{"id":1120,"date":"2012-06-20T22:16:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T03:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/?p=1120"},"modified":"2012-06-20T22:16:56","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T03:16:56","slug":"road-trip-2012-ii-part-1-driving-north-and-a-train-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/06\/road-trip-2012-ii-part-1-driving-north-and-a-train-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip 2012 II, Part 1: Driving North and a Train Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’ve mentioned in 2008<\/a>, 2009<\/a>, and 2011<\/a>, our family makes a trip to Pennsylvania every year for Dave’s family reunion in Lancaster County. \u00a0I didn’t go in 2010 — Dave flew to PA with the boys while I did some reserve work — so I didn’t write about it. \u00a0To be honest, I haven’t written much detail about the reunions themselves. \u00a0I guess I just say “We’re going” and that’s about it. \u00a0It’s mainly hanging out drinking some Yuengling, eating Hammond’s Pretzels, catching up with the others from Dave’s Dad’s side of the family. \u00a0The folks are all wonderful and it’s especially fun to see how grown up the younger family members become year after year. \u00a0This year, some of the youngest family members when I first went to a Vollmer reunion in 1994 are about to become seniors in college!!!! \u00a0Wow!<\/p>\n

We also pay a visit with several loved ones from Dave’s Mom’s side of the family. \u00a0Some of them drive in from Philadelphia to Lancaster County to visit with Dave’s parents and our foursome and we’re always flattered and humbled by their efforts. \u00a0Each year Jacob seems to top himself with how much he can eat: this year it was a foot-long chicken\u00a0parmesan\u00a0sub sandwich!<\/p>\n

Enjoy some pictures from the first couple days of our adventures. \u00a0We try to spend a day at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and the Strasburg Railroad, and this year we even adjusted our travel time so we could keep a day ahead of the Strasburg Railroad’s “Day Out With Thomas” event that is always over Father’s Day weekend. \u00a0It’s usually a nightmare of toddlers and preschoolers, with families coming from as far away as Connecticut and Massachusetts for the chance to ride behind a REAL engine made up to look like Thomas (and not non-operational Thomas that’s actually pushed by another locomotive, which is what we experienced in Nebraska in 2009<\/a> — don’t get me wrong, the Fremont, Nebraska experience is the best-ever Thomas ride we’d ever had out of 5 venues and about a dozen rides!)<\/p>\n

The kids have officially outgrown Thomas <sniff sniff> and didn’t mind not riding with him this year. \u00a0Some of my favorite memories of my little boys will always be with that useful engine<\/a>….<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>

We took a detour on the drive northward and took in some of Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park.<\/a>\u00a0 Check out that stunning view! \u00a0We only drove the southernmost 40 miles, from mileposts 105 to 65 or so.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

As soon as we rolled into Lancaster County, we took the boys on their first trip to Good ‘n Plenty<\/a>, a family-style all-you-can-eat Amish food experience. I had first visited this restaurant on a Girl Scout in about 1986. Dave and I have only been here about every 5 years since we’ve been married. Timmy really…really…REALLY liked the fried chicken legs.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dave indulged me a little while I attempted to get pictures of a hot air balloon floating over Lancaster County near sunset. My camera has seen better days, so this was the best picture I could muster through an open window of a moving car.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The boys enjoyed a morning at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.<\/a> It was great visiting on a non-Day-Out-With-Thomas<\/a> day for the first time in nearly 10 years!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

We enjoyed a lunch on the Strasburg Railroad’s Dining Car<\/a>, which had JUST re-opened for business on June 15th after being unavailable due to a restoration.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The “Hobo Lunches<\/a>” came out to us in a hobo-styled knapsack tied to a stick. We were allowed to keep the bandanas. The food was catered by The Hershey Farm<\/a> restaurant — also in Strasburg, not associated with the chocolate company. \u00a0Since we were on the 2nd ever trip since the restoration, there were a lot of glitches to the food service and our train left late and we ended up with an abridged ride! \u00a0Boo!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I’ve mentioned in 2008, 2009, and 2011, our family makes a trip to Pennsylvania every year for Dave’s family reunion in Lancaster County. \u00a0I didn’t go in 2010 — Dave flew to PA with the boys while I did some reserve work — so I didn’t write about it. \u00a0To be honest, I haven’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,175,268,58,163,53,37],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-i4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":589,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/06\/happy-belated-fathers-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":0},"title":"Happy Belated Father’s Day!","date":"20 June 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Belated Father's Day to any of my Dad readers! \u00a0We were happy to get to spend time with Dave's Dad early in the day at Dave's family reunion in Pennsylvania, then we drove down to my parents' house in West Virginia in time for dinner with my Dad. Earlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-RmP52g4aKw0\/Tf-YB1BEpLI\/AAAAAAABWzk\/CmFBGyihTFg\/s400\/Dave_layout.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1139,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/06\/road-trip-2012-ii-part-2-west-virginia.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":1},"title":"Road Trip 2012 II, Part 2: West Virginia","date":"25 June 12","format":false,"excerpt":"Since Debby is keeping her distance from northwest Florida, I can safely resume my blogging about our road trip. After visiting with Dave's side of the family in Pennsylvania, we said our goodbyes -- especially to Jacob, who is visiting with Dave's parents for a couple weeks -- and headed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"kids\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/DelGrossoSign.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":358,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/06\/road-trip-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":2},"title":"ROAD TRIP!","date":"12 June 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow morning we leave on vacation.\"Whoo hoo! It's about friggin' time! You haven't really had a real vacation in a couple years, have you?\"No, I guess not. We had that fabulous trip to Fort Fisher\/Kure Beach, NC back in July 2007. That was a really fun time, the most relaxed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1193,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/07\/jacobs-visit-to-new-york.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":3},"title":"Jacob’s Visit to New York","date":"11 July 12","format":false,"excerpt":"Jacob got home on Wednesday from a 3 week visit to New York with Dave's parents. \u00a0He had a very nice -- and busy -- visit. \u00a0He had the chance to go with his Grampy to a classic car show in Stony Brook, he visited the Statue of Liberty in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/JacobStatueOfLiberty.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":587,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/06\/really-florida-is-a-really-big-state.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":4},"title":""Really?" Florida is a REALLY BIG STATE","date":"15 June 11","format":false,"excerpt":"We learned this already on our drive to Orlando last weekend. \u00a0Navarre, Florida to Orlando is about 6 hours worth of driving.We were able to get from Raleigh, NC to Washington, D.C. in less time.But when we started doing our driving planning for our annual June trip to central PA\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-6Y08w2Bh9NI\/TfjP-zbcS3I\/AAAAAAABWx8\/cS5OHOGeQQg\/s640\/Navarre2Mountville.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":368,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/06\/vollmer-vacation-ventures.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":5},"title":"Vollmer Vacation Ventures","date":"30 June 09","format":false,"excerpt":"We are now back in Nebraska. Many of you know this already, if you've been following Dave or me on Facebook, Twitter or our family's homepage. We made a nuisance of ourselves advertising every point of our trip to the world, much to the delight of potential thieves, as someone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}