Welcome to California! Surf's up!

I went to visit a very dear friend in San Luis Obispo, and we made some short side trips. These two surfers are carrying their boards toward the ocean on Pismo Beach. I graduated from high school in southern California in the '60's at the height of surfomania, and whenever I return, it's a major case of nostalgia for me. I couldn't get Beach Boys' tunes out of my head....nor did I want to.

How do YOU roll 'em?

I'm always fascinated by the different ways cultures stack their hay. Sometimes hay'stacks' are just that--stacks; sometimes they're very conical, sometimes in bales.... Here in this Pennsylvanian field the farmer has rolled them into cylinders.

How do they roll 'em where you are?

Theme Day "Night"

Not quite night, but close enough. This is where I slept at night when at my cousin's place. He and his wife have a lovely log cabin home not far from Harrisburg in Mount Gretna, a woodsy resort where we used to go swimming as kids.

Isn't this just the cutest room?


Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

SKYWATCH FRIDAY - A Kiss in the Sky

People in Hershey, Pennsylvania, get 'kissed' every day, if they look up and see these overhead street lights. They don't melt, either! (These aluminum foil-covered candies are called 'Hershey's Kisses.')

Join SKYWATCH

Gotcha!

This happy cow at Hershey's Chocolate Town tour ride snaps your photo as you exit....but I got her first.

ABC Wednesday "B" is for 'beautiful"

Beautiful indeed, and smart, too. This is my cousin's little granddaughter, Sophia, who accompanied us on our tour of the Chocolate Town Exhibit in Hershey. Naturally, we treated her afterwards.....

Join ABC WEDNESDAY

How sweet it is!

Comedian Jackie Gleason said "How sweet it is!" about Brooklyn on his show "The Honeymooners," but inhabitants of Hershey, Pennsylvania, America's chocolate town, believe it's sweeter here! I took a tour of the Chocolate Town Exhibit, which is a far cry (for the better, in a way!) of the tours I took as a kid. Back then, you could tour the real factory, come finger-licking close to the vats of chocolate, and no one had heard of safety precautions! All the same, this tour was fun.

A typical Pennsylvania country scene

I continue my Pennsylvania journey down Memory Lane. For me, this image reminds me so much of the Sunday drives in the country we used to take when I was a kid. Some things don't change much.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Ah, who says you can't go home again? In Pennsylvania I enjoyed tasting some of my favorite foods from my youth....they just tasted a bit different, or is it my tastebuds that have changed? In any case, here you see the sandwich-meat-of-my-youth, Lebanon bologna, the sweet kind, a pack of Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets, and in the back, a bottle of Birch Beer! (For those readers not familiar with Birch Beer and its relative, Root Beer, they're not alcoholic beers, but rather brews originally made from bark/roots, more like soft drinks now.)

Can you guess which treat I was most anxious to taste...?

Fire!

Inside the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg are many wonderful exhibits. Here, my cousin, who was a volunteer fireman, is photographing an old firetruck. Very pretty and quaint, but I think most of us are happy the modern ones will arrive much faster.

"Bibi's" birthplace

Finally moving on to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, my birthplace. In this photo I am standing on a stone map of Pennsylvania that lies in front of the Pennsylvania State Museum. I visited the museum to see again (saw it a long time ago) a painting done by my great-great grandfather, which had been donated a while back. My mother's side of the family has been in America since 1739, which I guess is a long time for a "Yankee."