a Sunday afternoon drive

One of my biker buddies and I took our bikes on a Sunday afternoon cruise. Nothing unusual about that, but we saw something pretty cool. We took the bikes across the Susquehanna River on a wooden ferry boat. I wish I would have taken a camera along. Maybe I'll just have to go back again sometime with more biker buddies and do it again, and take the camera along then. The last time I went on a ferry boat in the Susquehanna was either 4th or 5th grade for a school trip. Supposedly, this ferry has about a 50 or 60 horsepower Deutz diesel that my Pop's cousins from Stauffer Diesel installed. The Deutz powers a hydraulic pump, with turns a sprocket, which turns a chain, which turns the paddle wheel out the back end of the boat. The guy manning the wheel told us all kinds of historical facts about the boat and previous ones. This is the 5th version of this boat. He told us that the boat uses about a quart of diesel every time it crosses the river, and it operates only a little above an idle the whole time, at about 1100 rpm. That's pretty good fuel economy, considering that the ferry can take 3 full size vehicles plus several dozen walk-on passengers. At first, when we drove up to the dock on the east side of the river, the ferry was unloading over on the west side, so we waited for it to return. Meanwhile we got to chatting with some locals who were wandering past. They told us about some "cute Amish families" that they had watched cross the river once. They took 3 buggies on the ferry, but because they all wanted to go together they had to wait until the ferry came back because other folks had been in line ahead of the "Amish." (Turns out they were probably Jo Wengers..... black buggies, not grey.) Anyway, these locals got all sorts of amusement out of watching the "Amish," because while they waited their turn, they pulled out ice cream and plates, and had a tailgait...... er, should I say...... behind-the'-buggy party.

With all the rain we have been getting here lately, we may need to consider building an ark, or maybe at least a spare ferry boat, or something anyway. So it was nice to get out and enjoy the nice weather all day while that was possible. Although the ferry boat ride was sort of the highlight, even nicer was the site seeing throughout the countryside. There were some mountain tops that gave some really nice views through some huge valleys. When the sun comes out, you notice how everything is green right now. No drought this year.