I should have started my aliterations earlier! LOL! Oh well.
I am beat. Toast! WIPED OUT! I had a “big” job of navigating yesterday for our final day as “Tourists.” We went to Lancaster County. Michaela and I have read a bunch of books by Beverly Lewis that tell stories cast in this part of our country. We have both read half a dozen books or more set in Lancaster County, so we wondered how accurate what we had “learned” about the Amish through our reading was. Our family took a ride in a wagon pulled by “Caleb,” a young man who comes from an Amish family. His story was one of the most intriguing parts of the trip. After our wagon ride, I had to ask him questions about himself, I found him so interesting.
He graduated from the public highschool last year and was accepted into a college’s pre-veterinary program. Because of finances, he chose to wait a year and work to raise money for college. He still lives with his Amish parents, but earns money giving tours telling of Amish ways. He was very candid–from his perspective, of course, and it was quite interesting.
We were all thrilled to have left Philadelphia behind us. If I ever see that city again, it will be TOO soon! (My apologies to any of you who love this city that seems horribly MISnamed to me!). It is amazing to me the extremes we experienced in Pennsylvania!
The parts of Pennsylvania we saw yesterday were amazing! The countryside was dreamy, the weather was unbelievably beautiful…mid 70’s and no clouds to speak of (occasionally a whispy cloud would roll by).
After we stopped at a “famous” model train place (featured in one of Daniel’s “choo choo” videos), we stopped at the Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum. This was definitely a highlight for the two boys. Michaela and I just wandered around a bit aimlessly. In spite of having a heritage in the railroad and in spite of the fact that my husband works for Union Pacific, to me, all the engines look pretty much alike. I mean, I can tell if there are some older ones and some newer ones, typically, but to me, once you have seen one train museum you have seen them all and Sacramento, CA boasts and amazing railroad museum! I am glad Daniel was happy, though! He has done VERY well on this trip…miraculously well, from my perspective!
After the railroad museum, we chose to use backroads to meander our way back to the Baltimore area to our hotel for our last night before leaving out of the Balitmore airport. We did this partly to see more Amish country, but also because we have never seen covered bridges before. We found a map showing covered bridges and enjoyed seeing a few on our way back to “civilization.”
I do believe that I have eaten too much on this trip. I think that I was caught in the mindset of “this is what I always eat, so I will eat this now” sort of mentality, when reality is on most of the days of this trip, I was a LOT less active than I am at home. I should have been more aware of my hunger signals than assume I felt them. I guess I should have prayed more about it all…I didn’t intentionally *lie* to myself or on my hunger graphs, but I wonder…well, I KNOW that I was at a 0 when I was. There is no mistaking that, but I wonder about the “5” now that I really consider it.
Add to this the “bloating” that always happens when we travel. I feel like a balloon! I will probably post more observations and corrections tomorrow once we are home. We arrive home tonight.
While I didn’t allow my eating 0 to 5 to go on vacation, being more PRAYERFUL would have been a very good place to start.
See you all when we are back in California!
