Fort Bellefonte Campground, Bellefonte, PA

This is our campground for tonight. We arrived about 3:00 PM with no reservation. Janice had called several times only to get an answering machine. When she got to the office, the sign on the door said, "If you need help, go to Site 40". We drove around to Site 40 and met a man who said, "I can't help you, but let me check". He walked away while we waited in the road. He came back and said, Sites 37-39 are empty and not reserved. Take whatever one you want. The office will open at 4:00 PM".

This campground is 15 minutes from Penn State University. The road in front of the office is "Penn State Road. There are flags, pennants, and signs everywhere. A field adjacent to the campground is marked for motor home dry camping. We are told that this campground overflows with RVs on football weekends at PSU.

Our departure from Ontario was smooth. Janice disposed of our Canadian money at the campground store this morning. We had an easy drive to the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie and then faced the border crossing immediately after the bridge. The gates were crowded, but not too bad. We followed signs to "cars and RVs" only to find the gate extremely narrow. We got in without damage to mirrors or anything else. The guard asked if we had not seen the sign for RVs far to the right. We said 'no', and decided not to argue with him. He took our passports, entered data into his computer, asked us some questions, took the coach keys, and boarded the coach. He looked in the bedroom, bathroom, and refrigerator. He left the coach, walked to his cube, handed us our passports and keys and said, "Have a good day". Efficient and polite, but not friendly.

We decided to take a cross country route to Pennsylvania. Plans to go to Cooperstown, NY were discarded. We are tired and decided to minimize the driving. Cooperstown will fit into a New England trip at another time. Route US 219 through the Allegheny Mountains was okay. We briefly got on I-86 and were shaken in every possible direction. Fortunately, this was short and we welcomed the two-lane road escape off this washboard.

We had dinner in State College tonight after we drove around the PSU campus. Like most college towns, car parking is scarce. We drove the two main streets and several side streets through the campus. It was fun to see the students swarming around en route to somewhere. Most had a cell phone to an ear and a backpack over a shoulder. They looked way too young to be in college. We ended up at a mall outside of the downtown where we enjoyed dinner and were able to park. Miss Garmin was a big help.

On the ride back to the campground the mountains were vivid against the early night sky. We could clearly see the valley through which the road took us. Now we have a visual of what Penn Staters mean with the expression "Happy Valley" to describe State College and PSU.

Tomorrow we will continue on to Strasburg, PA. We will stay there three nights and use it as a base to see the area. The big draw is Friday night's Sight & Sound Theater production.