Easter hat parade at Aldersgate UMC

 Saturday morning was the day for inside Easter hat parades, including one at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in York Township. The young ladies dazzled their family and friends with flowers and brilliant colors on their hats, the boys showed off their dinosaurs. All won prizes for their puppy-like cuteness.

Hang on

There are days, aren't there, that the best we can do is just grab someone or something and hang on. The bee at left was a bit heavy with saddlebags after buzzing through Flinchbaugh's Orchards in Hellam Township, and apparently just needed a respite from the day's work-- or at least, that's what it looks like.

Eddie's Cat Cooper

Meet Eddie. He's a feline friend of mine in Lancaster who apparently owns his own car, a Mini Cooper.

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow."

Hey boys and girls, what time is it?

For those of you who just can't get enough of NFL football and its news, here's a tattoo from
ugliesttattoos.com.   Come on, people, make it look good! Add a bit of color to show off his team spirit.  Of course, leave a bit of open space for color of whatever team Tebow will be on in two years.

It amazes me what awful tattoos people put on their bodies. Next year, when all the Tim Tebow-mania dies down, this client is going to left with a reminder of a very long, very drunk party.  In 10 years, he (must be a 'he', because women are much smarter than this) will try to explain to his kids who this Tim Tebow guy was.

BTW, I'm a fan of Tebow's, but I don't think he's a future Hall of Famer.

Santorum in Gettysburg, eventually

Politicians being late to any venue isn't anything new, it's expected. While most folks plan schedules to accommodate changes in the day, politicians have too many things going on. They apparently try to pack a size 13 foot into a size eight shoe, I guess.

So, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum was expected to show up at the Gettysburg Hotel at 8 p.m. Tuesday night.  Now, most of his loyal followers and the media knew that wasn't going to happen. But the rookies were doing an awful lot of complaining and whining.

There was a large television near the front of the ballroom, and everyone was watching Mitt Romney give his acceptance speech for his win in Illinois. It became clear that Santorum might have already arrived, but didn't want to step on Romney's toes, or better yet, didn't want to be ignored by CNN as Romney spoke.

Sure enough, Romney says thanks and goodbye, and Santorum makes his appearance here to a suddenly forgiving crowd. CNN plugs in a commercial or two, and then switches to Gettysburg, the place Santorum's press people called "The Land of Lincoln". (Isn't that Illinois?)

So, Santorum parades his wife and most of his seven kids onto the stage and begins his speech. I'm no speech writer, and get tongue-tied in front of more than two people, but the speech lacked something. It had plenty of fire, enough to get supporters excited, but lacked much of a connection to Gettysburg. Except for a few phrases, the same speech could have been given in Illinois. Or Idaho or Arkansas.

It seems he could have used Lincoln's Gettysburg Address words  "of the people, by the people and for the people" like a hammer since he's attacking Obama's big government. Unfortunately, the speech was somewhat flat -- he mentioned he didn't have a teleprompter in the room-- and the world will "little note nor long remember when we say here:". 

The large crowd of picketers outside, mostly women from Gettysburg College, reminded Santorum of Lincoln's "all men are created equal."  Of course, they thought Lincoln meant women, too.

We're a week or so ahead of last year

This is the time of the year when you're not sure if you should suck the gas out of the snow blower and transfer it to the lawnmower. That's just tempting fate, right?

A calendar check of weather events and how they dictate things in the garden show me that we're about a week or two ahead of last year. But, how many people remember that huge snowstorm that hit York many years ago in mid-March?

Still, the roses are pruned, fertilized and given their iron-clad coat of anti-bug gunk. The newly-planted daffodils in the front yard, however, are far behind these found in a York Township woods.

Bargain gas for $3.65?

 

 It seems strange that searching for, and finding, 'bargain' gas selling for $3.67 is worthy of standing in line. It could be worse, and it might be eventually.

On York's side of the Susquehanna River, gasoline is selling for $3.87. Just a few miles away, on the Lancaster side, it's as cheap as $3.65, making for long lines. It's still not worth driving from York to save 22 cents a gallon, but if you're in that neighborhood, it's something to consider. Why is it that much cheaper just 15 minutes away?

To check area gas prices, the Gas Buddy app on smart phones is a good place to start. To be clear, some York stations are the same price as the highest price Lancaster stations, but generally, Lancaster's are about 20 cents cheaper. 

This particular station was at the Giant on Fruitville Pike was $3.67. The Giant on Pauline Drive in York Township was $3.85. 

 

Genuine Nunavut photos, really

When Tinah Rose with Nunavut Tourism informed me Wednesday that a photo imported for my previous blog post was NOT from Nunavut (thanks, Wikipedia), she instead offered dozens of other photos from its library to show the Canadian territory. Requested photos were approved by Ms. Rose, and are posted here.

These photos were even more amazing than the ones that Wikipedia tried to sell as Nunavut.

The pictures proved what I already suspected. Nunavut is a place of magic, isolated and alone-- and beautiful. Nunavut holds the top spot on my 'bucket list' of places to visit, but unfortunately, because of the prohibitively high costs of  getting there, my visits will probably be limited to websites and photos.

Browsing through the photos, you'll see knit hats and heavy jackets during a summer ATV ride, polar bears, icebergs the size of five story buildings, colorful villages surrounded by mountains and water, cute kids with wide smiles, muskox, caribou, walrus and sled dogs.

There are a dozen photos of men and women wearing winter coats. Maybe just wanting to buy a winter coat from folks who know what winter is really like is enough of a reason to head north.

Now really, wouldn't you like to visit? Really?

Iqaluit? I'll have Nunavut

    "Visiting the Territory of Nunavut will make for one of the most incredible experiences of your life, but you’ll have to be properly prepared before you come and while you’re here."

     Sounds like going to Mars, eh?  But Nunavut, Canada, must be a magical place with snow, mountains, and an innocence born of its isolation and far north location. While tourism councils and travel agents are busy planning trips to the Bahamas and the Yucatan, I just want to find a way to get to Nunavut.  Go north, old man! 

Originally imported from Wikipedia, this photo was NOT from Nunavut. According to the Nunavut Tourism Department, it's probably Greenland. Learned a lesson here-- Wikipedia might be a good place to start, but don't accept its reports as gospel.

    Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999, and is just a little smaller than Alaska and Texas combined. The population of the entire territory is 31,000 (less than York city),and the capital of  Iqaluit is about the size of Red Lion. Weather is chilly, and only in the summer months does the average temperature rise above freezing. The record high is 78 balmy degrees, the record low was -50. About 60 percent of the population is Inuit, or native. Iqaluit is a fairly new city, having begun in 1942 as an American Air Force base. Twenty years later, the U.S. moved out of what was then named Frobisher Bay. Only in 1987 was the city renamed Iqaluit, the original native name.

    “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

    I've been lucky enough to have seen all the Canadian provinces and territories except Nunavut. Unfortunately, it's one of those many places in the world I'll never see because of cost.  Just the round trip flight from BWI to Iqaluit  is $2345. There are no roads to Nunavut from anywhere in Canada, so driving is out. And once there, it's expensive.

     From the Great Canadian Travel Company, a four day trip runs about $2,000. For those with a well-padded bank account, the company will whisk you to the North Pole for eight days for about $50,000.

    But things are looking up.  From Nunavut Tourism-- "In partnership with the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, Nunavut Tourism is pleased to be hosting the territory's first major tourism conference, which will take place March 19 – 23, 2012 in Iqaluit."

     Maybe prices will come down?