Sep 14, 2014, 10:07 AM
Well it's time to say goodbye to family and friends and head home. We have had the most fun. We spent a day in Kennet Square at a mushroom festival. That was a lot of fun and who knew there was such a science to growing fungus. It seems to me it happens easily enough, but you know some people just have to make the easiest things difficult. We stopped by one exhibit where they talked about and had displays of the mushroom growing process. In a matter of just a few days the mushrooms went from being just a couple little white buttons peaking out of the dirt to looking like a tub full of white bubbles, the bubbles being white button mushrooms. It really was fascinating. Also there were so many varieties of mushrooms I had never heard of. Some were quite pretty too. They even had a pink variety, just for me. The last day of the mushroom festival was perfect weather. The heat broke, the rain cleared, there was a breeze, and the crowds came out to enjoy.
Kim, Catherine, and I kept busy with canning. Our trip to the orchard was a huge success. We picked, and ate, peaches and apples. By the time we left the orchard we had 21 pounds of peaches and apples. We canned lots of sliced peaches, which by the way are to die for over Turkey Hill vanilla ice cream, we made apple sauce, and apple butter. Don't be surprised when you see us. Steve and I must have gained 50 pounds each from all the good eating.
For all of the Downton Abbey fans our there, we went to the Winterthur Museum and Gardens where they have on display the costumes worn on the show. Oh my gosh the splendor of the fashions of the early 1900's in England. It was stunning. I thought the exhibition was really well done in that they had groupings of costumes for a particularly memorable scene and then they had photos from that scene with the actors in the various costumes and in some areas they were showing videos of a particular scene. For instance, they had the gown and tails that Mary and Matthew wore when Matthew proposed. Beyond the two dress forms was the video from that scene playing with the snow coming down outside and Matthew on bended knee, and Mary happily saying "Yes". It was truly magical. There there was another one with Mrs. Patmaw and Daisy in the kitchen and their costumes on display with a small mockup of a corner of the kitchen. In other locations there were stills from the scenes and maybe a memorable quote along with the costumes. It was fun to walk from section to section and remember the episodes. Then the Winterthur home was lovely too. This was the home of the DuPonts. A huge industry in the area. We had a very nice little lady that was our guide through the house. She told us all about different rooms and furnishings. It was really great, plus Sandy brought us cookies and pound cake from Stocks Bakery. Oh there is nothing better than butter cookies, pound cake, and butter cakes from Stocks.
Steve and I did get to the Poconos one day. We drove to Bushkill Falls, the Niagara of Pennsylvania. Wow they throw theses comparisons around like nobody's business. This was no Niagara Falls, but it was very pretty and we spent the afternoon hiking around and getting pictures.
Then there was Meat Bingo, yes you heard right, Meat Bingo. Kim has been telling me about seeing signs for Meat Bingo for the longest time and she has wanted to go. Of course it piqued my imagination so I was in, and Catherine she's easy to talk into having fun, so we had a plan. Our last weekend in PA we are doing Meat Bingo. Well this was the funniest thing in the world. We walked into the Paradise Fire Department Hall and there is one lady with a cart with meat on it. The meat was wrapped like you'd find at the food store, and she just had it on a little push cart kind of thing. On the other side of the entrance there was a table set up with stacks of bingo packets and bingo daubers and a register. We let those ladies know straight away that we had no idea what was going on and they were very nice and they explained everything to us. Honestly that didn't help a whole lot cause even with an explanation we were still a bit cloudy on what was going on, but we didn't care. We just found ourselves a place to sit and we started in with the fun. Catherine bought us all brand new daubers, so we had to play with those, and we had a schedule of games, so we were studying that. We had just about enough time to get something to munch on and get our bearings before the games began. Kim and I were both playing three cards each game and Catherine was playing six. The game moved at a turtle's pace so we had plenty of time for joking and giggling and just in general being ourselves. There were 22 regular bingo games, two special bingo games, one 50/50 game, a 15 minute half time, and the big game for the jackpot prize, and we didn't win one game!!! Each game had a different prize of some sort of a meat, i.e. boneless chuck roast, center cut pork chops, chicken breasts, etc. During the last game one of the ladies brought out three different carts with packages of meat and laid them out on one of the long tables. The packages had to be several pounds of which ever meat product. It would have been nice to win, but we will just have to try again next time.
This evening Catherine treated Steve and I, Kim, Robert, and Alex to a Mexican dinner at their house. We had a great time playing with Geo and Azure one last time. It was the perfect way to spend our last night. It was so hard once again to say goodbye to everyone, but I am looking forward to getting home, at least I was till Steve told me what the temperatures should be when we to get there. Reality is a BITCH!! So you can expect us in Salt Springs on Friday. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!
