As we drove into the driveway of the Blue house, a couple of familiar faces greeted
us with huge smiles and hugs. I found out the next day that the 'salad rolls'
that we had that night when we got in are in fact called hoagies. Howard had
just finished the school year and had set about organising a number of
activities for my stay, the main of which was the white water canoeing.
The next day I finally said my goodbyes to Balshaw and Dale and was immediately
put to work mowing the grass, cutting/jumping on tree's to make them break and
weeding at Christina's mothers place in preparation for the following day's
festivities. Again, there was plenty of food to go around, theses people know
how to cater. Howard was keen to show his winter cross country skiing trails he
had made through the woods and in the fields.
We all managed to see Carl’s skills of the drums when we made it to some
underground bar to see him play. Unfortunetly the others in the band were
fairly ordinary and I don't think he'll be filling in for them anytime soon.
The night was quite funny though, not many people were in the place to see the
band as in was happy hour for most of the night - $4 pitchers. Howard and I
reckon Christina was a little tipsy, Anna sneaked in the back door under age,
and I was given the job of going to the bar because Howard and Christina seemed
a little daunted by the younger crowd, so a good night was had by all.
After about a 2 hour crash course on white water canoeing we set off to the
Lower Youghiogheny River, PA. Apparently I did alright and we only went
in once, there were a couple of grade 4 rapids - it goes 1-6 - but you'll be
happy to know mum that we stayed away from the one that kills people,
seriously!
Saw another baseball game, this time it was terrible - apparently the team
we were going for 'The Spikes' have now won 9 games in a row since I’ve
left. Howard took me into Amish country with there buggies, hats,
overalls, and beards. They're funny people the Amish.
Hiking with Anna was an experience. We sort of got lost and landed on
the wrong side of the range which made a 6 mile walk into about a 10-12mile
walk. At one stage I think Anna was about to clobber me.
So after about 10 days I left on a Train towards Philly and Washington, before my travels to Boulder.
