Traffic

The Little Woman said, "Let's take a little trip. I'm tired of sitting around the house. It doesn't have to be far. Maybe somewhere we could take a walk."

So I thought about where we could go. "How about up to Hopewell Lake?" I said.

This seemed a reasonable place to go. It was up in Pennsylvania not far from where I had lived as a lad. My family used to go swimming in the lake. The Little Woman and I had gone there a couple years back and walked all about the park. It had been a beautiful fall day and the trees were changing to autumn colors.

Let's see, that was...2004?  (Hopewell Lake in the fall of 2004 is on the right.)

Really? That long ago and back when we both could walk well. Neither of us d so well on our legs this 13 years later. I got to thinking about it. Maybe it wasn't such a great destination after all.

Ah, what we could do was drive up to Route 23, go by the entry road to Hopewell and continue west toward Lancaster County. Yes, yes, yes, a nice leisurely drive with a stop at the Old Village Store in Bird-in-Hand or maybe Kitchen Kettle Village, which lies abut halfway between Bird-in-Hand and Blue Ball at Intercourse. Let's pause to get all the sniggering over with here.

I figured these were better choices than Hopewell Lake because they would be both easier walking having flat paved pathways. The car would be parked nearby in case we had worn out our legs enough and had to escape.

We'd been to both before more than once. On the left is The Little Woman walking through Kitchen Kettle Village in 1995. She is in the center walking away from the camera and wearing blue shorts and a light red top. On the right is her walking out of the Old Village Store, toward the camera,  in  1975.

Yeah, these places, like us, have been around for a long time.

We had our plan of action. I'd go up the Pottstown Pike (Route 100) to where Route 23 crosses, just down Bucktown hill from my parent's former house. Then we would take a leisurely ride west on 23, just like the old days.

My family made many a trek up to Dutch Country.  Back in the '40s and '50s when I was a boy it was a common pastime, usually on a Sunday afternoon. "Wanna take a ride," my grandfather would ask and we were off. It really was peace and quite. Wasn't much there except Amish farms, many growing tobacco. Tobacco barns dotted the landscape beside the roads, little barns with slats running down the sides that opened out to the air for curing the leaves hanging inside.
Back then a lot of the barns were painted red with Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco ads covering a side. My grandfather chawed tobacco and carried a bag in the glove compartment, but it was Red Man, not Mail Pouch.

The only possible traffic slow ups on those country road happened if you caught up to an Amish buggy clopping along. There were quite a number of these at that time, little black boxes on wheels pulled along with one horse. That is if it were driven by a married fellow or a family. If the obstacle ahead was o[en then the driver was a single guy driving his courting buggy. Anyway, you took the drive to relax and gaze at the unique lifestyle around you.


Even as we continued such trips with our own children, right back to the days they called the Silos "Cow Feeders" and hubcap "wheel hats". With the exception of the Lincoln Highway, Route 30, which was beginning to get a bit crowded, the other roads were pretty open except for the occasional buggy; but the bugged were growing less prevalent.

Yeah, some where between the years I was a boy and those when my son was a boy the investors moved in. I don't know the exact moment these Amish were discovered and became a tourist trap to make someone else money. Perhaps it began when the musical "Plain & Fancy" appeared on Broadway in 1955 and 1956. At any rate, more and more attractions popped up with a Amish theme and then a few theaters and in 1963 came Dutch Wonderland. The simple life of the Amish faded further into the background as Lancaster County became more a national vacation spot.

Don't get held up as much now by those slow moving buggies with the red triangles on the back. There aren't as many of them since a lot of Amish moved away, tired of the tourist gawking at them and the clutter and exploitation. But that is what we do as people. We look for paradise and then we destroy it.

Even so, Route 23 had remained a nice country scenic road until a few years ago. I hadn't realized the clopping along. There were quite a number of these at that time, little black boxes on wheels pulled along with one horse. That is if it were driven by a married fellow or a family. If the obstacle ahead was o[en then the driver was a single guy driving his courting buggy.

Anyway, you took the drive to relax and gaze at the unique lifestyle around you. change when I took us up that way. Of course, one big mistake on my part was I forgot Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse were not on Route 23. They were on Route 340. Our little dream jaunt turned to nightmare. Traffic on 23 was heavier than I had ever seen in the past and the further we went the heavier it got. It was stop and go in places, slower than molasses in a shoo fly pie (Oh, yum, love that stuff!).

And the day was hot, pushing 90. We gotten several miles up and my air conditioning fell down on the job. The Little Woman is very sensitive to heat and she was growing more miserable by the mile. Meanwhile I am taking note of the distance we had come, especially after we passed through Leola and a signpost read Lancaster 2 miles.  Hey, man, I didn't want to drive in Lancaster direct. We should have hit Bird-in-Hand long ago. Now we were around Leacock and Bareville (yeah, here we go with those suggestive names again).

I pulled into a parking lot and we fished out an old Pennsylvania Road Map. When  say old, come on, it

was a paper, folding map, making it practically an antique. The Little Woman didn't have her reading glasses with her, so it was up to my less than perfect bifocals to find the way. I figured by now it was go south, young man, go south and we should somewhere cross 340. I ran along the map line. Ah ha, there Route 896 was headed the right way. It came down on an angle from the North and bisected 23 in or about Leola. I remembered seeing a big old sign coming up saying 896, but we didn't want it then.

We wanted it now, but it obviously didn't want us. I drove through Leola and no 896. I was through Bareville and Groffdale and New Holland, but n 896. "Where are you hiding, my elusive friend or fiend?"

"That's it," I told the Little Woman, " we hit Blue Ball and I'm heading south on 322. At least that will take us to Downingtown."

Still heavy traffic, in case you forgot that annoyance and still no A/C.

Route 322 did indeed take us to Downingtown and all the way through West Chester. We never did cross 340, but we did cross good old 896 now that we needed it no more. Out of West Chester and onto Rote 202, heading home, but first...heavy traffic.

Route 202 is almost always congested in this area, but this was ridiculous. It was almost a stand still.
We just weren't moving. Naturally, road work ahead, one lane was closed and everybody had to squeeze over.  We're poking along like a snail with a sore foot. I click on the A/C just for the heck of it. It actually is putting out cool breezes again. We survive to relaxing pleasure trip...HA!

And s we roll into our drive at home I think, What will it be lie in ten years? No one will be able to get anywhere. The roads will be in permeant standstill. It'll be the end of the road. Te world will end in gridlock.