Day 58 – Emlenton, Pennsylvania

Today started out pretty routinely, with Don getting up early and scanning the computer looking for places to go and things to see in the area of Bellefonte.  He was zeroing in on a place called Penn’s Cave, where they take you through a series of caverns in a boat.  He figured he could sell Geri on that.  Then he heard Geri’s calling from the bedroom, asking why the TV went off.  He quickly discovered that all the power from the park receptacle was off, and that this was a problem throughout the park.  This didn’t concern him a great deal, ‘cause he knew that if the outage continued, he could just start up our generator and we’d have plenty of power.  Well, a half hour later the power was still out, so he coaxed the generator into starting up.  It ran OK, but, for some reason, didn’t produce any power.  Another problem to put on the list.  Don immediately called for a high-level meeting with Geri, and they agreed that we had to plan on pulling up stakes here and relocate further down the road.

We were about halfway through our departure drill when the power came back on, though Don said the voltage was very low.  We continued our preparations, and were on the road a little after ten.  They had selected a campground about 120 miles down I-80, in a town called Emlenton.  Geri had told Don that we should take Exit 45, that information coming from her Smart Phone.  Don followed her directions, and we wound down a curvy road into downtown Emlenton, drove the length of

Main Street

, then came to a stop as the street ended at the Post Office.  The Captain requested that the Navigator take a new reading on her sextant and chart a new course for our intended port of call.  Well, he didn’t really put it that way.  Anyway, Geri called the RV Park on her Dumb Phone, found that we could either climb a very steep and curvy grade or go back to I-80 and run down to Exit 42, where we should have gotten off.  Don voted for retracing our steps, but he had to disconnect the truck from the coach in order to get turned around and out of Emlenton.  So, with Geri leading the way in the truck, we headed back to the highway, drove 3 miles, and found the Park almost immediately. 

We got set up and were relaxing in the coach’s air conditioning, there was a knock on the door; it was the Park Manager, informing us that we had a bad leak in our water system, and water was pouring out of the bottom of the coach.  Don knew exactly what was wrong, and how to fix it; just turn the valve that he had used to relieve the pressure on the hose back to the normal position, instead of directing the water flow to the storage tank, where it was now running wild.  It was a quick fix, but he was really embarrassed about it. 

Don took the truck into town to get a wash, and he came back with a load of literature about the region.  Turns out that this is oil country, the place that the first oil well ever was drilled.  It still produces quite a bit of oil; Don says that he read recently that Pennsylvania was the fifth largest oil producing state in the country.  And this little town of Emlenton was the headquarters of Quaker State Oil, one of the first oil conglomerates.  There are other interesting features, like the Golfing Hall of Fame, and the oldest golf course in the country that is still in use.  We might do a driveby on those.  Should be good touring tomorrow.

Geri and Don went to dinner at a place right next to the Allegheny River in the village of Foxburg, following the recommendation of the guy at the RV Park.  They loved the food, and didn’t produce a scrap of leftovers for me. 

Back at the rig, we immersed ourselves in Caylee TV with the rest of the world, worked on the blog, ate a few cookies, and went to bed.  Tour Time Tomorrow!