Pennsylvania

We drove into Pennsylvania to see The Mercer Museum in Doylestown.... one man's extraordinary collection of artifacts.... hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of items that he amassed in his lifetime are now on display.  Henry Chapman Mercer set out to collect artifacts which depicted every-day life in America before the industrial revolution.  By the time you get through that museum, your head is just spinning and you're thinking it may be time to clean out your garage.

Fonthill Castle was built by Henry Mercer.... the entire castle is built from concrete and tile (he was a designer and manufacturer of decorative tiles). We toured the castle, which is a labyrinth of rooms and stairways... and I'd say 85% of it all was concrete studded with beautifully painted and decorated tilework. The castle itself sits on park-like grounds, which gave me a different viewpoint for our own house, which sits on 23 acres. I need to think of this house as being in the middle of a big park, and then maybe I won't be so focused on the surrounding woods and the wildlife it contains.

In Columbia, PA, we went to the National Watch and Clock Museum..... beautiful museum filled with every sort of watch and clock you can think of.  The famous Engle Clock is there... it is eleven feet high, eight feet wide, three feet deep. It was built in 1878, after 20-years' worth of craftsmanship. Bells chime, music plays, figures move... a very inspiring and extraordinary endeavor in clock-making.

In a town called Oaks (near Valley Forge), there is the "American Treasure Tour," a guided-tram tour of over 100,000 square feet of space filled with nickelodeons, band organs, music boxes, classic automobiles, motorcycles, dolls and doll houses, animated store displays, circus and carnival memorabilia, patriotic and holiday decorations, toys and games......... you name it, it's probably in that building. And everything in there was collected by just one person, who prefers to remain anonymous. Once again, when we left that museum, our heads were spinning from everything we had just seen. The amount of stuff on display is mind-boggling, to say the least.

We drove through the Amish farm country, stopped at two general stores and had breakfast at a country-style buffet. And of course we bought a jar of Pennsylvania-Dutch style apple butter, to bring to our friends in Maryland. (Can't go near Lancaster without buying apple butter... it's the rule there.)