Just go to BK.

After over six hours on about six highways, Marley and I made it to Pennsylvania Friday night without the aid of any DVDs.   And we didn't listen to one Curious George CD.  It was delightful, and I'm so proud of that kid.  Instead, Marley asked for what she calls Mommy Guster, and later, a CD of the Disney Princesses' greatest hits.  (You better believe I belted "A Whole New World" like nobody's business.  But my tenor is more suited for Aladdin's parts.)  We stopped three times, and she got out of the car for bathroom breaks just twice.  She took two naps, looked at books, and around hour four hit this sort of punchy phase where everything she said made her scream and laugh.  I was sort of delirious myself  when we got to Will's house, especially because I didn't expect to see my first horse and buggy at ten p.m., its blinker signaling a left hand turn while I pretty much idled behind it.

Marley was asleep when we pulled up, but Will was awake and excited.  He showed us how many push-ups he can do.  His dad welcomed us to their "Home, Crap Home," and we watched these two lovebirds warm up to each other after over two months apart.  Marley had the look of love in her eyes for the next hour or so, before they fell asleep together on the air mattress we brought.  I actually filmed a twenty-second segment of some giggly tickling that looks like one of those post-hot tub, reality television scenes involving whispering and moving sheets.  After I got my footage, Will's mom and I pulled them apart to their separate pillows.

The next morning, we headed out with Will and Bean for some old-timey fun at a local pretzel factory.  Before that, we watched Will's swimming lesson and Marley had a mini-tantrum amidst Pennsylvania folk who were initially amused by her ensemble but then quickly, I could feel, judged me while I gripped her upper arm and repeatedly explained that we could not go behind the curtain where Will was changing because he needed privacy.  And speaking of judgement, Lancaster County is rife with churches and preachy billboards; we passed one sign depicting the roaring fires of hell.  Lancaster County also feels about ten to fifteen years behind where I come from.  And that's everyone who's not, on purpose, over two hundred years behind, their carts and horses parked in a row at the feed store in Intercourse (Yup, Intercourse.  About eight miles from Blue Ball.)  on a Saturday morning. 

We got in line for a horse and buggy ride, which turned out to be a horse and wagon ride with two families from North Carolina and a hacking, mustachioed man from Germany perpetuating the stereotype with his black socks and brown sandals.  It was chilly and grey, and the Amish and Mennonites were drab, but we had our own Rainbow Brite to lighten the repressive gloom.  Marley, by the way, just about fell asleep while sitting straight up on one of the wagon's benches.  She was nodding her head like I used to do in college classes; I'd check my notes later and see that my writing became steadily less legible until it literally flatlined.

On our way to the buggy ride, we pointed out a family leaving a parking lot in a horse-drawn cart, with the clearly enunciated and overly-excited intonations of parents trying to teach their kids something.  Two minutes later, Will yelled and pointed out my car window at what his mom called a hooptie, olive green with a maroon door.  "Look Marley!"  His tone matched ours perfectly.  "It's green and red!"

Back at Will's, Marley immediately changed into her nightie.  When we strolled over to the goat farm down the hill, she looked like a version of a little pink Mennonite, her sensible long dress just about reaching her sensible shoes.  After marveling at the guineas that are a close approximation of her beloved turkeys, I got out my lacrosse sticks so she and Will could run around like maniacs.  It ended in a fight.  Something about a ball that they both wanted.

Before Marley and I drove home to Todd and Rudy, we went to a "show" at Will's preschool which turned out to be a full-out mass in a church in which kids sang "Twinkle, Twinkle" for, oh, two minutes.  Then we sat fidgeting and tried to listen to a preschool director (who should know better) drone on to preschoolers, their families and friends, and an entire flippin' congregation about education standards for over twenty minutes.  I was bamboozled into going to church!  By Will's cheerful and, apparently, righteous teacher, who had assured Will's mom that the show would only take fifteen minutes, and of course his friends from home were welcome.  I was in my Sunday best, by the way: yoga pants and an Old Navy Buddha tee.

We stopped at a Burger King with an indoor playground for lunch (my favorite posted rule: "If you see anything weird, please tell a manager."), and Will and Marley shrieked and scrambled and slid all around the plastic structure with the Pennsylvania post-church boys in their dress pants, and all the Pennsylvania post-church girls with their hair twisted into buns or wrapped in scrunchies (see above: at least fifteen years behind) and their long velvet skirts and dresses letting only a few inches of their tights show. 

Burger King was the highlight of the trip.  Marley went on and on about the slides and the holes she and Will kept sticking their heads out of: on the ride home, and when we got home and Todd asked her how Pennsylvania was.  This morning when Marley was getting ready for school, I told her that we might stop at a playground after I pick her up (and before we pick up my mom for, well, what is basically her school).  Marley started jumping up and down and talking about how she wanted to go to the playground "at Pennsylvania."