Day 32: A Ham, Hot Chips, and Haircuts

Rob noticed that Three Mile Island was just 15 minutes from the campsite, so we headed there in the car to check out a piece of history before hooking back up to the RV to travel for the day.

It was a shorter drive day at 2.5 hours, so we made time for two stops, which also gave Rob some working time in a stationary location vs. trying to work while bumping down the road.

First stop was The Amish Village where Kelly and the boys took a tour of an 1840 Amish farmhouse and learned more about the Amish culture from a local tour guide. Highlights were learning that the men are clean-shaven until marriage, at which time they beard with no mustache, because mustaches were associated with the military. They wear a straw hat for working, and a black hat for dressier occasions. Women wear a white smock over their dresses for dressier occasions until they’re married, and they always wear a white bonnet when leaving their homes. We also learned the saying “sleep tight” comes from the need to tighten the ropes that held up the mattress in the bed each night, but now many Amish use a box-spring.

The kids loved feeding the rescue farm animals onsite. “Jakey” the pig was the favorite and a real ham when it came to getting food.

Sharing the road with horse-drawn carriages made our already ridiculous-feeling rolling house feel even more over-the-top.

For lunch we found a parking lot near a really cool covered bridge built in 1884. We learned that covered wood bridges can last 100+ years, whereas uncovered wood bridges last 15-20 years. The road to get there was the “narrow roller coaster farm road style” (Nicholas loved it), but we didn’t run into any low bridges or other unexpected surprises, which was nice. We noticed some signs of Amish culture we just learned, such as laundry drying outside and horse-drawn farm equipment and carriages.

Yes, our RV is both too tall and too heavy for the bridge.

Kelly loves a good factory tour and Herr’s Snack Factory didn’t disappoint. Highly recommended the next time you’re in Nottingham, Pennsylvania. We toured three different buildings to see how they make the pretzels, popcorn, and potato chips. For the chips, entire semi trucks are tilted up to dump out 50,000 pounds of potatoes each, which we then saw get scrubbed, sprayed, rolled down a slide, sliced, fried, salted, seasoned, bagged, and boxed (online video). During the tour they went out and pulled hot chips straight from the line for us to sample–they were amazing! For the pretzels we got to see it from the dough stage, pressed through the molds (both rods and twisted), baked, and then dehydrated. They make 1,000 pounds of products on each line every day, and they make product for Trader Joe’s in addition to their own line of chips, popcorn, and pretzels. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed, but it would have been amazing to capture the experience if we could have. We did take away an assortment of chip bags (14 in total!).

Following the chip tour we drove through Maryland and made a quick stop in Delaware to check that off the list (we’d all been to Maryland previously), taking a quick picture during a fuel stop.

The Delaware Memorial Bridge was breathtaking, and the lanes were pretty wide so it wasn’t too terrifying either.

Finally at the Philadelphia South / Clarksboro KOA Holiday campground, Rob worked a few more hours while the boys explored. We also took advantage of the full hookups and being at the RV to give the first round of haircuts for the trip. With Rob often in meetings until 8pm, we struggle to get the kids to bed before 10pm, but then still wake them up at 7am for a day of adventure. We think the lack of sleep is starting to add up, so we still need to sort out how to get them more rest.

We wrapped up the night with Cooper voluntarily offering to wash the dishes–what a treat!