Lake Glory

The Lake Glory campground was really nice, although it got a tad chilly overnight! I was very grateful for the blankets and the quilt (thanks again Sherry!) It didn’t occur to me to check the temp during the night (probably didn’t want to get out from under warm covers!) but it was only 48 degrees at 8:30 when the sun was out and shining. That’s probably about as chilly as I’ll be able to “camp” in the van because I’m not going to turn it on to run the heat at night. But I warmed up very quickly out on a beautiful 2 1/2 mile walk thru the countryside – nothing like a few big hills to get the blood moving!

I got the military package ready to mail after my walk and hit the road north. Next stop was Bloomsburg where I walked nearly 2 more miles to finish off the 4.3 miles needed from last Monday. This town was also very hilly and we walked the whole way up Main Street to Bloomsburg University and then walked around the campus a bit. Those kids get quite a workout – because it’s on steep land, there’s stairs all over the place and hardly any flat walking. I don’t think the walk through campus made the dog or I any smarter – we’ll have to walk thru some more! When I got back to the car, there was a bright yellow paper on the windshield – a parking ticket!!! Oops – I simply didn’t notice the parking meter because it was right next to a tree. It was $10, but if it got paid at the police dept within 30 minutes, it would only be $5. Fortunately, since we’d walked all through town, I had noticed where the police station was, and made it with 5 minutes to spare. Lesson learned…

Then I spent a long time at the post office trying to figure out what to do about my military care package. They no longer accept packages addressed to “Any Soldier” because of security reasons. You now need a full name and complete address and I didn’t have a clue. I hadn’t done my homework and thought it would be easy to just get a generic address online – I wasn’t particular about who the package was going to. I came across the Any Soldier website, but didn’t notice I could get names at first. Toni also suggested I try that. So I looked again, and sure enough, there’s quite a list of soldiers, who represent their units, along with some possible items they would appreciate getting. And the soldier I somewhat randomly chose had listed stuff like jerky and hard candy which was what I already had. It’ll be fun in the future to look through more requests. But, in order to actually get the address, I had to give my name and address and email info, and then I would hear back. And they were pretty clear about the fact if you were requesting an address, that you should commit do helping in some way. So I wonder if they follow up somehow. I couldn’t mail the package from Bloomsburg then, because I had to wait for a return email. So, I just got in the car and headed north toward New York, and it was kind of nice to just be driving all afternoon – I’ve gotten in the habit of looking at towns I drive through to see if they’re good for a walk, and I was all done with Pennsylvania walking. So I could just kind of reflect on the whole past week. I stopped right near the PA/NY border at a town called Towanda to fill up with gas, and I thought to check my email, and sure enough, I had a response and an address for the soldier in Afghanistan! So I was able to finish filling out the customs forms and got the package mailed. I was happy to be able to actually mail it from Pennsylvania.

Since I start with a specific budget for each state, when all was said and done, and the gas tank was full for State #2, I had $19.46 leftover. On my little outline of my journey, I said I would donate half of anything left over, and the other half would go to the extra territory expenses (mostly airfare). So I’m going to mail an extra $10 donation to the Gettysburg National Battlefield Park. I love the national park system, and my 5 miles of walking around the battlefields were some of my favorites. And since there was no entry fee for that part of the park, I figure that’s a good place to send the little extra.

And that wraps up Pennsylvania – at 5:25 in the afternoon. Seven donations given, 56 miles walked and 986 miles of driving and the morning walk and exploring – great way to start the journey 🙂