Add this to my stupid list of networking opportunities bypassed. The president of Nasdaq lives on Cherrystone Bay, just north of Cape Charles on the Chesapeake. The guy is a true supporter of the Delmarva environment, giving over easements to his cordgrass saltmarshes to a conservation organization. He lends his estate for a fund-raiser supporting cultural and conservation causes in Cape Charles. It's a fifty dollar ticket. I didn't go. Why, why, why not? I heard it was a hell of an evening for a fifty dollar ticket. Will not repeat the error, promise.
By the wee hours of Saturday morning, the sun was rising through this marine coast cloudburst, and I found myself north of Wilmington, Delaware on a sinuous road numbered 100, which soon took the name Brandywine Valley Scenic Byway. I had been driving into November, and the trees finally looked aware of the arrival of autumn, but not concerned enough to change their colors or apparel. Because of a surely fatal pileup at an on ramp, surely due to slippery conditions and waterlogged brakes, I couldn't drive onto an interstate to take me quickly north-westward towards Detroit, so I made a decision to take blue highways all the way home, zigzagging north through Pennsylvania.
I knew I was passing through a remarkable exurbia, untrammeled oak forest, judging from the colonial era stone walls fronting most estates. I knew I was following the course of the Brandywine river, but I didn't know I was passing from Delaware to Penn's Woods. There's special markers lining the boundary, Will Penn's logo on one side and Charles Calvert's royal crest on the south side, but I didn't see any of these. I didn't see a gaudy Welcome To Pennsylvania sign either. I finally reached the Baltimore Pike and the town of Chadd's Ford and one of those exquisite Wawa all night groceries. The young man at the Wawa counter had no idea that a family named Chadd had controlled a watercrossing over a shallows of the Brandywine, even though a historical marker by the Wawa marked the way to the Chadd estate. He might not be aware that his employer started business in 1902 at a dairy on the same Baltimore Pike, in a town named Wawa Pa, Pa for Pennsylvania of course.
Now saying all that, I didn't know until I had checked the map that I had bumbled by the eastern border of Winterthur. And I know I don't have to explain what is Winterthur to you. Back in my last attempt at husbandry, my previous wife always put the Winterthur catalog on the coffeetable, and I promised myself a visit the first chance. Again, why, why, why didn't I stop? I had this urge to get home? Isn't my home in the world by now?
After passing by the Amish buggies and farmers on their non-mechanized farms in Lancaster County, and after passing by Hershey Inn in Hershey, Pennsylvania, I crossed over Nittany Mountain, or at least a ridge of it. This mountain is sacred to the fans of Penn State's Nittany Lions, but even the sacred mountain couldn't keep Ohio State from drubbing the Lions on their home turf that day. I stopped in a courthouse town where many of the professors of Penn State chose to live, Bellefonte, and I repaired to a coffeehouse in the limestone basement of a Victorian edifice, knowing that such places are usually associated with fascinating people. Not one but two doctoral students studying Geography at the coffeehouse informed me that I had reached the center of Pennsylvania, Centre County. I had finally met a few kindred spirits who like to seek out a deep connection with their present location in history and cultural. Despite that, I sacked out in an cozy armchair, next to a stack of Architectural Digests.
When I woke up, I realized what an ass I was being. I wanted to meet a few people and get the flavor of the region and there was nothing waiting for me in Royal Oak besides my cozy couch. I did leave Bellefonte, regretting it when I saw a restaurant in a mill on Spring Creek and Bellefonte's second ducky coffee house. On reflection, I could have offered a chance to the attractive Geographer to establish the first principals of gourmet geography, and asked her to dinner at the most interesting restaurant in Bellefonte, to her mind.
But before this possibility had dawned on my mind, I was driving west on Interstate 80, motoring over the highest point on US 80 between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, and departing out of the Chesapeake watershed. A beautiful sign posted by the conservancies that guard the Chesapeake Valley informed me of my departure. I left the 80 in Dubois, determined to get free my mind on US 219. The freeway is best known as a route to Shanksville, where the third jet of 9-11 met its fate. Instead, I was driving north, and I detoured off along a winding road to the Laurel Mountain vineyard.
I'm not going to accuse my pourers of inebriating me. They were delighted to pour one ounce samples of all their dry reds and all their sweeter whites. I had to skip the fruit wines, and I rarely pass up blueberry wine. The vineyard is a master of the sweeter whites. Being so close to the falls, the vineyard specialized in Niagara. A tasting room sign declared: "Forget Viagra, Buy Our Niagara!" Being somewhat close to the Finger Lakes of New York, the vineyard specialized in Cayuga. Despite the correctness of their grapes for the terrain, and despite an elevation around 1700 feet, none of the nearby peaks bore the name Laurel Mountain. So when my charming pour professional dispensed an ounce of Chianti and vowed that Luigi's in downtown Dubois served their Chianti as the house wine, I missed the opportunity to ask for her to give proof over Pasta and candlelight at that regional destination restaurant. Instead, I let her send me upstairs with a warmed glass of house grog; the winery had a gift shoppe in the garret.
Dark was beginning to fall as I departed the winery grounds, and I knew it was time to find a place to rest. If I am fatigued and dark falls, my eyelids sink like lead weights, and there's no good in fighting power nods on the mountainous curves and grades of US 219. I checked into the Lantz Corners Resort and Conference Center near Kane, Pennsylvania. It had a large room with good carpet, and this conference center had been booked for a new church community Sunday morning. I think the owner of the 20 unit motel had started the congregation to keep him busy on the day when he couldn't sell cars at the adjacent used car lot. I wanted to hang at the roadhouse adjacent to the eastern side, but I fell into a deep slumber as soon as I stretched out on my bed. Nearby in Ridgway, PA, a strange creature was prowling the hardwoods now in peak autumn colors; pictures of the bigfoot candidate reached Yahoo the day I arrived home from my journey.
Wilbo Has No Laurels To Rest Upon, But He Rests Well After Drinking Laurel Mountain Wine in Pennsylvania
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