More Family Visiting in PA

We had a pleasant night at the hotel in Ligonier, and then headed for Uniontown, PA, arriving on Thursday late morning. We wanted to spend a couple of days visiting Jack's 96-year-old sister Hazel in Fairchance, PA, who is currently in a personal care home due to some health issues, and also to do some research at the nearby Uniontown library. Uniontown has a Pennsylvania Genealogy room and Jack was hoping to find copies of a newspaper published in the town during the Civil War, the Genius of Liberty, to get some info for his novel. With the help of an excellent librarian, he was able to locate it on microfiche and spent a couple of hours doing research. Carol is also working on a historical novel for children, and she was able to do some research there as well.

We contacted great-niece Wendy to let her know we were in town, and she graciously offered to let us stay at Hazel's apartment while we were visiting, since no one is staying there right now. We're very grateful, as it's much more convenient and comfortable than the nearest campground. We went to Wendy and her husband Garry's house to pick up the keys and had a nice visit with the family before heading to visit Hazel at Horizon Personal Care in Fairchance. The place is more like a real home than a nursing home and it seems that she is getting very good care there. We helped Hazel to navigate out to the front porch and had a good sit and chat and watched the birds on the feeder. We discussed a lot of things, including options for the future. It's hard to see Hazel so frail after her recent hospitalization for pneumonia. As one of her "buddies" at the facility, also in her 90s, said to us: "Don't get old!" Perhaps good advice. However, the alternative isn't pleasant to consider either!

Hazel and Carol visiting on the porch.

Friday and Saturday were spent in much the same way as Thursday, with mornings at the library and afternoons spent with Hazel. We had one adventure Friday night--Wendy gave us free tickets to the county fair so we went for a while in search of corn dogs (Carol) and good hot dogs (Jack). (Temporarily off our usual healthy diet in honor of the fair!) I was happy with my corn dog, but Jack not so much with his hot dog. In fact, he lost half of it when it slid out of the bun onto his pants, and he wasn't even sad. Jack is very particular about his hot dogs (Jack:buns MUST be steamed and onions MUST be chopped extra fine--HOT hot dog goes on first, then HOT chili, then finely chopped onions, then French mustard). "They didn't even steam the buns," he said. We did enjoy playing bingo for a little while and then walking through the animal tents. We especially enjoyed the big draft horses. A pair of giant draft mules were really interesting--their ears were about a foot and a half long! (We'd never seen draft mules before--the owner said they were a product of a Percheron mare and a mammoth jack.)

Sunday morning we packed to leave. Carol went to church at Hazel's church, Brownfield United Methodist, and enjoyed seeing and talking to some of Hazel's good friends there, some of whom we'd met before. Wendy and her kids Garry Junior, Phoebe, and TJ were all there. The kids are going through the church confirmation class now and are very involved in church activities. We gave them a tour of our Roadtrek after the service and they seemed ready to go on the road with us!

Garry Junior, Hazel, TJ, Phoebe, and Wendy.

We headed back on the road after church and are now camped in a Walmart parking lot near Dayton, OH. We just realized that Dayton was the home of our heroes, the Wright Brothers, so tomorrow morning we plan to visit some of the Wright Brothers museums and memorials around here.

Our deluxe campsite at Walmart.