Sunshower Tour w/ Regina Spektor (Day 9)

DAY OFF in Gettysburg, PA!
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Who likes educational fun?

We do.

Pat and I are going to co-BLOG the events on this fine Autumn Day.....

Dave= Apricot Nectar

Pat= Aqua-Marine

We put "Gettysburg" in Georgine....We drove the Blaze following every road she recommended to Gettysburg.....With bated breath, we finally arrived in this mystical place we'd only read about in books called Gettysburg....Here we are....in Gettysburg!

Well.... WTF do we do now? Zac and I tried drinking our coffee on different hills to see if it would change the taste of Sheetz's Finest... nope... still garbage-flavored. Dave kept hiding and then trying to ambush us... DAVE! Where are you??!! Oh... you're right here... in New Jersey...

I was so proud of my state's kick ass soldiers and the amount of ass they kicked (and probably crushed at the same time).. go NJ! This was at the entrance to the cemetary where they commemorated all the Union States fighting to keep the peace from those radical, hate monger confederates. Hey Pat, who ELSE can we credit the preservation of these United States???

D to the mfin' E, that's who! I'm pretty sure DE and NJ punched the Confeds right in the side of the neck while playing "Countdown" on their clarinets and snare drums and banjos. GO FOREFATHERS!! Dave and I were beaming with states-pride and screaming "HOOOAHHH" in each other's faces. Zac wanted to join in, but....

No Texas... oh, well... you'll always have the Alamo, Z!

We walked in all smiles with billowed chests of pride (Zac trailing behind with his coffee) and searched the grounds for Pat's Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, Jeremiah Rhodes. He was....

(apparently this was also the site of a 19th Century SuperBowl)

Pat's dad Dino got on the horn with Pat and told him to search through the Pennsylvania tombstones. There were a lot, but we combed E-V-E-R-Y single row looking for him...

We were starting to lose hope...

... until we heard Pat's voice in the distance....

(Hang on, Mom) GUYS, HE'S OVER HERE! (anyhooo, I don't know who got those parking tickets in your car...Mom... MOM! I gotta GO... I KNOW, I HAVE a coat on... OK, bye)

Introducing:

Jeremiah Rhodes. Great-Great-Great-Great Granddaddy. I don't know much about him, other than he had a sweet moustache and some sideburns... must run in the family. I think he was 8 or 9 feet tall and only wore a loin cloth in battle. A real wild bastard. Love you, Great-Great-Great-Great Granddaddy!! XO

We wandered around town for a little while and then ran into a guy that we SWORE was our friend Quinn Blanford's Grandpa's Ghost.

A giant, bearded man named Gary that knew just about everything there is to know about the Civil War. We hung with him in his cigar shop for a bit. Zac and I bought cigars like a couple-ah fat cats.

This guy Gary actually saved us $60....we wanted to do one of those guided tours around town, but it was 20 bucks each and 2 1/2 hours long...what??! We decided to skip it and then we ran into Ol' Tobacky Beard here...he told us about Pickett's Charge and the "Louisianna Tigers." Apparently Louisianna grabbed all the theives, rapists, murderers, and general do-badders hanging around New Orleans, threw them into one military troop, and unleashed them into battle. These soliders were known for their ferociousness, gold teeth, and despicable manner of killing. It was often said that when Union troops heard the Tigers were coming, they suddenly fell asleep in trenches, up in trees, and even had to run home remembering they left their stoves on.

Gary told us some ghost stories, showed us pictures he'd taken of ghosts and their "energy orbs," and then handed us a map.

Were suddenly in The Goonies, DAVE! Who's Chunk?

I thought a Baby Ruth bar was the next thing coming out of this guy's pocket, but luckily it was just a map of the battle field. We searched for the Texas Monument, but couldn't find it....Zac pleaded with us to keep looking....

Z: "I just KNOW it's around here somewhere, I can FEEL it"

Sorry Zac. We did our best. But we DID find this New York jam...

Enough history already, Dave! Gawd! Let's beat it, OK?

We saw a sign for the Ardentsville Apple Festival and made a bee-line. We drove a few miles and saw some old weirdie cars along the way. What is this Cuba??

All signs pointed to a parking lot in a corn field. We parked the Blaze in it, jumped on a shuttle bus and headed for the apple festival!! While we were waiting for the bus a man told us that last year his friend ate so many apple products that she puked all night... GREAT JOB!!

GUYS! We're supposed to be totally BADASS if we sit in the back of the bus!! Geez!

That's better...

Hey Pat, remember in High Shool all those marching band trips you took in the school busses with the Tuba??? You were so badass!

This bus took us through the mountains, and it's Autumn, and the trees are all pretty, and it's Autumn, and we're gonna eat apples n stuff, and .....and.......i'm so excited!!!!

We'd never been to an "Apple Festival" before. Apparently it's like a little Apple Village with Apple Street Names and Apple Shacks that sell Apple stuff for people who can then go to the Apple Amphittheatre and watch Apple plays.......or Native American Ritual Dances(??)

We decided we had only TWO goals at this festival. ONE: We needed to eat EVERY apple variation we could today...no matter what it was...if apples were in it...we were gonna eat it....and TWO: Buy Zac's mom a birdfeeder. (obviously.....its an APPLE FESTIVAL!)

The first thing we were told to eat by all the locals, was the PIT BEEF.

Okay, maybe that didn't have apples in it. But it WAS good. Moving on...

Totally happening....ain't no fritter like an Ardentsville fritter...washed it down with some Apple Cider

Then it was Apple Pie (a la mode), Apple Sausages with Apple Butter, ...all a solid thumbs up...then we tried Fried Apples...

No Bueno.

Pat thinks I'm gonna get fat...he just ate apple flavored straw all day....

Just pickin the apple outta mah teeth, DAVE! I'm no apple-hater, but somehow we forgot to get apple butter of all things. They had a great country band and a craft section and a car show! Dave and I found the cars we would have if we were thousandaires. Here's mine: The "Candy Apple"

Dave's dreamboat "The Appletini"

And K's... "The Road Apple"

We figured we'd seen everything there is to see about apples and were on our way back to the bus when we passed a cart with deep-fried EVerything! There was deep fried mac n cheese! Dave got a deep fried Milky Way... Hey Dave, wanna tell everyone all about it?

Sure Pat! It was gross. Seemed like a really good idea at the time....

Here's a clip of the terrifying experience...

Zac had to help finish it off....

Afterwards we had a lot of fun thumb wrestling and throwing up in our mouths.....

"That wasn't wise, boys!"

All in all a solid day in Pennsylvania! We grabbed the shuttle bus back to the Blaze, bought a candy apple and rode off into the sunset.

We happened to stop at the same exact gas station we stopped at a couple weeks ago, totally by ACCIDENT! I bought a Steve Miller record to celebrate. Off to get K at Mountain Stage in WV with Regina Spektor!

Love,

Dave and Pat