On Saturday Dearest Partner and I headed to the Carlisle Invitational to watch the Young Relative and his UHS cross-country teammates run. The Y.R.'s race was originally supposed to start at 12:30 but was moved up to 9:30 a.m. because of the hot weather.
We set out at 5:45 a.m. and soon learned that the Gap Wawa is a surprisingly busy spot before dawn. Route 30, normally jammed with tourists between Route 41 and Interstate 283, was smooth sailing at that hour. Interstate 81 was no problem at all, even though the westbound lanes of the Pennsylvania Turnpike were closed for construction.
The upshot was that we arrived at Carlisle High School even before the Unionville team bus did and well before the other three members of the Y.R.'s cheering section. We scored a great parking spot, chatted with two school police officers (they told that us teams from 100 schools were expected) and had time to walk part of the course before heading to the finish line.
After the race we congratulated the Y.R. on his spectacular performance and set out to tour Carlisle. I went to college there and stayed on a few years afterwards writing for the local newspaper, but the town was new to Dearest Partner.
Our first stop was a delicious carb-filled breakfast at my old favorite Fay's Country Kitchen. Then we drove south through the little town of Mount Holly Springs and walked around the beautiful Pine Grove Furnace State Park. We drove past a lot of rustic hunting cabins tucked in the woods and saw the "Babes in the Woods" memorial plaque. My traveling companion was patient as I bored him with reminiscences of my hard-working, hard-playing young adulthood ("here's where we'd go ice-skating at night …. I used to listen through the mail slot when they'd have executive sessions and kick me out … this place used to have great stromboli").
One turn, though, and we were no longer in rural Cumberland County but back on I-81 and headed home. Unlike almost all of our road trips, we didn't get lost even once.
No comments:
Post a Comment