"Time to Leave", Day 37, Monday, July 5,1976, at VALLEY FORGE

                                                                                     Photo: Carol Tacy

"Time to Leave"

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Journal Entry: Day 37,  Monday,  July 5,1976, at VALLEY FORGE

This is our camp at Valley Forge

     We got up around 7am—we wake up by habit now.  They did serve breakfast so we went down and had hash, cereal & coffee then there was a teamsters meeting about mileage money for trucking.  We got 10 cents a mile ($24) to get home & Pat gave us $40 from the RI Grant money so we should have enough money to get home.
 

Great Lakes "Hooter" Up In Smoke

    Around 10 am Paul & I were standing near my truck and through the bushes we saw a raging fire.  We ran over across the road to find the Great Lakes train burning their out house.  They were wooden on the outside so they burned very well but the tires on the trailer made a lot of smoke.

    Paul & Sandy Cabot's  trailer came about noon so they left  for New Hampshire, but they are coming to our house next week because they are buying Pat’s horse trailer. So we hope to see them again.  All the other RI people are leaving this noon. A lot of people have their rigs loaded and ready to go.

     Also the reporter,Richard Papiernik from the Philadelphia Inquirer was back today gathering more information.  He is very interested.  When he saw us leaving, he came over and shook my hand. 
 

We start to leave about 1o’clock and but after saying goodbye to everyone then buying 
souvenirs & saying goodbye to the wagons, we finally got on the road a little after 3pm.

      Went out Yellow Spring Rd to Rte 29 then we will probably pick up Rte 209 to Rte 84.  The trailer doors are tied open because it's so hot and the horses are sticking their heads out and catch the wind.

     Cathy and Tom are riding on the back of the truck so we’ll not be hot & cramped in the front because it must be close to 100 degrees. (It's a flatbed truck...there's no way this would happen
 today !!)

     We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant and bought some news papers.  There was a picture of Peggy the pig on the front page. ( I have been told that "Peggy Bank" and "Floyd" the goat went to live on a farm in Vermont)

Peggy and Linda

       Then we went out Rte 29 to Rte 663 to Rte 309 to Rte 191 we will switch off to Rte 402 from Rte 209 and will go through the middle of the Pocono Mountains.  It seems to be cooling off a little now.  But it is still hot.  Just went by a sign 88 degrees-5:24 pm.  Around 7:30 we found a camp ground  just off 209 and they will allow us to camp with horses. We all took showers and felt a lot better.  Showers got to be a high-light of the trip and we had been on that muddy hill at Valley Forge for three days with no water and obviously no showers.  It had been said that if they did not give us any facilities we would get out faster and I must agree with that statement. 

   When we came to the camp grounds we asked to be alone so no kids would get hurt with the horses and so they let us use a grassy field across from the house which was just great because the horses got to graze most of the night.  When we went to “bed” we tied them to the truck*

* Addendum: The Campground we stayed at was Mountain Vista Campground in E.Stroudsburg,Pa
in 1976 we paid $6.25,  in 2016 it would cost $52.75 ! In 1976 sites were $4.25 + $1.- additional adults. In 2016 sites with no hookups are $40.75 + $6.- additional adults.

Journal Entry:  Tuesday July 6^th,1976,  the Pocono’s

We got up around 7 am after sleeping on the ground.  We were covered by a heavy dew and the pillows and sleeping bags were all wet.

We were on the road by 8:30 and after stopping for breakfast at Miller's Diner we were on the way home.

Going thru Hartford we saw a sign that says it's 98deg at 2:30pm.So we stopped and Lee opened the doors on the trailer so the horses would be cooler. 

It's now starting to feel that we have just come out of a dream !I don't know how we are going to cope with reality, but I sure will soon enough. This whole trip gave us and many others a chance to live out childhood dreams of being on a wagon train !

            

  

" We Are Here", Day 36, Sunday, July 4,1976, at VALLEY FORGE

"He Is Here,But We Are Not"

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"He Is Here, But We Are Not"
Journal Entry: Day 36,  Sunday, July 4^th , 1976 at VALLEY FORGE

      
 We got up late (7 am) after getting scrunched and rolling all night on the muddy hill.  Around 8 am the President came but none of us were asked to go over and no transportation was provided for us. There are no facilities for us to clean up. 

Thunder and Breezy tied to our truck at Valley Forge

 

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                                                           Photo: Carol Tacy

     

 We (the New England group) will have our own party.  I went with Sandy Munroe and some others to the market for food and we then went to find some beer which turned out to be quite a project on Sunday in Pennsylvania on Sunday,  but we did succeed in getting  5 cases.

                                                           Photo: Carol Tacy

  Around 5:30pm we had our own cookout and it rained of course but we moved everything into Robin Munroe's horse van and kept it dry.  We had one of the best cookouts of the trip. 

                                                                                                        Photo: Carol Tacy

                                                                                            Photo: Carol Tacy

Duke,Doug and Bev always looking great             Photo: Carol Tacy

     Later everyone went to Valley Forge to see the show because our troupe was performing for the last time. 

 After Lee puts a shirt on !       Photo:Carol Tacy

 They put on the best show ever and everyone of us was in the show because they are part of us and the audience was watching us as well as the show on stage.

The New England Show Troupe at Valley Forge

         After the show, Roger tried to acknowledge our troupe and some man tried to shut him up  because he wanted to introduce all the other show troupes but Roger won out and after that "Doc" Lyle got on stage and presented Roger with a bottle of remedy,  and told him we were having a plaque made for him.  And then we all went on stage and cried with the show troupe because this was the end of the trail with their last song.  Then we all went back to camp and had another party.

                                                                                                  Photo:Carol Tacy

                                                                                                 Photo: Carol Tacy

  I was told later that during the show Dawn came with the kids and said that Pat Reynolds had been taken to the hospital because one of the Vt. horses stepped on him when he tried to untangle it.

Dawn, Ranny and their kids will leave in the morning ,without Ann & Al because they have to wait for Pat to get out of the hospital.  There are no broken bones but he will be sore for a while Pat LeClerc will also leave in the morn.  He is taking Candy and Heidi with him and trucking Heidi’s horse. Candy gave her horse to Roger and he had it trucked home with Claire from Maine.

Our Wagon Train Baby and his mom Dawn Tuchon

Leah Tuchon       Photos: Carol Tacy

         While we were having our party, Richard Papiernik from the Philadelphia Inquirer was with us.  I think he has adopted our train.  He is fairly young—very personable and feels very bad about the way we have been treated and is going to try his best to write an article for the paper showing our side.

      Later in the afternoon a lot of the independent wagons decided they would come back to Valley Forge because they did not want to be 2 miles away at Valley Forge Farm and so they packed up and left for the park.  The "Johnsonville Gang" joined them and they asked us to go with them but we no longer have a wagon so we stayed put.  Tom went with them however and he stayed over there all night--  we will pick him up on our way out in the morning because we want to say goodby to our wagon and buy some souvenirs  and see how they made out.    

Addendum:
"The reward was the journey, not the destination"
     We had been the better part of two years planning this trip with the RI Federation of Riding Clubs . Spent many hours on the road and at events and functions greeting people, telling them about re-dedication  to the ideas and ideals of this USA of ours. Many scrolls were signed and they were to be delivered to Valley Forge, said to be microfilmed and entered in a time capsule. We were also told that the "Official " people were going to be allowed to camp at Valley Forge for a week. After traveling 36 days and many miles ( close to 600mi) through 5 states , meeting and greeting the local people of these states on a daily basis we arrived in Valley Forge.
 Not only were we not able to visit with the President, we do not know where the scrolls are , we were camped over 1/2 mile away from the wagons on a side hill with no facilities. We were encouraged to leave as soon as possible. Not what any of us had expected. But as for me ... I would do it all again in a heartbeat ! It was an "Incredible Journey"with "Incredible People" !