A Trip Down Memory Lane –Lake Welch, Harriman State Park, NY 6/11

Our first stop of the day was my home in Wilmington, DE. I lived here from 1966 thru 1970- my 4^th thru mid-7^th grade years. When we approached the house a gentleman was standing outside. Turns out he was the owner of the home since 1983. He was able to fill me in on the neighborhood and let me know which families were still the original owners. Turns out one of my closest childhood friends still lives there! We knocked on her door and her mom, Mrs. Leary answered. She’s in her mid-80’s, but still looks remarkably young and the same. She invited us in and we had a little chat about the old times. She was always a hands-on fix it type person and true to form, she was in the process of refinishing a table in her backyard. Cute. From there we went to St. Mary Magdalen’s School. Unfortunately it was locked, but we ran into the parish priest (a rather rude SOB I might add), and he told us we could inquire at the rectory. A very sweet woman opened up the church and let Ned and I wander around. It brought tears to my eyes to see this place again. So many memories. I showed Ned the balcony where I went “fishing” with my hymnal tied to palm leaves that didn’t hold and went crashing down in the middle of mass. The priest stopped mass, pointed to me and my friend, and yelled, “You, out of the house of God.” Yep, that pretty much started off my descent to hell. It was also here where I poured all the holy water out of the containers and filled them with orange soda. You should have seen all the kids, dressed in their Catholic School white shirts with orange dots on them! As we left the church, I must admit I was a bit surprised that it was still standing and didn’t quiver, shake or burn to the ground as I crossed the threshold. Our next stop was The Charcoal Pit, a 1950’s burger joint that still serves the best burgers ever. We had an interesting couple of hours navigating the Jersey and Garden State turnpikes. (Glad Ned was driving!). We finally made it to Northern Jersey and the sweet little hamlet of Ramsey. The town is definitely more upscale then when we lived there. The little house on Forest Avenue, where I lived from 1963 to 1966, is still there and looks adorable! The owner was a little concerned about me taking pictures of his home and came outside to see what we were up to. Turns out his folks bought the house from my parents in 1966 and his mom still lives there! We then paid a visit to St. Paul’s school. It wasn’t yet out for the summer and we were fortunate that a 5^th grade teacher gave us a grand tour of the entire school. Yes, I was able to wander by the statue of the Virgin Mary that we would crown on May 1 and my 1^st – 3^rd grade classrooms. Interestingly enough, there are no longer nuns associated with any of these schools. Apparently both the convents have now been converted to the rectory. I guess now that woman have more options a life, the nunnery no longer has quite the appeal it used to – ha! As I wandered around the churches and schools it was hard not to imagine the nuns still wandering the halls, fully clothed from head to toe in their dark habits. Some, like Sister Mary Catherine, will always be remembered for her kindness and gentle guidance, while others, like Sister Flavian still haunt me – the mean ol’ battle-ax. No one, at either of the parishes or schools knew what has happened to any of the sisters. Sad. It was an emotional day for me reliving so much of the past -thinking of the years my Big Papa lived with us in these homes, the childhood friends I played with and lost touch, my little brother being born and brought home on Christmas Day, and all those catholic school memories!

We decided to camp at a place closer by than originally planned so headed into nearby New York. It’s a gorgeous area, feels very much like the Adirondacks. However, the campground itself is kinda odd, despite the beautiful lake and WPA era style buildings. We are in a wide open wooded meadow surrounded by too many New Yorkers. The thousands of ¼ inch tiny frogs continuously hopping all around definitely adds to the uniqueness of this campground.

Hanging with Tom –Patapsco Valley State Park, Catonsville, MD 6/10

Ned here again. Our focus today was all about Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. We drove through some beautiful Virginia countryside on our way to Jefferson’s home. On arriving there, we were impressed to see a beautiful visitor center which had opened about a year ago. We were a little anxious about whether we would get tickets to tour the house interior, since the place, on a Thursday morning, seemed to be crawling with large groups of school children. However, we were pleased to get a tour time about 1 hour later than our arrival time. This gave us a chance to take the plantation tour which covered the work and life of the slaves on Jefferson’s property. Our tour guide was a very enthusiastic former geologist, Ed, who was very knowledgeable about lots of interesting details of individual slaves lives, who he knew by name. Our house tour was given by another very well-informed fellow, who dressed in a tie and sports coat, despite the warm weather. One of my favorite highlights of the tour was the wound clock in the large entry room over the front door. The cannon ball-sized weights which power the clock are supposed to indicate the day of the week as they descend the wall. The problem, however, as our guide put it, was that “the 7-day clock was mounted on a 5 ½ day wall”. A whole had to be cut into the floor so that the weights could drop into the basement of the building on Friday and Saturday, before they were rewound back to the ceiling on Sunday morning. We also liked the design of the interior shutters on the windows, which folded back in a very elegant manner. Some other highlights: excellent use of skylights for good natural light, clever dumbwaiter and revolving shelf designs in the dining room to reduce the waiting staff to one person, and the famous double-pen invention which allowed Jefferson to make a copy of every letter he wrote. The grounds of the building are very nicely maintained and landscaped. (Today’s pic is a nice exterior shot of the house.) We enjoyed a walk from the house back down to the visitor center where we watched a very good short film on Jefferson. After Monticello, we made a slight detour to Fredericksburg to sample the ice cream made at Carl’s. We had seen this store featured on a TV show about great ice cream stores. While we thought the ice cream was very creamy, both the chocolate and strawberry (which I bought in the name of science) were served too warm and sloppy. Debi’s vanilla was a good consistency, but we didn’t think either the chocolate or vanilla were particularly well flavored. So, despite the wonderful original-looking 1950’s exterior or the place, and the very impressive vintage freezers from which the product was served, we had to rate Carl’s as number four, so far, behind Blue Bell, Doumar’s and Farr’s. From there we maneuvered through the rush hour traffic surrounding both Washington D.C. and Baltimore, in order to find our current campground in a beautiful state park, which is strangely located in the middle of a very urban area. Tomorrow we’ll try to hit two of Debi’s childhood homes in both Wilmington, Delaware, and Ramsey, New Jersey. She can hardly wait!

A Walk thru the 18th Century –Bear Creek State Park, Cumberland, VA 6/9

Today’s big adventure was Colonial Williamsburg. The historic park was a short drive from our campsite so we were able to really spend the majority of the day taking a walk back through time. We were fortunate in that the weather was just about perfect, a little on the cool side for starters with very little humidity. We enjoyed walking through the historic village, viewing the demonstrations of different trades, and listening to the vignettes of life around the time of the American Revolution. I really enjoyed watching how books were bound and seeing how leather was stretched over the spines. Ned enjoyed talking with the cooper as she explained the ins and outs of barrel making. It was also quite fun to see how silver coins were literally cut into pieces to make change. Clarifies so much the expression, “Pieces of Eight.” We also thoroughly enjoyed a visit to the still active Episcopal Church. It was so amazing to see the pews marked with the names of our founding fathers, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and others and imagining them sitting there taking part if the service. The gentlemen that gave us a tour of the capitol building got top marks for good storytelling and bringing history to life. I was particularly fascinated with all the maps showing the colonies as they were at this time. There are so many good pics to choose from, including Mr. Ned with a 3 corner hat, but I decided to just show a snapshot of a typical street scene. There was a constant stream of horse drawn carriages, coaches and wagons rumbling by that really added of the authenticity of the village. We left Williamsburg at a little past 4, did a quick drive through Richmond and finally arrived at the sweetest little camping spot. Believe it or not we are the only people in the campground! It’s situated around a beautifully wooded lake and seems too perfect to be real. We popped the lid on Winnie and were planning on taking a ride through the park and perhaps taking a dip. Mr. Ranger, John, a very friendly fellow came on over to say hi. (Apparently, there’s not a lot going on today). He claims it’s a weekend campground that usually hosts about 400 people. Kinda hard to believe as I sit in the woods this evening, with the only sounds being the birds, insects, and Ned grilling chicken! He let us know that the beach was closed and we were no longer allowed to go swimming in the lake. Bummer. Ned and I hopped on our bikes anyway and spent some time poking around the place, visiting the lake, playing on the pier and taking great photos. We’ve been secretly planning our strategy for a late night swim, but I think Ranger John is hip to us. He keeps driving by occasionally to see what we are up to. At one point, as I was riding my bike he drove by and said, “Hello there Debi” and gave me a nice friendly wave. Kinda makes me feel a little tiny bit bad to be plotting against him. Tomorrow we continue the tour of our country’s forefathers and visit Monticello. I’d like to get an early start, but this place is so beautiful it’s going to be hard to leave.

Feast of Firsts –First Landing State Park, Virginia Beach, VA 6/8

Knowing that there were a couple of little tykes eager to pounce on our bed and wake us up, this ol’ lady managed to outfox them and get up first. It was wonderful to spend the morning with all that boy energy and Ned and I each enjoyed taking turns reading to them. I must admit, I was a little sad to have an early start, but we had a lot of territory to cover today. Originally we were just going to head straight for Virginia Beach, but Ned really wanted to visit Kitty Hawk and see where the Wright Bros. had their first flight. I thought that was an excellent idea since that would give us a chance to travel longer up the coast. As we meandered toward the coast, the North Carolina countryside put on quite a show for us. We traveled alongside miles of abundant orange daylilies, magnolia and mimosa trees in full bloom, and the ubiquitous fields of corn. We also admired a field of red tulips. It was quite a thrill to finally reach The Outer Banks of North Carolina and see the sandy shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Hard to believe we’re here, especially after traveling thru the canyons of the west, peaks of the Rockies, plains of Oklahoma and gaps of the Appalachia Mts. It’s so interesting to see the home styles change from single story with large porches to three story homes built on stilts. Nag’s Head and the surrounding towns didn’t seem to have much of a “there” there. Even though there were the obligatory beach shops touting swim wear and hammocks, it seemed more like it was just strip mall after strip mall. We finally arrived at Kitty Hawk National Site and were really amazed at how many people were there. We’ve visited a lot of National and Historic Sites the last 3 weeks and haven’t seen crowds like this. The visitor’s center and pavilion detailing the history of the Wright Bros. and their first flight was interesting, but nothing compared to going out to the dunes/field and walking the actual first 4 powered flights. So fun to imagine what it might have felt like to be in mid-air for 12 seconds, then finally 59 seconds! As we walked the final 852 feet you could almost feel the magic of the moment. We continued our drive up the coast leaving North Carolina and entering Virginia. After what seemed like a really long car ride traveling up the coast we finally reached First Landing State Park. We are camped at the spot where the Virginia Company first landed before going on to settle Jamestown. We picked out a spot nestled under the trees, but facing the dunes and the Chesapeake Bay. The first thing we did was take a walk out onto the dunes and put our feet in the water. It was much warmer than I expected! Well, Ned knew I was feeling antsy after being in the van so long, so he thought it prudent to “run the dogs” – i.e.. take the ol’ girl out for a bike ride. We headed for the boardwalk and had a marvelous 10 mile ride in the heart of Virginia Beach. (Today’s pic is Ned on the boardwalk). It was fun to ride up and down the boardwalk, but I enjoyed cruising through all the neighborhoods and looking at the affluent beach houses even more. It was a little after 7 by this time and we thought it too late to head back to the campsite to cook dinner so decided to head to Doumar’s for dinner and ice cream. (We first heard about this place on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives). Doumar’s claim to fame is they invented the ice cream cone. They still make homemade cones on the very same machine that Abe Doumar made in 1905 on Coney Island. Doumar’s is located in the heart of Norfolk, in a very inner-city part of town. We couldn’t believe that after 8 pm on a Tuesday night the place was packed! We each had their famous bbq pulled pork sandwiches at the bargain price of 3.25 ea. Meh – I wasn’t so impressed with the bbq. It’s North Carolina style, so it was a vinegar based sauce. Ned summed it up perfectly when he said they tasted like tuna fish sandwiches. Our main reason for coming was to taste the ice cream! I had a vanilla cone and Ned had a chocolate. We thought it was pretty darn good and rated it just behind Farr’s. So for those of you following our ice cream adventure and keeping score the list now goes like this: 1^st place – Farr’s, 2nd Doumar’s, 3^rd Blue Bell and Andy’s Frozen Custard still is in last place. (This is only the official ice cream tasting, I’m not even counting the Baskin Robbins or franchise soft serve we’ve eaten!) Yes, there will be more of me to love upon my return home.

Howdy Pardner –Cassie’s House, Wendell NC 6/7

After a pretty good rain storm last night, we woke up to blue skies and a crisp cool morning. We headed off towards Raleigh and just for the heck of it decided to see Duke University. On a whim we decided to call Ned’s high school friend, Jed, who is the Director of Duke’s Center for Nicotine & Smoking Cessation Research, a message, went to lunch and heard from him while eating. Turned out he only worked 2 blocks from where we had arbitrarily decided to dine. While walking the 2 blocks to his research office, my phone rang and it was Megan saying, “Hey, mom are you walking down the street in North Carolina now?” Quite surprised, I answered yes. Megan then said her friend Becca just called her and said, “Hey Megan, I think I just saw your mom walking down the street.” (Becca is a nursing student at Duke and a former roommate of Megan’s). How coincidental was that?! We had a great time chatting it up with Jed, meeting his wife and getting a tour of the facilities. A short drive later we arrived at my niece Cassie’s house. She and her husband, JB, have the two most adorable boys! We brought them some cowboy hats and bandanas from Bryce Canyon, and they wore them the rest of the day. The cutest thing was when we all went out for ice cream tonight, two little girls about the same age spotted them and said, “Look daddy – cowboys!” Some things never change – what girl doesn’t like a guy in a cowboy hat? (See today’s pic.) Ned and I are plum tuckered out from riding bikes, wrestling, playing at the park and being horses for the cowboys. This ol’ gray mare ain’t what she used to be. We promised the boys they could sleep in the camper’s upper bunk with us when we all meet up in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how that works out...

Carolina on My Mind –Lake Norman State Park, Troutman, NC 6/6

Well who had bets on us taking the ski lift? You were right. We had a great time riding Virginia’s only chair lift down to the tunnel and wandering around looking up at the chasm and just soaking in the magic of the place. We’ve decided this state park is our second favorite, after Montauk. The park employed quite a few young men, about 18 or 19 yrs old, who worked the chair lift. We spent quite a long time talking with one of these Southern gentlemen and exchanging stories about each of our hometowns. (See today’s pic) He is a real sweet local boy. His daddy is a coal miner and the family also used to grow tobacco to supplement their income. We didn’t head out for North Carolina until almost noon! When we finally reached Asheville mid-afternoon we were thinking about taking a tour of the Biltmore Mansion. We went to the Visitor’s Center, saw a short film and then realized the tickets were $70 a piece. Call me cheap, but that’s the equivalent of about 6 nights camping! Fuhgetaboutit. Suddenly it didn’t seem that interesting to view rich people’s stuff. (Does this mean I’m cheap?) Instead, we decided to stroll thru downtown Asheville and had a delish lunch at an outdoor café listening to some great street musicians. We both thought this was a much better use of our dollars. Originally we were going to camp at Lake James SP, but because there was no swimming and we were really hot we thought we’d drive a bit longer and camp at Lake Norman. By the time we got here, it was about 6 and quite muggy. We hopped on our bikes and did the usual tour of the park. It’s a rather large state park and things are spread out. By the time we biked to the swimming beach we discovered that it had already closed. So, we decided to go back to the campsite and hike the lake access trail for an unauthorized swim. Well, as soon as we started on our quest the skies opened up and a huge drenching thunderstorm engulfed us. So, back to the van it was for a quick sketchy meal waiting for the storm to pass. Why am I seeing a heated game of skip-bo or scrabble in our future? Tomorrow we head to my niece’s house. I’m really looking forward to getting reacquainted with my grand-nephews!

Filling in the Gaps –Natural Tunnel State Park, Stone Gap, VA 6/5

True to our word, we packed up early and headed out toward the Appalachia Mountains. It had rained while we were sleeping last night so the drive through the eastern part of Kentucky and over the mountains was particularly beautiful. Everything is lush and brilliant green. One of the things we have been having fun doing the past three days in Kentucky is looking for, and trying to capture on camera, the quilt patterns on the barns. It’s so charming and quaint to see all the brightly painted quilt squares. We continued to entertain ourselves by periodically stopping, jumping out of the car and snapping the pic. Once we reached the Appalachian Mountains we stopped at the first grocery store to load up on provisions. Mmm – groceries are a little different in this neck of the woods. We usually buy a quart of milk, several yogurts for breakfast, chicken, turkey or perhaps a steak for barbequing and fresh fruit and veggies. That usually lasts us for a couple of days. This store was predominantly stocked with canned and frozen goods, sliced processed cheese, and the meat choices were pork bellies or other fine choices of swine. The veggies were basically iceberg lettuce. There was also a large display of gallon sized frying oil. An older gentleman in front of us in the check-out line had only two cases of moon pies and ABC ginger ale in his cart. I feel so sorry for these folks that the main grocery store in town (and it was a big’un) had such poor choices. We really do take for granted our fresh fruit, veggies and lean meats. Needless to say we walked out with a small bag of items. In preparing for this trip I discovered a Coalfield Miners Folk Festival in Grundy, VA for today. I was so excited that we would be able to experience first hand a real mountain community gathering. When we reached Grundy we couldn’t find anything about it so started asking around. After several attempts from different people, we finally realized the festival was outside of Grundy in a place called Poplar Gap. We began a long, long climb up a ridge, passed small houses, trailers and shanties clinging to the edge of the mountain, with the gap in the mountain no wider than a single lane road. All these towns are called “gaps” for a reason! We traveled through several of these small gaps and hollers. It was so interesting to see how entire communities and generations have eeked out an existence all around mining coal. Ned was particularly fascinated with the geology of the area and pointing out all the exposed seams of coal in the mountain. Of course, the farther we went up and down, the more doubtful it seemed we would ever find the festival. Ned thought for sure this was one of my usual hair-brained ideas. Finally, we spotted a handmade sign tacked to a post, directing us to the place. (What, me worried??). We were warmly greeted by some gentlemen and given a program of the activities at the festival. Ned was delighted to see that at 2:15 there was a talk to be given by a geologist on the history of coal in this region. We attended the talk with about a dozen other people and found it to be informative and entertaining. It turned out that the speaker also just wrote a book about Natural Tunnel State Park where we were camping tonight. How fortuitous! After the talk we enjoyed walking around the grounds, (which were on a flattened hilltop which turned out to be a restored strip mining site), listening to “pickers” (bluegrass musicians), seeing basket making demonstrations, etc. (See today’s pic). I especially enjoyed talking with the guy who had a booth about the Scots-Irish genealogy of the area. The conversation started out something like this: Him: “Are you short?” Me: “What?, Well, I don’t think I’m thaaat short.” Him: “You look short.” Well, his accent was so thick that I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. After awhile I figured out that he thought I was a descendent of the “Short” family in that area. Pretty funny. We also enjoyed the local fare. Ned had a fried green tomato sandwich and I had soup beans, which consisted of a plate of beans, collard greens, hominy and a hoe cake. We had such a great time at the festival. Everyone was very welcoming and absolutely fascinated that we came from the Gold Mining area of California. We finally moseyed on through the Appalachia Mountains to Stone Gap, where we are camped tonight. It’s an amazing park whose main feature is an 850 ft. natural tunnel surrounded by 400 ft. cliffs. An active railroad actually goes through this tunnel. Ned and I decided to hop on our bikes and ride to it. The trail was so steep we had to walk our bikes down to the visitor center. Once at the visitor center there is a chair lift (much like at a ski lift) that takes you to the tunnel. Well, it was well after closing hours so we decided, what the heck let’s just hoof it. We were rewarded with the most amazing site of the tunnel nestled in a hardwood forest, next to a stream, and looking up at these huge cliffs. Unfortunately we forgot the camera! We had a really, long and hard climb back to the top and then an equally hard climb – walking our bikes – back to the campground. I was exhausted when we got back. Tomorrow we swear we’ll go down and capture it on film, the question is will we walk it or take the lift?