Richmond, VA

Oct 27 – Before we left the DC area we visited Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Forest. The fall tree colors were reported to be at their peak. I included a couple photos for you to see. The weather was pretty bad; clouds were sweeping across the mountains like thick fog and we had periods of rain. In spite of that we were able to get a few photos that captured some of the great fall foliage.

We’re now outside of Richmond, VA visiting several of Maggie’s family members. We’ll probably be here for a couple of weeks. They have a farm in the country and we plan on spending some time there too.

We are supposed to get some strong thunderstorms tonight with up to 2 inches of rain and high winds. We have the motorhome closed up tight so hopefully we’ll ride out the storm OK.

Hope you all are doing well.

Battlefield Correction

I said it was the battle of the bulge. I should have said Bull Run. Sorry for the mistake. Gary

Resting in VA

Oct 22 – We’ve been enjoying our “down time” at Loreann’s. It’s kind of nice to have a whole house to move around in and not be confined to the motorhome. The weather has been cool and breezy the entire time we’ve been here. It’s been pretty nice actually.

We really haven’t done much sightseeing since we’ve been here. We all have been to the major sights on previous trips to DC. However, we did walk around the battle grounds of the Battle of the Bulge in Manassas. We saw old cannons and a couple of large statues depicting famous generals like Stonewall Jackson. He apparently got his name from that battle. When the enemy was firing and charging towards him and his men he firmly kept his ground. One of his officers described the scene to someone else and said that in the face of grave danger he just stood there like a stone wall, hence his nickname of Stonewall Jackson.

Val had a filling come out of one of her teeth so had to make an appointment with a local dentist. It’s a two step process, I guess, and she has to go back next Tuesday, Oct 26th for the final treatment. We’ll leave for the Richmond, VA area after she’s finished with that.

Philadephia, Penn

Oct 11 – Sorry it’s been so long since the last posting. Since then we visited Val’s youngest sister, Melanie, and her family; spent a few days in Philadelphia and visited with a couple of old friends from Gary’s graduate school days. The visits with friends and family were great.

Philadelphia is a very large and busy city. We tried to visit a couple of restaurants listed in Guy Fieri’s book: one was closed and the other one we were disappointed in: so much for that. We took a day and toured the historic downtown section of the city; Liberty Bell, Independence and Constitution Halls and other buildings. It was really something to be in the same room where, 200 years ago, our founding fathers discussed and created the foundation of our country.

We also found out that Betsy Ross was married three times; they all ended in the death of the husband. Nothing suspicious mind you; a war; an accident at sea and old age were the causes.

We’re now in Manassas, Virginia visiting Gary and Val’s oldest daughter, Loreann. We plan on staying here a couple of weeks and letting some of the “road” wear off.

New York City

Oct 2 – We just got back from a long day of touring New York City. We bought two-day bus packages that took us all over Up and Downtown New York including Brooklyn and Harlem. We even visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We did two day trips and one night trip: so we could see the lights. There is a huge difference between day and night. The streets are busy during the day but at night they come completely alive. There must be twice as many people. I included a couple of photos for your viewing enjoyment.

We primarily ate at little diners and street corners while in the city. It part of the local life style. We’ve had gyros, hot dogs, Philly cheese steaks and a few other things. We had an interesting thing happen tonight at dinner. We were eating and this lady came in ranting about wanting some food. She threw a dollar at one of the servers and he told her she’d have to wait her turn. She got angry and started to go behind the serving area. One of the guys stopped her. She then turned and grabbed some food off a ladies plate and threw it at the server. Then he came around the corner to show her the door and she hit him. He was about to hit her back when another patron stepped up and said “Now don’t you be hitting a woman.” That was an issue I think most people would not have considered. She was not acting like a lady. Some of the people eating moved away in case things got ugly. We watched in amazement as things slowly settled down and the lady left. So, for the price of dinner got also got a free show; New York style. Can’t beat that!

After dinner we went on the night bus tour. Time Square was full of people. There were thousands of them. While riding the bus a funny thing happened to Val. All of a sudden she felt something wet on her face. It wasn’t raining so can you guess what happened? Here we are, 8:00 at night riding on an open top double decker bus enjoying the ride. What could it have been? It was bird poop. Yup, some bird must have taken aim and WHAM. It hit her on the forehead, splashed on the inside of her glasses, dribbled down her cheek and stopped on the lapel of her jacket. She was so surprised. When we stopped laughing we were able to give he a Kleenex to wipe it all off.

All in all we enjoyed our trip to the Big Apple. We all agreed that there is no way we could live there but it was an interesting couple of days and we are all glad we did it.

One photo is of the Statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background. Another picture is of Time Square at night and the third photo is of an exhibit they had at Ellis Island. It was comprised of prism like surfaces that from one angle you say a face of one of the immigrants that passed through and on the other surface was the American flag. In the photo you can see a little of both.

Tomorrow we go a little further south.

Cape Cod and Rhode Is

Sep 30 – We left the Boston area and drove to Rhode Island but not before checking out Cape Cod. We had heard many things about it and wanted to see for ourselves. The weather wasn’t the best. We had quite a bit of fog: you can see it in the photo of the lighthouse. They have a great museum there with history and info on how the peninsula was formed and all that stuff. We had lunch at a neat little place called the Optimist Café; wonderful food and cute old house to boot.

After that we spent a day in Providence. There are some super old buildings there. There is a street called Benefit Street that has the largest accumulation of colonial homes in America. They were from the 1700s and up; unbelievable. We got a little turned around and got lost. While trying to find our way back I stopped to ask a policeman how to get back to the downtown area. He asked me what the heck we were doing in that neighborhood. I told him we were lost and he said “you’re in the ghetto now and you’d better get out quick”. I asked him if it was dangerous and he said yeah they’d had several shootings lately even in the daytime so we had better leave ASAP. He told us how to get back downtown and we promptly left.

We also spent some time in Newport, across the harbor from Providence. They have a street that is full of the largest and most gorgeous mansions you’ve ever seen. We took a photo of one place that had its own private harbor where they moored their boat and set lobster traps. It wasn’t one of the bigger places but it was right on the coast. Val and Maggie viewed a wonderful topiary garden; I stayed in the car.

After Newport we left and drove further south, down the coast and are now in New Jersey and plan on spending the next few days touring the Big Apple, New York City. Will write more later.

We're in Bo Austin, Mass

Sep 26 – We arrived in the Boston area last Wednesday the 22nd. We’re staying in the campground at Hanscom AFB. We needed to have access to electricity for a while to recharge our coach batteries. Prior to arriving in Maine we would drive almost all day then stay for a night or two and leave again. Once we arrived at the coast of Maine there’s been so much to see we’ve been staying 3-4 days then driving an hour or two to the next location. It hasn’t been enough to fully re-charge the coach batteries.

The weather here has been nice, in the upper 80s most days. The trees still haven't changed much. I guess they're waiting for colder weather.

We took the subway into the city (Who in his/her right mind wants to drive or find parking in Boston?) and did the tourist thing. We took a trolley to most of the top sights. There are several companies here that offer trolley tours. We went to Cheers, the USS Constitution, Paul Revere’s house, had a great lunch in little Italy and thoroughly enjoyed walking around the old buildings. They have a graveyard with several of our founding fathers buried there. Tons of history here.

They also have some great parks. The person that designed New York’s Central Park did these. The area known as Boston Common’s is nice as well as the park across the street. They have an unusual statue of a bunch of ducks walking on a sidewalk. We had to take a picture of that; it was so cute.

We plan on leaving tomorrow morning and stopping in the area of Providence, Rhode Island next.