I'm on a different kind of road trip this week, driving really fast and pulling over not when and wherever I see something I want to photograph, but ONLY at official government-sanctioned sites. I'm visiting rest stops - both west and eastbound - on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
At the westbound Peter J. Camiel Service Plaza - milepost 304.8 - I get out of my car, and in the space next to me I see real cash money and valuables right out in the open on the front passenger seat. The sight jars me, like I've entered a parallel universe. Not that crime doesn't happen in the country, where I've heard people don't lock their houses and leave their cars running outside the Post Office. But I can't remember ever seeing a pile of broken automobile glass along the sidewalk or curb in rural America.
Checking my voice mail messages, I'm standing at a pay phone in the foyer of the eastbound Bowmansville Service Plaza - milepost 289.9 - when I hear a body slam hard into the glass door. My camera's right there, so I point and shoot. It's seventeen year old Katie Grantz racing her younger brother Jeff from their car.
"They've been stuck with me for hours," their mother Beth says. The three are on their way from New Castle, near Lake Erie, to a Christian retreat - camping on the beach - in Wildwood, NJ. A home-schooled junior, Katie is also visiting colleges along the way. Mom wants her someplace close. "I'm gonna follow you the rest of your life," she tells Katie, who gets in the last word: "I have different plans." All three are looking at the Starbucks menu board, before opting for a soft pretzel at another kiosk. That's also them pointing at the "You are Here" map - a "Travel Board InfoCenter" - at the top of this post.
I'm still at Bowmansville when two cars full of women get out to stretch their legs. They're re-arranging - and re-distributing - some of the refreshments in the back of Tina "Rosemary" Miller's SUV when I wander over. The scene just shouts "Road Trip" in capital letters. They even have a theme! That's Victoria Samson in the hat. They've been on the road about an hour, headed toward Cape May.
The group began when Sally Rhine, center, and Denise Shrander, second from left, started carpooling to work north of Harrisburg twenty years ago. They were joined by other co-workers and high school friends and relatives, and eventually started taking annual "girls only" vacations to the shore. Two more will be joining them tomorrow, and three are no-shows this year. Oh, the theme for this year's trip? Purses. Previous themes, still in evidence: sunglasses, tiaras, cup cozies, shoes and sunglasses.
In most of the rest of the county, commercial businesses like gas stations and restaurants are not permitted at rest areas. Our full-service rest stops were grandfathered in when Eisenhower created the Interstate highway system. The government's idea was to protect businesses in small towns that provided those services along the highway.
Sunrise (near Mid-County - Exit 20) and moon rise (at Valley Forge Plaza - Eastbound at milepost 324.5).
