PSoTD

Time to give Hampden Township, in Cumberland County in Pennsylvania, some kudos. We have a VERY good park system in our township, and I think Creekview Park - the side that has the basketball and tennis courts - is the jewel, although there's plenty of room for difference of opinion. When there's a soft breeze in the summer, there's no better place to play hoops outdoors in Central Pennsylvania.

I just thought this combination of businesses, based in a shop in Camp Hill, was worth a look...

Today I took a walk around the The Bon Ton parking lot after dropping off the kids. Capital City Mall is on the other side of the highway, as you can tell from this photo. I originally wanted to get a photo of the old smokestack in the background along with the Capital City Mall name, but I liked how this car interrupted the idea.

The Bon Ton mall stroll - it's not large and I really shouldn't consider it a walk since I was only there about 15 minutes at most - did make obvious one of those things that most mall workers could probably attest to, which is how much sound reduction the building actually provides from highway noise. It's VERY loud on the highway side of the parking lot, but when you get to the front, the noise has been muted to a low background level which, to the casual ear, doesn't garner attention.

Just took the kids to dinner since my wife is at a work function tonight. One of our favorite places is Davenport's The Italian Oven Restaurant in Mechanicsburg, so that's where we went. The kids like most of the items on the children's menu, which is rare, but the main reason we went tonight was that I had a hankering for Red Pepper Soup. I love that stuff, and Davenport's makes it great.

I took a walk through St. Johns Church Cemetery, off of Trindle and St. Johns Roads in Mechanicsburg, this morning. I drive by it every day on the way to taking the kids to school/summer program, so today I took a look around.

It's an old cemetery, the oldest headstone I could spot was for a lady buried in 1845. It is a very confined cemetery, surrounded by roads and apartments and office buildings and what looks to be a preschool. There's still some nice area there to be buried, but not many folks are being buried there right now - not sure why.

One thing I noticed was that although most of the older "residents" had pretty worn headstones, every once in a while I'd see a headstone that looked relatively new for people that have been dead for 70-80 years. I don't *think* the stone was so impervious to nature that it didn't wear - it looks to me like folks "upgrade" headstones. I can see why, if family tends to be buried in one cemetery - some of the headstones aren't even readable at this point, and many other, relatively hefty stone tablets are losing readability. Of course, it isn't cheap to buy a large headstone with a lot of lettering... but if a cemetery is considered by one's family as "the family resting spot", I could see why people pay for the upgrade.

We sat in Negley Park and watched the show. First time for the kids there, and they loved it. Harrisburg likes to claim that this is the best fireworks show on the East Coast not in New York or Washington. I can't say, but the Susquehanna River and City Island does provide a good launch point so that both West and East shores have several places with great views for the show.