bali ha'i

The place I just returned from was Wernersville to visit my old roommate Matthew. I was invited down to see him in the Ephrata Performing Arts Center production of South Pacific. His home is near where I went to college and the familiarity struck me when I got off the interstate and noticed all the farmland and even an Amish buggy along the road. Roadside produce stands and cornfields lined both sides of state route 422. There’s something very specific about the land in that area that sets it apart from other places I lived. Farmland is nothing new to me, but I think the very low hills covered in fields and dotted with barns is what makes it different. The more mountainous and forested countryside of Central Pennsylvania, where I grew up, and even Western Massachusetts, which has become primarily forest with small farms here and there are more alike to each other than to Southeast PA.

The drive was beautiful, but uneventful. I even think I enjoyed it—but I doubt it’s the start of a long romance with car travel. I arrived in the mid-afternoon, and after a quick jaunt to Matthew’s workplace to pick up a special delivery we were off to a flea market/Amish farm stand called the Green Dragon. Flea markets are such strange things! You could quite possibly buy anything at one. We saw hand built furniture, fresh produce, baked goods, tools, used junk, and even knock-off iPods. Even if you have a specific need, all it takes is a little patience and some clever sleuth work to find it. However tempting it was to buy a rocking chair and a used CD collection, all we bought were some baked goods and Amish produce. We had to leave in time to meet some of his coworkers and our friend Lyndsay for dinner.

Lyndsay and I ran to buy shoes after dinner just before the play. As a condition of her staying the night for more hanging out, she needed to have shoes for a wedding the next day. We spent far too much time looking at cards and chocolates after we got the shoes, and almost missed the beginning of the play. Ok, maybe I spent too much time looking at cards….

I really liked the show; I’d never seen it before. My favorite character had to be Bloody Mary, a brash Tonganese native who was always trying to pawn off island handcrafts—and her daughter—to the marines. Most of the play was cute and light, but I was quite scandalized when what appeared to be a 10-year-old Liat seduced the 30-year-old Lt. Cable O’Brien. Matthew and Lyndsay assured me later that Liat wasn’t meant to look that young, but others were duped as well.

After the show, the three of us joined up with two other friends from college, Jen and Andy, and headed to a bar with the rest of the cast and crew from South Pacific. The crowd cheered each time another member of the ensemble walked in and Lyndsay and I were expecting the whole bunch to spontaneously break out into “La Vie Boheme.” Sadly, the atmosphere remained unmusical, even despite the deafening speaker spewing jukebox tunes directly above our table. Post post-production bar romp, the three of us stopped by an all-night, Egyptian-owned diner for breakfast food and fried macaroni and cheese bites. After that was a trip to the all-night grocery to buy supplies for the next morning’s breakfast.

I can’t believe we even bothered with sleeping because we were up early the next morning to make breakfast before Lyndsay had to leave for home and the wedding. Blueberry buttermilk pancakes from scratch (thanks, Tizzy!), pumpkin bread, bacon, and walnut sticky buns made our meal, most of it coming from the Green Dragon the afternoon before. I love cooking and eating with friends!

After seeing Lyndsay off and amusing ourselves with our computers’ Bluetooth capabilities, Matthew and I rejoined Jen and Andy for a trip to Gring’s State Park on the Tulpehocken Creek. But I got lost. I was following Matthew so I could leave after our hike, but I lost him at a yellow light and had to turn around and call him from a phone at a Body Zone. Being cell-phone-free still hasn’t gotten me into trouble!

The park was beautiful. We hiked along the creek through a well-manicured park and also what seemed like a long military parade ground. We couldn’t quite figure out why there was such a long open field just sitting there in the middle of the park, or why there was such a strange, huge, flat monument
surrounded by flagpoles in the middle of that. Aside from the inexplicable field, the park also had lots of old barns, outbuildings, and stone houses that had been restored. We walked out to a great covered bridge across the Tulpehocken, but didn’t cross it. Apparently it goes to nowhere, as Matthew and Jen told me there’s no path on the other side. Silly me for thinking we could cross the bridge and make a loop back to where we started. There’s even an old paper mill somewhere along the way but we didn’t walk that far.

I can’t believe it’s been years since last I saw some of these friends. Jen hadn’t even heard about my plans for Europe. I’m glad I got to spend so much time in their company and get to know them all over again. I wonder when next that’ll happen.