Tonight, Pam and I are in Chambersburg, Pa., staying at the Holiday Inn Express. Tomorrow is an event called a “Day of Missions,” here in Chambersburg at the Salem United Brethren church. This makes a nice get-away for us, the first chance to do something all year. So I’m technically working, but we’re together, out of town. Nice.

Here are some random notes from the trip.

• Cracker Barrel. Pam and I like to eat at Cracker Barrels while traveling. We never eat at the one in Fort Wayne, Ind., where we live. We know the food there would be great. But we just prefer reserving this place for road trips. So for lunch today, we ate at Cracker Barrel in Cambridge, Ohio. It was noisy, like all Cracker Barrels, and the corn bread was much too gritty for my taste (Smokey Bones has the best cornbread, hands down). But that’s our place when we travel.
• The Turnpike. I love the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When my family lived in Harrisburg, Pa., back in the 1960s, we traveled the Turnpike a lot going back and forth to our extended family in Ohio and Michigan. For us kids, the tunnels (three of them) were always a highlight. And the travel islands (all Howard Johnsons, back then) made neat stops. Pam and I stopped at one today, just before Breezewood. It had a Starbucks. I passed. Reluctantly.
• Roadkill. Lots of deer laying beside the road in Pennsylvania. Lots of them. Some body shops are getting business. Another type of roadkill on the Turnpike: multitudes of dead trees on the north side of the road. In places, it seemed like all of the trees were dead. I don’t know if they are just late bloomers, of if 50 years of exhaust fumes took their toll. (“Toll”–good term for the Turnpike. I’m so hilarious.)
• Beauty. Pennsylvania is beautiful, especially going through the mountains. Out West, where we had real mountains (the Sierra Madres in the distance in California)–now those were real mountains. But they were majestic, not beautiful. In Pennsylvania, the Appalachians are simply gorgeous, especially when you come up over a ridge and look into an expansive valley.
• Enemy territory. Pam and I went to the Chambersburg Mall tonight. I was wearing an Indianapolis Colts T-shirt. But everywhere I looked, I saw Pittsburgh Steeler merchandise. I felt conspicuous.