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Next stop Gettysburg, PA. The Pennsylvania countryside was beautiful and we spent a few days at a campground on the battleground of Gettysburg.
In our mind's eye we were picturing a field outside of town somewhere but in reality the battle was fought in and all around the town and surrounding farms.
You are steeped in history everywhere you turn...
and humbled by the numbers of lost lives.
This building bears the scar of cannon fire.
After touring the battlefield, a stop in Bear country was just the thing to lighten the mood. Food, entertainment, music and cuddly critters...who could ask for more?
Goofing around after dark back at the campground. See the little spheres on the right side of the picture. Several people claim that this is spirit energy, one woman showed us several pictures she took at Gettysburg full of these spheres. The funny thing is you don't see them when you are taking the photos, but we had several night shots where these showed up. Spooooky!!
Ghosts or not, we had a great time. As you can see, Jim is very skilled in the ancient monkey arts.
We stopped in York, PA to tour the largest Harley Davidson manufacturing facility.
The tour was excellent and covered the history of the company as well as a great tour of the factory floor. We have found that these are becoming harder to find as everyone seems to be worried about liability. We couldn't take pictures in the actual factory but we saw motorcycles in several different stages of production. We even saw police motorcycles being finished!
Later Maddie and Matthew had a race around the building.
Later we stayed near Morgantown, PA and met a great family that had also done a road trip similar to ours. We had only a few hours to get to know them, but they were warm and wonderful, and treated us to a fabulous smorgasbord...thanks J-Fam!! They wanted to show us Intercourse, but they were leaving town and didn't have time. Being the resourceful people we are, we totally figured it out on our own and thought Intercourse was very cool...and wouldn't you know it, we forgot our camera!!! Maddie liked the Intercourse lotion the best while Matthew really liked the whole apple butter thing. We all agreed that we could all probably learn something from the simple values of the Amish. What??? You didn't know Intercourse was an Amish town??? What did you think I was talking about? Oh....you should be ashamed of yourselves!!
Soon we were off again and entering New Jersey.
This would be our base of operations for exploring the "Big Apple". We stayed in Liberty Bay Marina right across from Manhattan with a great view of the Statue of Liberty.
Our view of the city wasn't bad either. But to be honest, we were paying for location and convenience, not a superfab park.
Our first excursion was to the financial district...ok, we took the wrong subway train.
This was sooo not normal.
Why do the locals worship the bull? It frightened us so we didn't go any closer.
We enjoyed the architecture.
We think this place has something to do with the bull. But there were people weeping and talking about a bear, so I'm not sure.
Before going any further let me just say this, we have been to Disneyworld, where we would walk around for 10-12 hours without being too exhausted at the end of the day. Same goes for Washington DC. So you would think that New York City would be the same, right? Wrong! There is just something about this place (I think it's sensory overload or something) that kicks your backside and wipes you out!! Our limit seemed to be around 5 hours
We arrived in NYC on Good Friday and our friend Max (you remember) was able to join us there for a week. We were so concerned about making sure he enjoyed his visit that we planned to do everything while we were here, museums, shows, neighborhoods, stores, monuments etc. On Easter Sunday I was worried that he might be bored just hanging around the bus and eating all day until he revealed that he was enjoying the break as much as we were! After that, we embraced our inner slackers and planned to alternate one day sightseeing with a day relaxing.
Yes, it is just like on TV...huge, noisy and packed with people.
We were total gawkers.
Amazing!!
You can see how much the kids enjoyed the subway.
I'm too sexy for my shirt...
Inspired one moment...
knocked out the next (remember kids, Nyquil and beer don't mix).
A definite highlight was seeing The Phantom Of The Opera on Broadway. We had seen the movie a few days earlier on HBO and Maddie and Matthew were completely mesmerized by it.
We loved it!
Max gave it a mixed review....
Maybe we should have seen this instead.
So much to do....
So much to see...
Cut open cars are always cool.
Why do they keep making ugly cars?
Honey, I want this one!
"Hey Dad, I thought I'd pick us up a new Jeep!"
On our last day, Maddie, Max and I (Cindy) resisted the urge to veg out and do a few more things. We couldn't resist having lunch at Tavern on the Green. Afterward, we planned to ride up and down the Trump Tower elevator shouting "you're fired" at people when the doors would open, but we were too full so we took a handsome cab around Central Park instead.
Ahhh... springtime in New York.
Catch 'ya later New York City!!!
Hello Rhode Island
We stopped in Middletown to visit Sally. She is the mother of Cindy's dear friend, Nancy (see February). Sally gave us the grand tour of Newport, where she grew up and has returned to after many years in California. She is a great lady and we really enjoyed our time with her!
Jim with Josie, Nancy's dog who was waiting for her quarantine to expire before she could join Nancy and family at their new home in England.
Still lots to see, so we said goodbye to Sally and headed for Boston.
Parking was interesting to say the least but the city itself was lovely.
Sadly, we were attacked by pirates so we fled to Salem.
But before we left Matthew found a white face mask and asked his crafty momma if she could turn it into a Phantom of the Opera mask. He was very patient during the final fittings.
Can you tell the difference?? We didn't think so.
Salem, Massachusetts
We stayed at a Winter Island City Park which was a much nicer parking lot than in Jersey.
We backed up to the beach and had the place almost all to ourselves. You really couldn't beat our backyard!
The beach was made almost entirely of shells, very cool.
While Salem wasn't quite what we expected, (we were thinking the Disney movie Halloweentown) we did manage to see some cool stuff.
Homeschool!
Before we left, Maddie and Matthew treated us to an alternate-ending two-man show of "Phantom of the Opera". Oh yes, I have it on video.
APRIL ROCKED!!