Lititz, Lebanon & Hershey...

Tuesday found John aiming the hose on Rambo to find the leak over the driver’s seat before wrapping up the day on the roof of Rambo. Wednesday found us heading south to a campsite near Hershey PA… in the rain. Apparently John’s repair worked because neither the inside umbrella or the shoulder drip pan were needed for the driver. However… the leak around the back door was another story. As luck would have it, that is John’s side of the bed so I was worry free.

So why, you might ask, were we headed to Hershey? A boondoggle (is that really a word?). We “won” two nights free camping, $50 in gas and dinner for two – all we had to do was listen to an hour’s presentation on the campground. So we listened, said “no thank you” to the “membership” concept, and explored the area. Notice the goose nesting by the light next to the campground sign in the first photo – she said "yes" to the membership.

Lititz PA was our first stop. Turns out it “could” be an interesting little town. Linden Hall (photo 2) is the oldest girls’ residence school in the US, founded in 1746 by the Moravian Church. The church was built in the 1800’s (but CLOSED when we got there). The tree (I think) is a linden (if it’s not, it should be). Across the street (photo 4) is the site of the first pretzel factory in the US started by Julius Sturgis in 1861 (currently CLOSED for renovations). Next stop, photo 3 – Wilbur Chocolates (OPEN! leaving us poorer and heavier – great chocolate though). And lest you think that’s all Lititz has to offer, it is the home of Victor Mousetraps, photo 5 (CLOSED – no deals on mousetraps this trip).

Up the road is Lebanon PA. It is the home of “Loser’s Music”, Shyla Clay Pigeons, and Hershey’s “Idle Asset Storage” (John said he could relate). The real treasure was the Union Canal Transportation tunnel (photo 6). Completed in 1827, it is the oldest existing transportation tunnel in the US. It was part of the canal system so of course it is not used much. If you’re there in summer you can take a moonlight float through the tunnel (for us? - CLOSED). The first boat to use it was “Alpha of Tulephocken” (something I’m sure you’ll remember for your next trivia competition).

Running out of obvious things to do in Lebanon, we headed to Hershey Gardens (in Hershey). John particularly liked the Children’s Garden – you guessed it, photo 7. The owner of the gardens (they also have a controlling share in Hershey Chocolate) is the heir to the Hershey fortune, the Milton Hershey School. They have 1500 residential students selected on the basis of social & economic need from age 4 to 19. A VERY nice school (not that it shouldn’t be with an $8 billion endowment). Photo 8 is the outside of their rotunda (my dinky camera was overwhelmed by the inside). In 1970 when it was built it was second in size only to St. Peter’s at the Vatican.

Wrapping up our trip we met a friend at the Hershey Hotel for a very decadent lunch and gained a few more pounds by sampling every chocolate dessert they had (lobby photo 9 – the hotel is also owned by the school). John did, however, have enough energy to “tiptoe through the tulips” before we headed home. Back in NY it was comforting to see a sign for a new business – “Rita Mae’s Flowers & Worms”…

Until our next trip...

Check out our other blog...
www.musingsfromthecountry.blogspot.com

A bit about Heifer International...

Several of you also asked about Heifer Project so.... you get to hear a bit about them too.

Heifer International has projects all over the world including the U.S. (Sad to say, but we still have hungry people in our country.) Rather than just giving food to the hungry, Heifer's aim is to provide families with an "agricultural" means to help them secure food as well as provide an income source. Therefore a family might receive a goat or a hive of bees or even a heifer and given instruction on sustainable agricultural practices - practices designed to protect our environment. The family who receives the animal will in turn "gift" another family with one of the offspring and so on, thus helping the entire community.

When John & I visited the "ranch" in Arkansas, we saw several examples of how this works. I particularly liked the goat demonstration. Rather than letting the goat graze wherever as is the normal practice in much of the world, owners are taught to build confinement areas/buildings on slopes with slatted floors to allow the manure to be easily collected. The manure is used to enrich the land so food can be raised for the goats and for the owners. The confinement areas protect the goats from predators and the children, freed from the responsibility of watching the goats all day, can now go to school. The goat itself is also a food source, not only for meat, but for milk to drink or make cheese which the family can eat or sell. (And, of course, goatskin gloves are always popular.)

There are 3 demonstration farms in the US (Ark., Mass., Calif.) if you'd like to visit. Although "generic" contributions are always welcome, they also have a neat way to make a "contribution" gift. (This is what my family has been doing for several years for Christmas gifts instead of buying more things for each other that none of us need.) For example you can sponsor a flock of chicks for $20 or three rabbits for $60 (just in time for Easter) or a water buffalo for $250 or even a heifer for $500 (for some reason a camel is NOT listed - maybe that's why he's at the ranch). The next time you're looking for that perfect gift for the person who has everything, consider sponsoring an animal in their name. www.heifer.org

I'm going to take the next few days "off" from blog posting. If I can think of some new topics next week, I'll post to www.musingsfromthecountry.blogspot.com
So until our next trip, stay well....

A note about Habitat

Several of you have had questions about how Habitat works so (although I'm NOT, even though I might try to convince you otherwise, the ultimate authority) I'll share with you my thoughts.

Habitat is one way of providing decent housing to low income deserving families. The projects are Christian based but non-denominational. The builds we've been on were generally sponsored by several churches in the area. You do not have to be a church-goer to participate. John & I aren't. Volunteers have a wide range of faiths.

It is up to each affliate (local group) to help raise the construction money necessary to build a house. I assume they also get some assistance from Habitat International and, I'm told, Whirlpool continues to donate a stove and refrigerator to each Habitat house. Although the affliate is given guidelines for home construction (example - no garages/car ports should be included), they have a lot of flexibility in its design. Two of the houses we worked on (NC & TX) were energy efficient houses (something I personally think should be required of all new construction). Floor plans vary (the open floor plan in NC has been my favorite so far). Some places rehab existing houses but we've not worked with any of those sites.

Who gets the houses? Again, that's determined by the local affliate. Some require participants to put in volunteer hours before they're even considered. Others screen prospects first (financial history/need), then allow participants to fulfill volunteer hours on the house that will be theirs. The number of volunteer hours required to qualify for a house varies as well - we've seen as low as 50 or as high as 1,000. In the places we've been, participants were given instruction on budget management and home maintenance.

How do the finances work? This too varies but the most common way (that we've seen so far) is to give the new homeowner two mortgages. The first mortgage covers what it cost to build the house (around $60,000). It is an interest free loan. The term of the mortgage is calculated so the homeowners monthly payment for the mortgage plus insurance & taxes will not exceed what they could afford to pay in rent. The second mortage is the difference between the cost of the house and the accessed value of the house. This second mortgage is sort of an insurance for Habitat that the homeowner will not sell the house immediately and come away with the profit. When the first mortgage is paid, the second mortgage is forgiven.

Usually local volunteers do most of the construction on the houses and form a support network for the families to help them succeed. The affliates can also request the help of other volunteers. John & I volunteer through the branch called Care-A-Vanners where a maximum of 20 folks bring their campers and work on a project for a couple of weeks. This gives the local volunteers and their building project a boost. And everyone has a good time.

If you'd like more info or want to volunteer or contribute to Habitat in your community or abroad (John & I want to sign up for a build in New Zealand), just Google Habitat and read more. And lest you think we're soooooo good here, we get much more in return for the work we do. For one thing (even though we LOVE NY), it's a great excuse to leave home during the coldest time of the year. You meet LOTS of fun people. You get to spend time in a neighborhood you'd probably never visit otherwise and scope out all the good things it has going for it. Usually you get very generous, good lunches provided and free camping. (You can make a contribution in return but it's not required.) And, of course, it gives me something to write about in this blog.

But there are many ways to volunteer or contribute to make this world better (and also have a good time). Habitat is just one of them.

Home at last!!!!

We LOVE New York!!! John & I may be "transplants" but we live in New York because we think it's the best. Admittedly, it DID rain on us the whole drive through New York (out came the "indoor" rain jackets again) but at least it wasn't snow which is about gone (in the photo you can see there's still a bit in front of the house, mostly from the road crew). There are crocuses blooming in the garden. We saw flocks of robins so assume the bluebirds and red wing blackbirds are back as well and the geese are heading north. Two ground hogs were sighted and yards and hayfields are beginning to green. And, the best part, it's not FLAT!!!!

While we were zipping across that little bit of Pennsylvania that everyone forgets is there, John & I discussed taking Tillie out this summer for short "tours" to get to know our own state better. Decided we'd take time to stop at the NY Welcome Center on the way in and pick up tourism information. Can you believe NYS does NOT have a Welcome Center as you enter from the west - just a toll booth, the first tolls we'd paid our entire trip?! I was shocked (about the lack of a Welcome, not the tolls). Our Niagara Falls area often complains because most tourists go to the Canadian side (bet THEY make you feel welcome). When we go away on a trip and come home, we always see our home through "fresh" eyes and the list of things that needs to get done suddenly grows. Zikes! We can't take on all of NYS too but at least a letter or two definitely needs to be written. Any ideas who to send them to? Let me know. And feel free to send a letter on your own, too. We have a beautiful state and we should welcome our visitors.

Even though we're home, I'll be posting a couple more items in the coming days. So if you're still interested...