Day 14 June 28, 2025 West Chester PA to Wellsboro PA.

Our friends were up and headed home at 430 AM and we "slept in" until 7:30. Got packed up and then headed five hours down the road to join up with them. We would have a nice day with Gere and Betty and then spend the night at the Airbnb before headed to Ohio to be with more of Dick’s family.

The drive was fine. When we reached the Pennsylvania Turnpike we saw that we would no longer take a ticket and pay when we got off.  Dick remembers driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in earlier times with cash to pay the tolls.  Now you either need a transponder pass, or they do a license plate scan and send you a bill by mail.

Pennsylvania is so green in the summer. It takes your breath away. We picked up a picnic lunch and ate it by a “half waterfall “on the river. It was nice to get out of the car and enjoy the lovely day, overcast as it was at the time.  There was a beautiful bed of day lilies near our picnic table.  At one point, as we neared our destination we made a slight detour and drove along a gravel road named Slaughterhouse Road.  We were caught by the name but didn't see the source of this name which must have disappeared many years earlier.

We arrived at Gere and Betty's in early afternoon. They live in such an interesting old log building that was once a ice cream parlor.  There kitchen still has the soda fountain from that time. They have lovely porches on both the front and rear of the house.  Since they had many cats, we spent relaxing time on the back porch.

We decided to take an outing and spent time in the afternoon in the small town, Wellsboro,  near where they lived. It is a sweet town, and we went over and bought some chocolate at this beautiful candy store. This store is also a sheltered workshop for adult adults with developmental disabilities. We got some great chocolate there.

We also went by the place where there was a pride festival happening today. That morning,Betty and their daughter, Rowan, did face painting at the festival. It was nice in the midst of an area that is pretty conservative to see a lot of support for the LGBTQ community here. 

We stopped by a little park where you could make public music and played around on the instruments. And then it started to rain. We got back to the car just as it was dumping rain and drove back to their home.

Then we spent the remainder of a delightful afternoon and then dinner sitting on the huge back porch, listening to the rain on the roof. It was a time of enjoying one others’ company.   We had a splendid dinner of lasagna, soup and ice cream with homemade rhubarb sauce. Betty is a terrific cook and it was all delicious. Then we were all so tired from having such short night sleep the night before that we called it an early night.

Dick and Patti went a mile down the road to the airbnb where we were staying. We had a chance to chat with another couple, who was staying there, about their travels. We sat out on the lovely screened in patio area, enjoying a glass of wine and cheese, and just feet happy to be here. 

At the end of every day, Patti spent some time working on the blog writing and Dick worked on sorting through and Photoshopping some of the often dozens or even hundreds of photos from the day. We’ve been working hard to keep up on our writing. Hope you are taking care of yourself and doing well.

Day 13, June 27, June 27 Durham North Carolina, to West Chester, Pennsylvania

Up way too early for how late we went to bed, but we would need to drive 8 hours today to meet our Pennsylvanian friends at another wonderful gardens, The Longwood Gardens. Gere and Dick have been friends since 1973.

We started the day with a typical Indian breakfast, including puffed sorghum and lotus.  We said our goodbyes to Leena and hit the road. The drive took us about eight hours, with very heavy traffic, bad weather and no fun through construction and crashes, which often took us quite a bit longer than we had hoped. We spent the time going through playlists on Amazon Music and just trying to get through the high volume traffic. We finally arrived at about 4:30 in time to meet our dear friends, Gere and Betty and their adult daughter, Rowan. They are new members of beautiful gardens, the Longwood gardens. These were originally started by the Dupont family and are really, really gorgeous. We ate dinner and then had a chance to go through some of the conservatory gardens.  The orchids were especially nice, but everything was so well-tended and lovely.

What was especially wonderful was the lily ponds which were filled with the most amazing lily flowers either of us had ever seen. They were designed and curated and put together in some really lovely ways that made us so happy to be able to look at them and to be able to take photos and just enjoy. There was also a particularly lovely interactive children’s garden area. 

And then what the gardens were really known for are  amazing water shows. We saw a very nice  daylight water show with Beatles music. Then at 9:15 there was a 35 minute extravaganza with music, fountains and fire. Wow. They change these shows all the time. Tonight was one of Disney animated movies. So terrific and worth the wait.

The temperature had dropped into the 60’s with drizzle. This was the first time we were cold in 2 weeks. We wished we had brought some of the blankets from our car… brrrrr. And we were glad to have changed into our jeans, long shirts and jackets for the first time on this trip.

Then a 15 minute drive to our hotel for the night. A well worthwhile day. 

Day 12: June 26, 2025 Atlanta, Georgia to Durham, North Carolina

Up and off by 8:00. An easy drive of 400 miles and then we arrived at our friend Leena’s house. She was on the Servas board of directors with Dick. She graciously revived us and gave us a little tour of Raleigh.

Our drive took us through Georgia, South Carolina and to North Carolina. Too much traffic and construction, but we arrived  mid-afternoon. One road side attraction we saw was a huge water tower painted to look like a Georgia peach.

We spent the next several hours dropping into her life in Durham. We spent a lovely (although admittedly hot) time walking through the Gardens at Duke University.  The gardens were nearly 100 years old and filled with wonderful trees,  flowers and succulents. It was so peaceful walking through the shaded forests. And we totally enjoyed the Japanese bridge that crossed over a lake.

We enjoyed seeing a new (for us) phenomenon: squirrels “ splooting ”  or “heat dumping.” When a squirrel is overheated in very warm weather, they can lay on a cooler surface and allow some of the heat from their body to transfer to the cooler object.  The fur on the body is thinest on their bellies, so that is a good place to try to cool off. We saw this several times in the hot gardens. It amused us. Have you ever seen this? Dogs or cats might also do this.

In the middle of our walk, Leena showed us around part this the Duke University campus. It was so charming with its classic stone buildings and sweeping lawns. We went into the chapel after listening to a carillon which sent its music across the campus.

We saw groups of students in Freshman orientation tours, aided eyed and getting ready for college.  And we talked with a mom and daughter as part of their college visit, looking for a pre- veterinarian program.

Then Leena drove us around the downtown and showed us “her places”. This included her favorite state park where she regularly hikes.

Then we went to the local ice cream stand. We ate ice cream first and then went home for a home-prepared Indian meal. We were so interested in watching the cooking process. Leena is an amazing cook, and the food was wonderful. We found the sweet shrine in her kitchen to be quite interesting.

Then, we sat up late in the night sharing traveling stories from all of our trips around d the world. Leena has been many places and was leaving in two days to go to Greenland for a week. She does most of her traveling solo and is very competent and capable of planning and executing her trips.

Finally, time to go to bed. Lots to do the next day.