Rainy days, Christian Sanderson Museum, (posted from home)
(this post covers 18-22 October)


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Sunday, 22 October-

We awoke to a 45-degree morning at French Creek State Park after a very peaceful and quiet night. Despite all the people in the campground there’s little noise--- the way it’s supposed to be! After a quick breakfast of corn bread we had brought along from home we drove to the antique shops at Adamstown, PA. There we enjoyed a few hours of being entertained by the great variety and overall high quality of antiques. Fortunately for us, we aren’t collectors but we do enjoy looking at antiques and learning about them, particularly for their place in history. Labashi likes to look for decorating ideas and today had great luck. She especially liked an upscale country-French shop and is once again inspired by the beautiful objects.
By 1400 we were once again headed home and took the long way—a very pretty drive through Lancaster County back roads. Once we crossed the Susquehanna I once again turned onto the back roads and we wound along the river looking at the fall colors. Along the way home we stopped at the video store and picked up a few videos for this week and stopped for an ice cream at Iggy Bop’s in Manchester before winding our way home. Nice day!
That evening we watched ‘The Break Up’ with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston. It had a few funny moments but I’m not a fan of Jon Faverau-VinceVaughn improv. Too many cigars, too much ego.

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Saturday, 21 October-

Today started out as a nice sunny day so we wanted to get away for the weekend. We weren’t too sure where we wanted to go but we did want to do some driving out in the country. I suggested we see what’s happening at Brandywine River Museum. Labashi countered by suggesting we go to the Chadds Ford area but not to the Museum since we had been there not long ago. She wanted to see if any of the small museums we normally pass by in that area would be interesting. I did a few searches on the web to find the other museums and we settled on the Christian Sanderson museum, mostly because it sounded reasonably interesting…. and the other nearby ones were closed for the season! We started late so didn’t get to the Sanderson Museum until 1430 and it looked from the outside like we’d only need an hour or so for our visit. But it turned out to be a gem, in fact a very spectacular gem. Chris Sanderson was born in 1882 and served as a schoolmaster for more than 25 years. Afterwards he developed a career as a lecturer and as a square-dance band-master in an era where square-dancing was very popular. But he was also a life-long collector. When he died in 1966, his house was jammed with all kinds of artifacts and papers—from mastodon teeth to autographs to parts from crashed aircraft to original Wyeth paintings and drawings. Chris knew N.C. Wyeth and we saw a fantastic, hilarious letter written in faux Pennsylvania-Dutch from N.C. to Chris. Chris played Rip Van Winkle in local theatrical productions at Longwood Gardens and N.C.’s letter addresses him as Rip van Winkle II and congratulates him on taking over for Rip Van Winkle. Andrew Wyeth used Chris, who he called ‘Sandy’, as a model in several paintings. And Jamie Wyeth also drew Chris. The Wyeth letters, drawings, and paintings are alone well worth the trip. But Chris had so many interests. The autograph collection is also in itself fantastic as are all the historical artifacts, many of them with hand-written notes explaining them. We stayed until the museum closed but could have used another hour. This is the kind of unknown gem we love to find. And it probably won’t last a lot longer. Since Chris died so long ago now, there aren’t many visitors any more who knew him. The museum association is having a hard time finding enough visitors to have the museum open just from 1 to 4:30 pm on Saturdays and Sundays and only part of the year. We’re very glad we found this one and we’ll be going back again to see the rest of it.
When we left the museum at 1630 we drove south on Route 1 looking for a restaurant. We found an upscale restaurant not far away called ‘The Gables’. We arrived too early for dinner but simply read for an hour in Mocha Joe until they opened. We then had a wonderful meal of exotic tastes. Labashi had a roasted-beet and asparagus salad accompanied by a tea-cup of a beet soup for an appetizer, followed by an Ahi tuna main course. I had an excellent mushroom soup then a frittata of chorizo and cheese topped by guacamole and onion-straws.
After dinner we drove back to the turnpike and then on to French Creek State Park for the night. Along the way we had to stop behind another car at some type of fire activity. I don’t know what it was but there were several fire trucks along the road and the side road was blocked off by traffic cones; apparently there had just been a fire down that road. The car in front of us wanted to turn that way so a fireman came over to talk to the driver and signaled us to wait. The conversation lasted a few minutes and I was getting impatient that I couldn’t go around when clearly there was plenty of room. The impasse finally broke and I drove only about a half-mile and there sat a pickup stopped in the roadway. What the heck was going on? The pickup then backed up toward me and angled off the road. And there in his backup lights lay the answer—a very large buck he had just hit was lying in the grass, its large rack propping up its head, blood on the hind-quarters. That pickup could so easily have been us. We didn’t stop since we saw someone coming out from the nearest house--- he apparently had heard the screech of brakes and the squeal of tires.
At French Creek, we were very surprised how crowded the campground was—we had to take the very last campsite and it wasn’t late at all. We finished settling in to our campsite by 2030 and went to bed at 2130 to read.

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Friday, 20 October-

This morning was again rainy and I spent a lot of time on the web. The clouds finally cleared around noon but a front came through and it became very windy, even blowing the car-cover off the Miata. When the wind settled down around 1400 I went out and installed splash-guards on Labashi’s van in the driveway. I had bought the splash-guards as part of an accessories package last year and just got around to putting them on in preparation for the coming winter. The installation was easy but I did have to take off the rear wheels to be able to get a screwdriver on the mounting screws. They should help keep some of the salt-splash off the van’s body panels this year.
That evening we watched “Akeelah and the Bee”. We liked this little film which was obviously a labor-of-love for the director. And Keke Palmer is an amazing 11-year-old. Watch the additional features on the DVD to see her both as a regular hyper-kinetic, outgoing little girl and then as the reserved character Akeelah. Wow!

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Thursday, 19 October-

Today was a rainy day and we spent most of it at our computers. I spent a lot of my time on Google and YouTube video websites looking at travel footage and at live webcams across Canada and across the state of Montana. Here’s a link to some Canadian weather cams: http://www.stormpost.com/cams.pl . And take a minute to look at this spectacular one: (click on the picture to expand it) http://www.banffgondola.com/live_cam.asp#. THAT will give you an idea of why I can spend hours and hours looking at webcams.
That evening we watched “Survivor: Cook Islands”.

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Wednesday, 18 October-

I spent a few hours blogging and emailing this morning. Email gave us some good news on the fridge: our home insurance is going to cover the loss. With the cost of the new fridge our out-of-pocket expenses came to just under $1100. Our insurance has a $500 deductible so we will only be getting a little over half of it back but that will certainly help. I’ve been trying to think how we’ll deal with this type of potential problem on our next trip but haven’t settled on anything yet. But I’m going to have to do something.
In the afternoon I drove the Miata over to Pinchot park for a jog. The day was warm and very humid but the sky was darkening so I put the top up after parking at the Quaker Race parking area. My jogging loop took me through the woods to the Route 177 bridge then I circled back via park roads through the cabins to the main boat launch before taking the lakeside trail back to the car, a total of about 45 minutes. That evening we watched a PBS documentary about Jamestown and then the Project Runway finale. We were rooting for Michael but have to agree that his final collection was flawed.