Pennsyltucky

Following the Great Chicken Debacle, the Man and I had to bring my chickens to my brother's house, where they will be raised and then dispatched. My brother and his wife and new baby (hereafter referred to as Moon Pie) all live on a little farm-ette in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania, which is actually closer to my house than most parts of my own state.

My brother lives about an hour from us, and so this last week we decided to drive the chicks down one morning and be home in time for lunch, which would probably be beef, all things considered. We're about half an hour from the Pennsylvania border, and my brother is roughly another half an hour into PA, so just about an hour from our house, and the NY/PA line is pretty much the center point, so long as you're taking the mountainous back roads, and not any type of highway.

The joke in our family is that my brother lives in Pennsyltucky- (I didn't realize that people actually called a certain part of PA Pennsyltucky, but he does indeed live in the part of the state not covered by Pittsburgh or Philadelphia's metropolitan areas), and this is why: there has never been a time when I needed to go to PA where the directions didn't include "turn off the paved road". My brother's house is certainly no exception; on our way up his road there were literally piles of cow dung in the middle of the road, and when the Man remarked on that I reminded him where we were and told him he should just be glad there weren't any cows impeding the drive at that particular moment.

Several weeks ago when the Man and I were still trying to find a suitable truck for him to buy, we went to a small-ish dealership in a completely different town in PA, and the directions listed on the dealership's website took us literally through a farmer's field. There simply aren't that many paved roads once you get off the major highways if you're travelling in small towns in Pennsyltucky.

When the girl-child was cheering for the pee-wee football players, there was a game being played in a fair-sized town. The majority of the drive was on the highway, but as soon as we got off, I made one turn and we were off the paved road. The kids were playing a night game in a pee-wee football stadium with lights, loudspeaker system, and a concession stand fully outfitted, actual heated bathrooms with hot and cold running water. The town had spent millions of dollars on this football stadium that was for kids under ten, and yet the road wasn't paved. I was stunned.

My brother, who I suppose should know these things, tells me that unlike where I come from, there are no county highway departments, so everything is either a state route or a town road. Which means there are a lot of state routes, and the state (sorry, commonwealth) simply can't keep up the maintenance on all of them, and so the pavement simply disintegrates over time, leaving "turn off the paved road" a phrase used in everyday direction-giving.

Anyhow, this week's trip to Pennsyltucky brought a couple of new observations about the state my brother calls home. We dropped the chicks off and left, and as I was looking out the window I noticed a house with what looked like those decorative geese in the front yard. One moved, and I realized they were real, and then I caught myself- we were in the mountains of Pennsyltucky, of course they were real!

Not only that, but once we returned to the paved road, I noticed another peculiar thing. Instead of having rumble strips on the sides of the road to alert sleepy drivers they've nodded off and need to move back over or keep people from veering too far right while texting and driving simultaneously, the great state of Pennsylvania has the rumble strips running down the center of the road.

I'm not a particularly well-traveled person so for all I know NY is the only state that doesn't do this. It occurred to me that there were no guard rails whatsoever, so embankments, no ditches, nothing at all to prevent a car from leaving the road, should one venture too far to the right. For many miles, the only thing on the right is a field, and so I suppose it does make much more sense to put the strips down the center, since a person who went off the road could probably drive right back onto it, whereas someone driving across the center and into a tractor that had been coming down the other side probably wouldn't fare so well.

The other thing I noticed is that the prices there have finally seemed to catch up with New York's. Every time we go south, we plan to fill our vehicles with gas and those of us who smoke plan to stock up to feed that habit as well, because PA has less taxes and seems to just love us more in general. This time, though, the gas was actually more than it was at home, and the smokes were the same price. I don't know if they realized their neighbors to the north were charging arms, legs, and firstborn children and getting away with it, or if new laws have passed, or what the dealio is, but it was very disconcerting to get there and see their prices were just as high.

The actual differences most people see aren't that huge- the dirt is a little redder than ours and the roads a little curvier. I see smaller things though, like pavement and geese, and they amuse me.