An early Nor’easter

The promised Nor’easter arrived in the area with a vengeance Sunday night, thankfully we were on the periphery but as you never know so we decided to move on and not visit Cape Cod. Carl had advised on which roads to travel driving south, however as we could not find an RV Park open we settled in to drive over 420 miles to our next stop outside Philadelphia – in Clarksboro, NJ to be precise. By far our longest journey yet using almost 2 tanks of gas (we get between 8 & 10mpg).  We stopped to get gas about three and a half hours into our journey to discover there was no electricity in the area as a result of the Nor’easter. As they believed that they would have power in about an hour we parked at the pump and proceeded to make and eat our lunch as potential customers came and went. It was Halloween so Adele donned her spider hat and went out to talk to the other stranded customers, one of whom was driving a 5^th wheeler and could not move another mile without gas. After an hour and a half later we decided to drive to the next exit hope there would be electricity in that area, thankfully they had. As darkness fell we arrived at the RV Park in Clarksboro, NJ.  

Our friends Carole and Fred Desantis live outside Philly and hoping to see them we sent emails and called but got no reply. We had known they were going to China in October and hoped they would be home by the time we reached PA. Shortly after we’ve hooked everything up at the RV Park Carole called to let us know they had returned the previous day. What great timing?  We were immediately invited to dinner for the following evening after which, as Carole and Fred were finding it difficult to stay awake, we played cards. Graciously, they invited us to park our RV on their very large driveway and stay in their magnificent home. The following day we visited Old Town Philadelphia, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell; afterwards we took a walking tour with a guide called Bill who was dressed in 18^th century garb, including a large woolen cloak that sailed out behind him as he strode down the road and, this was a hot day! There were just 3 of us on the tour, we walked around the old building and got a feel of the old town.  Bill was quite a character and we enjoyed his sense of humor very much.

Next day we drove “Rover” to Carole and Fred’s driveway and settled into a plush two bed-roomed luxury apartment in the semi basement (the house is on a hill). From there we could see out into their woods where one day their nephew, Chuck was in a blind (camouflage tent) hoping to shot a deer with his bow and arrow. He had no luck on that day but he did shoot a deer while Carole and Fred were in China. The following day we drove west to Lancaster to visit Amish country where our first stop was at a quilt shop that had us in awe of these very gifted people. Deciding to walk around the countryside we set off on a side road and bought produce from an Amish woman’s roadside shop. The roads are not made for walking; even side roads are too dangerous for pedestrians so we returned to using the car. One item on our “bucket list” was to take a trip in an Amish Buggy, which we did taking a one hour tour including with a farm visit.  Seven of us shared the buggy, 4 in the back 3 in the front, one on a tiny stool - it was sardine style seating, legs interlocking and Adele retorted “I hope we don’t go over too many big bumps”. We visited a dairy farm which had the friendliest cows we have met since an English cow tried to eat Adele’s skirt so she made sure to keep away from their friendly licks.

Carole and Fred joined us the next day to the Reading Terminal Market by train where we wanted to have a “Philly Cheese Steak” or a Hoagie to those in the know.  Reading Terminal Market is an indoor market in the center Philadelphia where about 50% of the stalls are run by Amish; we explored every isle.  After lunch we headed out to explore the center of the city and saw lots of protesting 99%ers camping on the pavement outside City Hall. The streets were not busy as it was a Saturday. Carole knew that the Comcast building had some sort of a display so nothing would satisfy us all but to find out; sure enough they had an interesting song and dance showing on the wall of the foyer, very much worth visiting.

On Sunday all four of us headed for “Longwood Garden” which had a Chrysanthemum festival.  Did you know that you can have over 100 blossoms on one stalk, amazing?  The Glass houses were laden with enormous chrysanthemums, decorating the columns, walkways, arches and ceilings. That weekend there was a Japanese theme with many Bonsai on display and an Ikebana competition.  We sat and watched a lady make 3 different floral displays.  It was a lovely day so we took a walk around the gardens which were beautifully laid out and had nice fall/autumn colors. 

Monday we headed out to Gettysburg and the beginnings of our education about the Civil War 1861-1865, the numerous battles and the awful death toll of that era. We saw a movie in the Visitors Center took a guided bus tour of the 4 day Gettysburg battles and visited the Museum - all were very informative. The tour included the various battle sites where the guide gave a talk and had us visualizing the battle and the carnage. Most States erected a memorial to their dead around the battle fields

That night we went to an Italian restaurant “Trattoria Giuseppe” which had a Frank Sinatra impressionist to entertain the patrons - he was terrific and had all singing, dancing and generally having a good time. Carole requested “I did it my way” and we sang along with “Frank”.  The food excellent and we all went home with doggie bags.

Before leaving the next day we walked around the large garden with its woods and river, once again a lovely sunny day. We were sorry to leave our friends and their luxurious accommodations.

Really, Really Back on the Road this time

So why have we posted no Blogs since our promise of October 28^th?

A couple of reasons really: foremost is the fact that we have been having such a good time with old friends from Los Gatos that we had no time to write, secondarily we had technology problems which are now thanks to the wonderful folks at Lenovo resolved so we’re now busily (on a dull rainy day in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia) recalling experiences and writing several weeks/months blogs - photos to follow.

We arrived back in Boston on route to Augusta, ME on October 24^th. With a few hours to kill before our flight, and to stay awake, we walked around the terminal so you can imagine our surprise to hear Adele’s name being called from a coffee shop; as there are not too many people called Adele we turned to discover that it was Sue and Bob our good neighbors from across the street in Los Gatos. They had spent the weekend in Boston visiting their daughter at BU. We enjoyed chatting with them and getting caught up on the news of our respective families, friends, the neighborhood and Los Gatos. It was wonderful to meet them and we all marveled at how small the world is.

It was dark by the time we caught our little plane to Augusta so it was lovely to see the lights of the towns twinkling among the trees. On our way down to Boston, a day time flight we flew along the coast. The plane was a small 9 seater Cessna which stays low providing a wonderful sightseeing tour both ways. When we arrived in Augusta Eileen and Carl were there to greet us; we could see them from the plane which brought back memories of landing in Guernsey and seeing our grandchildren before we deplaned.  It was good to be “Back in the USA”. We spent the next four nights with Eileen and Carl, buying supplies, washing clothes and generally getting our act together. As a big Nor’easter was forecast for the area and to avoid bedding down with the Barth’s for the winter we decided to get on the road.

On the 28^th we headed down to Middleboro, MA from where we planned to visit Plymouth, Rhode Island and Cape Cod.  Next day we headed for Plymouth and saw the famous Rock in a Greek like granite structure on the shore, one leans over the rail to see the rock. We also toured the “Mayflower” an exact replica of the original it was a very small ship where on-board actors dressed in period costumes assumed the speech and persona of the original passengers in 1620. A dockside exhibit provided the many stories of the passengers, what they packed, their food and the conditions they travelled under on board. We reckon that 3 or 4 people used the same hammock - when one saw an empty hammock one got in and had a rest. There were cannons and guns on board, this was a time of piracy on the high seas and, religion or not, they had to defend themselves.

We then went on to visit the Plimouth Plantation as spelling was not fixed at that time names and places often had several spellings. Located on the banks of the Eel River again, we met costumed actors who took on the role of a person who lived in the village in 1627, speaking Shakespearian English. We have a great video of a chicken complaining as we chased it out of several houses; it was a cold and wet day so it was looking for shelter. The houses look much the same as any peasant’s house in England in the 17^th century. The village a fenced wall around it with cannons for protection and also rare breeds of goats and chickens in a pen. We (visitors) were summoned to the big hall at the top of the village were we got a much too long lecture on the Bible and the religious beliefs of the Plymouth Brethren. After a decent time we left and headed over to the Native Peoples (Wampanoag tribe) village - there actors dressed as period Native Americans spoke English. They were "living" in the winter home, a large hut built of bark that they striped from the trees in the spring when the sap is soft, there were lots of skins on benches around a central fire that vents through a hole in the top of the hut - it was nice and cozy in there. One actor told us that he was married to an Irish girl - many times on out travels we have met people who have Irish blood running in their veins.

As we drove through town on our way home we saw there was Mass in the church in the center of town, as it was Saturday we decided to attend. 

Next day we woke up to a covering of snow, it was a cold, sunny day so we decided to head for Newport, Rhode Island and visit the Mansions.  We toured two of them “The Elms” inspired by the 18^th century Chateau d’Asnieres, this magnificent villa belonged to the coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind and “The Breakers” which was built by one of the Vanderbilt’s at the cost of $11 million in 1892; this mansion was modeled after the Petit Trianon at Versailles. These very large mansions were used for just 8 weeks of the year when the rich left New York to get away from the very hot summer weather.

Afterwards, we walked along the famous Cliff Walk and enjoyed the view of several other mansions. We then went to see the “Casino” (A Sports Club) Americas answer to Wimbledon? This is the HQ for the Tennis Hall of Fame - a beautiful building and lovely grounds. It hosted tennis, horses jumping, bowling and many more sports.  The town of Newport is very similar to an old English town, narrow streets in the middle of the busy town center.  We dined in an Irish pub owned by the Crowley family, whose ancestors hailed from County Cork, Ireland.  It was a bright, sunny day yet cold out of the sun but ended up as an enjoyable day for both of us.

ISRAEL

Initially, as the Blog is primarily to record our “Lower 48” odyssey, we had not intended to do a posting about our Israel trip; the journey was so enjoyable, enlightening and educational that we decided that we must share our experience.

Having celebrated Hannah and Adele’s birthdays in the UK a few days earlier, we travelled to Tel Aviv on September 21^st and arrived to a delightful welcome from Rina and Ami and were immediately whisked on the road to Jerusalem where we spent a few nights. The following morning we headed out from the hotel, walking of course, to the Jaffa gate of the Walled City where we met Dvri our guide for the day. Entering the city we were struck by the hustle, bustle and vibrancy of the place as we walked past King David’s castle on our way to the Temple Mount which is venerated by the three monotheistic religions: Jews, Christian and Muslims, it is said to be where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac. The Temple Mount encompasses the Western (Wailing) Wall recognized as the world’s largest Synagogue, the Dome of the Rock whose western foundation is the western wall of the last Temple, is unbelievably large (think multiples football fields) includes the 7^th century Al Aqsa Mosque.

Security was extremely stringent to access these historical religious sites. As we had decided to undertake a private visit to the Western Wall the following day, Dvri “knowing the scene” was able to circumvent all obstacles for us to gain access to the Dome of the Rock. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to enter the mosques – there are two of them – we were, however, glad to be able to see the Al Aqsa Mosque up close, its blue/gold dome is immense.

From there we walked to the palace from where Pontius Pilate ruled and where he condemned Jesus to be crucified; here we encountered numerous groups of Christian pilgrims - mostly from Africa and Eastern Europe – devoutly walking the Via Dolorosa, some bearing crosses. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is remarkable as it is shared by so many Christian denominations, each with its own church within the church.

The next day we returned, with Rina and Ami to the walled city and found our way, via some spectacular underground excavated walkways to the Western Wall, Jerusalem must have been an amazingly beautiful place in ancient times. Having spent some time at the wall we headed for Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum) which was, without doubt, the most emotional experience of our trip. Words cannot possibly suffice to describe or give expression to this recording (mostly by the Nazi’s) of documents, photo’s, movie clips and other artefacts of man’s unbelievable inhumanity to fellow man. Without shame or apology we both admit that we were overcome by emotion and cried throughout our visit. Other places we visited in Jerusalem were King David’s Tomb, the almost next door upstairs room where the Last Supper was held and the Chapel of the Ascension.

We traveled north the next day to Rina and Ami’s home in Timrat which was our base for our further exploration of Israel. From there, over several days we visited: the site of the Baptism at the River Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, St Peter’s house, Tiberius, Capernaum, the Golan Heights (from where we overlooked Syria and Jordan in the distance), Nazareth, a Druze village where we had lunch with a family, a Kibbutz where again, we had lunch and Haifa which has a spectacular Baha’i Temple. Our final trip was to the ancient port city of Caesarea – think Rome’s Coliseum multiplied by a huge factor, awesome!

After having celebrated Rosh Hashanah with Rina, Ami, Limor, Ronnie and little Barkai we left Israel with the commitment to return again as we had only scratched the surface of exploring this fascinating, historical land.      

And...much later!

Today, November 16 it’s a dull and wet day in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia so we're taking the opportunity to catch up on everything chores, blogs etc. that need doing since September 10. We have several blogs in process that we will post incrementally over the next days; too much to include in one posting. 

We've returned and are on the road again!

A quick post to let you all know that we have returned from our extended visit overseas.

We had a really marvellous time:
celebrated Hannah, Adele and Molly's Birthdays;
toured Israel from our friends Rina & Ami's home (a return visit is a must);
toasted Jennifer's in-laws Bas & Glennis on their 50th anniversary;
Tom got to spend time with his Mum (90 and still going strong);
and, we spent a week in the English Lake District with Jennifer's family including our grandchildren's four grandparents.

We will do a blog of the six weeks overseas in the coming days.

On our return to Maine we spent 4 days with our great friends Eileen and Carl, from their home we moved to Middleboro, MA to visit Cape Cod and Rhode Island. Destination on this leg is Miami by early December.

More later!

Bar Harbor

Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island (MDI) which is home to the Acadia National Park encompassing lots of trees, countless lakes and ponds and a fjord is a very popular Maine vacation spot and as we scheduled being there for the Labor Day weekend we booked ahead. Heading north and east on Hwy’s 1 & 3 was a pleasant scenic drive which took us through the town of Belfast. We were fascinated by the very noticeable changes once across the bridge onto the island, it truly is a different world, no megastores, malls etc.; small wonder then that the main town was once known as Eden. Since arriving in the eastern US I have discovered why so many people ride around on their little John Deere tractors cutting their grass - if they don’t - trees will pop up as trees seem to grow like weeds here, just love the rich soil. The town and harbor of Bar Harbor are quaint and inviting with many tourist-oriented shops and restaurants; both are kept busy by the visiting cruise ships (during the season on Wednesdays and Sundays) which disgorge close to 4,000 passengers each week. On the day we visited there were 2 cruise ships in, one docked and the other so large they had to use tenders to bring the passengers ashore.

MDI has an excellent FREE (LL Bean are big sponsors) transport system which we utilized for the 4 days we were on the island, just using the car once to go grocery shopping. There are 5 bus routes four of which travel to different scenic attractions and points of interest, the 5th collects passengers at the various RV Parks. Our park was bayside on a pebble beach which afforded us wonderful views of the sunset. A local enterprising fisherman visited our park daily between 5 and 7 pm selling lobsters while another entrepreneur drove around the park tinkling a bell to announce that he had pies for sale.  Much to my chagrin we did not get to hike MDI as my knee was still out of action and I was still putting both feet on each step I climbed.

Wednesday we headed back to Eileen’s and Carl’s in monsoon like rain for our pre-arranged and scheduled visit; our shelter from the hurricane was an unscheduled stop that was much fun and greatly appreciated. On Thursday Eileen, her friend Jean and I went shopping and treated me to a tour of the close by lakes and towns while Tom and Carl installed a new door for Jeremy. Later on we emptied our refrigerator into Eileen’s as on Friday we were traveling to Boston on the first leg of our 6 week UK, Israel, and Ireland trip.
Friday afternoon Carl & Eileen dropped us off at August Airport in sunny, blue-sky weather for our Cape Air Cessna flight to Boston; traveling at about 5,000 feet we had a bird’s eye view of the Maine and Massachusetts shoreline, ending with a thrilling landing over downtown Boston. We stayed at the Hyatt Harborside that night as our transatlantic flight was early on Saturday morning. During dinner and a walk along the harbor side afterwards we enjoyed a lovely sunset.

Saturday morning we were up before the dawn to witness an amazing sunrise and a cruise ship entering Boston harbor - I was very tempted to call the Barth’s as they think we’re sleepy heads – well…we are definitely not early morning people. The only downside to this trip was that I hardly slept a wink Friday night, my nose was running and swollen and it took me 2 hours to realize that I was having an allergic reaction the feather pillows.

We are posting this from Jennifer’s.

Perhaps we’ll post something from here, Israel or Ireland…we’ll see, no promises.

Definitely more in late October! 

Shelburne Museum and Ferry

1. Dining Room of the Ticonderoga Paddle Boat
2. The Grand Staircase on the Ticonderoga...remind anyone of Titanic?
3. Adele on Steam Train

4. Tom reliving his childhood

5. Adele reliving hers

6. RV on the ferry crossing Lake Champlain