Month: October 2017

Washington DC

We stayed at Cherry Hill RV Resort in College Park, Maryland and took the train/subway into the city. Very convenient and a really nice park!
And as you can see here, the trees were starting to change colors.

This sign was cute, it’s in the train stations where people would drop off their significant other to catch the train.
Down to the train! The longest and steepest escalator we have ever seen.
One of the first things we did was take this Hop On/Hop Off bus tour to see what we might want to return to later.
This used to be the visitors welcome center but was closed for renovations. According to our guide that was 7 years ago and as far as he could tell no work has begun on it! What a waste of a beautiful building!
A view of the Capitol Building from across the mall.

Nice views from the upper open deck of the tour bus!
The NEWSEUM, one of more interesting private museums, all about the news industry. (Probably a lot of Fake News!)
Washington DC is an interesting mixture of old and new architecture.
Our bus tour took us through Chinatown; we never knew they had one!
The Jefferson Memorial from the mall.
The view of the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. What a gorgeous day!
The front of the Lincoln Memorial.

The Vietnam War Memorial Wall, very sobering to see in person! There are 58,272 names on the wall including 1200 who are listed as missing (MIA’s,  POW’s and others). Six names were added as recently as 2010.

While walking around Washington DC we came across the Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress with some very interesting fountains, aptly named The Court of Neptune.

tour of the capitol building

We did a guided tour of the inside of the Capitol building. This is an outside view from the back side of the building.
Another outside view taken from the legislature side.
A closer view of the Statue of Freedom that sits  on top of the Capitol dome.
This replica of the Statue of Freedom is inside the rotunda under the dome.
A plaque honoring the passengers and crew who successfully diverted the flight #93 airliner that was possibly to target the Capitol Building, but instead crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

The view up inside the Capitol dome.
A closer view of the painting up there.
The painting around the perimeter of the dome is amazing, it really looks as if it was sculpted not painted!
Various statues are around the inside that are part of theNational Statuary Hall depicting various important figures in our nations history.
Rosa Parks.

The spot where John Quincy Adams desk was in the room below the Capitol Rotunda (called the Crypt)when it was used for office space early on.

The white spot shown here designates the center of the Capitol building which is also the exact center of Washington DC. We never knew that! That’s why the Capitol Building does not have a physical address! This is also in the floor of the Crypt below the Rotunda room.

arlington cemetary

We watched the very solemn ritual of The Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; very moving!! This is done 24/7  everyday of the year; every hour on the hour in winter and every half hour in the summer.

Inside the Arlington House, where Robert E. Lee lived prior to the Civil War. During the Civil War the grounds of the house were selected as the site for Arlington Cemetery in part to ensure Lee could not return to live there. Since then, the government has designated this house as a memorial to Robert E. Lee.

The view of Washington DC from Arlington House.

 

united states botanic garden conservatory

A Coco tree.

smithsonian institution- national air and space museum

They have in their collection the original plane the Wright Brothers used for their historic flight December 17, 1903.
Orville Wright’s Mandolin.
A replica of the Hubble Telescope
One of the multi-faceted mirrors used in the Hubble telescope. For those of you who know him, my good friend Rocky Rockefeller worked on the Hubble!
The Air Force Orchestra was on hand to serenade the visitors.
In the lobby entrance- a replica of the Star Trek Spaceship Enterprise!
Lunar Module LM-2

The Rutan Voyager; the first plane to fly nonstop around the world without re-fueling!

They even have a General Atomics Predator Drone on display, along with a few other ones.

 

New Jersey (and some Pennsylvania too!)

While in New Jersey we visited our friends Camille and Jacques and their menagerie of animals.
They have two beautiful horses; that’s Joey on the left and Luna on the right.
Then there are their two Dalmatians.  This is Brody, the male.
And this is Bryce, the female. Really sweet dogs!
A nice big pasture for the horses.
And of course their barn and paddock area.
While visiting Camille and Jacque we went with Camille to the Jersey shore. It was a beautiful day for it!

Jan and Camille at the SHORE (it’s not called the beach here)
And Jan and me with our feet in the water!
Which completed our coast to coast journey on our map; from the beach in San Diego to the shore in New Jersey!

We took the train across the river over to Philidelphia to meet our good friends Claude and Hope at the stadium for a Phillies game.

Despite having had his broken foot casted that day, Claude met us there along with Hope and their nephew Dozie. What a trooper Claude was!
We had a great view from the box seats Claude was able to get for us too!

While staying in New Jersey on another day we took the train across the river to visit the Pennsylvania Capital Building.
A striking sculpture out in front on either side of the main entrance; an awful lot of nudity going on there!
The view from the front steps of the capital building.
The view up into the main dome; quite impressive!
The grand staircase up to the upper levels.

They also had these picture tiles in the main lobby depicting events and people from the history of Pennsylvania including farmers, trade workers and the indians.

A plaque in the floor where Teddy Roosevelt stood during his dedication of the building.

We were able to also see where the state congress meets and votes.
Everywhere you look there’s art, sculptured facias and gold plate!

The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court chambers.

On our last day in New Jersey Camille and Jacque took us to their favorite Italian restaurant along with her good friends and neighbors Dottie and Al. We had a wonderful meal and visit.
Left to right; Al, Camille, me, Jan Jacques and Dottie.
For all you NCIS fans, this was a neighboring community, Gibbstown!

Pennsylvania

bedford and it’s covered bridges

Our first stop in Pennsylvania was in Bedford, mostly known for its many covered bridges. Our campground was nice with a stream running right behind our campsite.

This was like a scavenger hunt with a list of the many bridges and how to get to them.
These massive curved beams seemed to be a common construction method on these bridges.

Some were drivable and others, like this, were not.

This one needed a little TLC!

This one we did not attempt to drive over even though it was drivable. Notice the sign, 3 TON weight limit (our truck is just over 4 tons)!

york and day trips from there

We stayed in York for a few days at a pretty nice campground and did day trips to Gettysburg, Hershey and (of course) Intercourse!

 

While in York we saw  this bridge a few times while crossing the river for day trips and decided to get some photos of it from below; I’m glad we did, it was pretty cool!

We also came across this Caboose Motel! A collection of cabooses turned into motel rooms that was near Lancaster!

The restaurant was an old dining car completely restored to its former glory!
And look who we found dining there; two sets of Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus! They were in the area for a Santa Clause convention!
The resident rodent patrol.

There was a really cool model train set inside too!

And right next to them was a steam train you could ride

gettysburg national military park

Our first stop in Gettysburg was this information center and museum where we looked around and got tickets to take the bus tour of the battlefield.
The main thing we looked at here was this Diorama; a 360 degree painting done years ago and recently restored and installed here.

Jan took a pic of me visiting with Abe!

We were told this stamped lettering on the front of the cannon barrel signified it’s an authentic Civil War Cannon, not a replica. Part of it shows the weight of the cannon barrel; 816 lbs. in this case.

on a lighter note; hershey chocolate world!

Its kind of like Disneyland for chocolate lovers and kids!
We began the visit taking a bus tour of the city of Hershey.
The main plant where they produce their wonderfulness!
Some of the beautiful homes along the way.

Did you notice the Hershey Kisses street lights lining the streets?

This is on the floor in the main lobby of Hershey Chocolate World
They were commemorating Milton Hershey’s 160th birthday! He was born in 1857.
The Hershey timeline

He and his wife were unable to have children of their own. They started schools from grade school through high school and even award full ride college scholarships to underprivileged children throughout the country. As per the family trust, the company continues to maintain these schools.
They don’t do tours of the real factory any more because there is so much demand. They have this simulated fun tour thats more appealing to the children; after all that’s their target audience!

intercourse, pa.

There’s a large Amish population here, so everywhere you see this. Loosely translated I think that says pick up after your horse!
You quilters would be in heaven here!

We just happened upon this new and reconditioned buggy lot!
This one was decked out with LED lights! It was listed for about $6000.

Our short stay in Ohio

While in Ohio we went down towards Columbus to meet at a BBQ restaurant to visit with my nephew Scott, his wife Angela and their daughter; it was really nice to catch up! None of us had ever been there but the food and service was awesome!
This was the house we lived in when I was born up until about 1955. Back then it was an upstairs/downstairs duplex rental. It was in Canton just up the street from the Stark County Fairgrounds. As you can see it’s for sale; I looked it up and it’s only $69,000!
It had a huge side yard!
In 1955 we moved to North Canton to my childhood home on Lipton Avenue. Its good to see the new residents there have good taste in vehicles, a VW, we had them since 1955!
This is me with my brother Geoff standing under the tree I brought home from school in the 5th grade for Arbor day; It’s grown a bit!
While in the area we visited the NFL Hall of Fame. It was started when I was just little and was only one building then!

Right next to the Hall of Fame is the McKinley Monument where President McKinley is laid to rest along with his wife.

Behind the monument was this hill where our dad took us sled riding; there was even a picture of my dad, my sister, my brother and myself on our 6′ sled going down this hill in the Canton Repository newspaper! I noticed now there’s a sign saying NO Sled riding!
While in Canton I was able to connect with my brother Geoff and Terry Wolski and Tom Barnes; two great friends from high school.