Pennsylvania - Day 6 - Reading

French Creek State Park, PA

Friday, 6 April 2018

I decided to get some errands done while I was in the big city (Reading).

It had finally dawned on me that I’ve been driving a few miles lately without doing anything to the engine except provide gasoline.  I had to call around to a few Jiffy Lubes but found one that has 12’ high doors to accommodate my little guy.  And it turned out to be a few doors down the street from a laundromat (let’s hear it for the internet).  So I got both those chores done and the dogs got a couple of short walks.

It had also occurred to me that there might be a simple way to make spring come.  Not the "Groundhog Day" way but the if-I-wash-my-car-it-will-rain way.  After I threw away my tennies in Alvarado (when I had that dreadful accident with the sewage line), I bought new ones when I was visiting Anna and David in Dallas.  But what I bought was the breathe-able kind, figuring it was soon going to be quite warm.  As it is now in Dallas.  Well, it isn’t in Pennsylvania and I’ve been taking the dogs for walks in 35° weather in those shoes.  So today I found a Sears and bought the kind I used to wear in Washington state.  I'm confident spring will now come.

In fact, snow is now pretty much out of the forecasts, but cold temps at night aren’t.  And about that, what I’ve decided is to reroute myself to do the Allentown area first, where I can stay at a KOA with plug-ins, and then go back down to Philadelphia and stay in a Walmart parking lot once it warms up a bit more.  I’m not missing Philadelphia for any kind of weather, but I figure I can postpone it a little.

I did all my chores in a Reading suburb called Wyomissing.  Isn’t that an odd name?

So after I did grocery shopping and more dog walking, I drove around the main areas of Reading and wow!  Almost all the housing in the main part of town (as opposed to the surrounding areas) looks like these photos.  They’re in the national historic neighborhood register.  They run the gamut from obviously wealthy to obviously not and everything in between, but they look gorgeous.

I’m able to report that urban Pennsylvanians don’t mind double parking at all, and everybody seems to think it’s normal.  They honk their horns pretty quickly, but only once in all the driving I’ve been doing here has someone not let me in when I needed to change lanes.  That is absolutely Not what Texans do.  Despite the honking, they seem to be very polite drivers.  I didn’t expect it.

Sorry I can't figure out how to make this look better.  But you get to see the pictures.