Visiting Family and the Pennsylvania Turnpike

Here’s a song most of you probably didn’t hear your parents sing to you while growing up, but it was one of the first songs I learned…

“It’s round on the ends and “hi” in the middle, tell me if you know….

Now isn’t that a cute little riddle – round on the ends and “hi” in the middle

You can find it on the map if you look high and low.
The O's are round, it's high in the middle.

O-H-I-O

We spent 4 nights with our Aunt Myra and Uncle Bernie, Cousins Michelle, David, Darla, Hallie, Abby, Charlotte, Zach and Sydney.  It took very little for the kids to have the time of their lives.

So thankful for every second we were together.  Also, the kids saw where their grandparents (my mom and dad) lived, and went to high school.

More about our time in Columbus coming this Friday in my Mom's Voice column. 

From Ohio it was a 6 hour drive directly east to Gettysburg, PA. We broke it up into 2 days.

Today’s drive took us through some of the most beautiful countryside I had ever seen. Especially since in some places the leaves are all starting to burst with golds, reds, and yellows.  A section of the Appalachians rises up through here and below the mountains are grassy hillsides dotted with dairy farms, grassy hills, red barns, and neat rows of crops growing. 

So picturesque, which makes it all the more impossible to comprehend that on 9/11, this serene stretch of countryside  was the scene of horrific crash and heroic acts of the passengers of  flight 93. There is a new memorial which was 15 minutes off the Pennsylvania Turnpike from where we were, but I decided to not stop in the rain and take the kids to the actual field.  But we paid our respects to the heroes by acknowledging we were passing though a battlefield of sorts as we were coincidentally heading to another.

It is not something you can read about or see through the lens of a news camera.  Driving through this area gives one context to the reality that we were in fact attacked on our soil. Unbelievable - it was hard to get it out of my mind.

Instead of feeling down, I decided to feel gratitude for our freedoms.

Like the fact I am able to drive a car for starters! We also celebrated our freedom by eating Hershey bars and listening to 4 more chapters of Huckleberry Finn on CD. 

And we exercised our right to free speech by arguing and expressing our frustrations towards one another after being cramped in the car for 2 days - despite beautiful scenery and Hershey bars. 

 While this photo doesn't show the awesome fall colors we are beginning to see here and there, it is a great example of the little towns typical of the ones we passed through on Highway 30 known as Lincoln's Highway, on the way to Gettysburg.