Instead of going North from Maryland to Pennsylvania, we drove East through Delaware and New Jersey, and then Northwest into Pennsylvania. With the changes, we were scheduled to add like four more hours to our trip!! *phew!*

First on the agenda was the Tree Hugger Tree in Baltimore, MD. Basically, some of the locals have been knitting a "sweater" for one of the trees and putting it ON the tree. As the tree grows, they cut it off and make it a little bigger - or they will change it for the season. It was cute! Domo and I had a good time taking pictures and he even gave the tree a hug too! While I was taking pictures, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. I actually did answer the phone (I don't normally answer if I don't recognize the number) and it was the KOA that we had just left and they wanted to let us know that they had found Matt's driver's license. Whoopsie!!  I reluctantly headed back to the car to let him know that we were going to be delayed a bit more since we had to go BACK to Millersville to get his ID before we could continue with our trip.

After retrieving his ID, we headed to Newark, DE to see the Huge Doctor's Bag with Stethoscope (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/18430) that is ... maybe, 14 feet tall? It was more of a fun to see, hop quick out of the car and get a picture kind of thing. We didn't dally much since it was so hot but Domo got his picture in and he was happy. From the doctor's bag, we went to see the 34 foot tall stainless steel Mary in front of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in New Castle, DE (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/12889). She was absolutely stunning! What made her even more impressive is that if you get up close, you find that she is made of individual pieces of steel that were all connected together. Each piece was probably the dimensions of a wooden ruler. I didn't see her face up close but I would imagine that it is individual pieces as well. All along the bottom of the statue  are rosaries that people have left for her. I just couldn't get past her face! I tried and tried but I don't think my pictures do this statue the justice it deserves - her face is absolutely stunning and just resonated with me so much that I had to keep trying to get a good picture of her face so I could share it with you guys!

We then had a fun stop! We went to Haddonfield, NJ to Hadrosaurus Park where we visited the World's First Dinosaur Skeleton Discovery site.  The Hadrosaurus foulkii was the first nearly complete dinosaur skeleton found in October, 1858 and it was the first to be mounted for public display. The discovery of this skeleton sparked the start of the field of dinosaur paleontology. At the site, they have a small marker and a plaque. But, among the locals, there is an unspoken tradition of leaving toy dinosaurs at the site and if you take a dinosaur, they trust that you will leave one in it's place. It was cute to see all the toy dinosaurs randomly lying about!

And then it was time for Philly!! Our first stop was at the Magic Garden (http://www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org/) which is, what I thought, a 'garden' between two buildings that someone created using mortar and recycled glass, bottles, plates, metal bike rims, etc. and he made like a maze between th two buildings. Come to find out, it's not just between the two buildings! There is actually a shop/gallery that you can go into and then enter the actual 'garden' that is between the two buildings and this garden is just this huge maze that this guy built using these recycled materials. It really was quite amazing and there was just so much to see! You could spend days in there and still not see everything. I overheard one of the artists there giving an interview and he said that the guy that created this place works from 6am to 6pm, every day, working on his art. Since it is an outdoor exhibit, he does have to sometimes rebuild - especially after the winter. I really enjoyed walking through and seeing everything - the little girls from the other group that came in were running around trying to find one another and it was cute at first but then got kind of annoying since the walkways weren't very wide. Ah well.

At this point we were feeling hunger pangs, so of COURSE we had to find a Philly cheese steak sandwhich but where the heck to go?? God bless social media in these situations! I hopped on Facebook and we were guided to either Pat's, or Geno's (which, by the way, was literally kitty corner from Pat's!!) - thanks Andre and Matt!! We decided to try Pat's. Once we found the restaurant, we were fortunate enough to also find a parking spot, which apparently is ALSO a good thing since there was a home game!! I was nervous about ordering because I have never had a Philly cheese steak sandwich before (I know, it's a crime to be from New England and to never have one, but what can I say??) and based on the instructions next to the order window, you better not screw up!  Thankfully, I was able to place my order incident free and my sandwhich was ready before I had even finished paying!  We grabbed some drinks, napkins, found a table, and had lunch!  It was marvelous!  Totally worth the trip! 

We then went on the hunt for the Board Game Art Park (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/22535) which is a plaza that has sculpted game pieces throughout. We were finally directed to it by the b$%^ and found that it was right across from City Hall which, including the statue, is the world's second-tallest masonry building, only .5 m (1 ft 8 in) shorter than Mole Antonelliana in Turin. However, Matt ended up having to let me out of the car so that I could get started on taking pictures while he tried to find a parking space. Unfortunately, he didn't drop me off in the right spot so I wasn't sure where to go. Conveniently, he did drop me off just outside of 'Love' park (http://www.fairmountpark.org/jfkplaza.asp). I took some pictures there and was able to find a local police officer to see if she could help me find the park. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure where it was either. As she was looking up the location for me, I spotted one of the 'Sorry' pieces across the street, thanked her for her time, and headed on my way!  It was fun to see the oversized game pieces! There were chess pieces, pieces from Monopoly, a few Dominoes, some Bingo pieces, and some pieces from 'Sorry'. It was cool but I wish they had been maintained a bit better. Eh - no biggie!

You can't go to Philly without seeing the Rocky statue! However, I also recommend doing some research before undertaking such a task to make sure you know WHERE it is first because apparently they like to move him around!  Matt had loaded in the address that he had for the statue but that ended up taking us to the baseball stadium which was super crazy because the game was just starting. However, he had been moved back to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to the base of the stairs. So we headed over there and found a parking spot. We got out and took some pictures of the statue - we even egged a girl on into having her picture taken with her other friend whom she had egged on into posing like the statue for a picture. It was hilarious! We didn't run the stairs like I had originally wanted to do but Domo did and so we got a picture of that. By this time the sun was setting so we had to get a move on so that we didn't arrive to our KOA too terribly late.

From Philly, we headed to Quakertown, PA where we had dinner at John's Plain & Fancy (http://johnsplainandfancy.com/) where I had the BEST crab cakes EVAH!  Oh. My. GOD they were good!! Unfortunately, they were also filling and I wasn't able to finish them :0( Technically, there was only one actual crab cake and two crab stuffed shrimp but in reality, there were 3 crab cakes with a butterflied shrimp under two of them lol!  Oh, it was soooo good!!  Sitting behind us, at the counter, were some of the regulars that come into the restaurant frequently (this tidbit of info was gleaned based on the fact that the waiter knew them by name and that they were comfortable enough to sit and watch a movie at the counter on a portable DVD player). One of the gentlemen was a larger man, but he had a voice that was so deep and rumbly and so spot on that I thought that it was the guy that was the voice of Jabba the Hut (a quick IMDB search proved that he was, sadly, not the actor). Even the laugh!!  It totally made dinner a treat! I LOVED his laugh!!

After dinner, we went to find the giant dumbell (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/14052) which was supposed to be behind a local gym equipment store. The GPS didn't do such a great job getting there so we had to help her out a bit with Google maps. Good to find this out while I had Matt WITH me instead of while I am trying to find my way back to Utah! LOL  We did eventually find it and I would say that it stood at about 9 feet tall maybe?  It was definitely not designed to move at all! They were freaking HEAVY! We took a few photos and then it was off to find our KOA!

One of the great things that I like about being back on the East coast is that whenever you drive somewhere, it becomes a nature "treasure hunt". On the way to our KOA we saw a herd of about 6 or 7 deer grazing along side the road! Then, just as we were about to pull up to the main office of the KOA, we saw ANOTHER deer that had been standing in the road but was heading into the woods as we approached! THAT one was stinkin cool because the deer was right there in the camp ground! LOVED it!  As we pulled up to our 'kabin', one of the KOA employees drove up in his cart to welcome us and to make sure everything was okay with our kabin. It was great and now we are just getting ready for bed - family time tomorrow!!