Day 310
6 hrs, 10 kms

Picking up where I left off, I soon reach the town of New Oxford, which is built around a traffic circle . But this is not just a noisy place where cars and trucks spin around, this one actually has a large, plaza in the center, with benches where you can sit, relax, socialize. This is the typical European town design: the town is built around a central area where pedestrians can meet and and interact... but not America. Sure we have Main Streets where supposedly people can meet while walking down the sidewalk, but rarely a peaceful public place to sit down right in the middle of town. I miss that.

Nobody joins me for my parkbench concert in the circle, so I head into a cafe on the circle. I like the coffeehouse scene here in the US... you see classy folk... college students... and of course, the occasional Open Mike... Only problem is that they're too pricey for me. I hate paying 1.40 for a doughnut (when I could buy a half dozen doughnuts at the discount store for less than that!) but I figure it's worth it to enjoy the coffeehouse vibe.

A young fellow sitting next to me ask about the guitar ... and we start chatting music. He grew up in Texas and his girlfriend in Boston--but they seem well settled in here in Small Town Pennsylvania

"Lot's of history here--many of the houses are over 200 years old. Some of them have secret rooms inside where they would hide escaped slaves during the Underground Railroad period..."

He goes on to tell me more about secrecy in this region "A lot of Freemasons around here... there's an underground passageway in the square of Gettysburg they would use..."

Definitely counts as an "Interesting Encounter" of the day...

After taking a couple pictures of the beautiful Victorian style houses, and turn of the century style shops around the circle, I head on down the road, stopping to check out an antique store complete with an Amish buggy... and continue on down the road.