MAY 16-23; CONNECTICUT/RHODE ISLAND

WOW, negotiating the interstates around NYC was a trip, but we made it and even went over the George Washington bridge on our way out of town, other then a short 4 mile stretch, it was a piece of cake. I believe I just hit it right, 11 a.m. on a Friday.

Well it was a short drive up to Mystic, Connecticut. We stayed at Aces High campground, what a beautiful place with large grassy sites, only problem was rain! We met a wonderful group of Tiffin owners who where part of the "Nutmeg Allegros" club from Connecticut. They shared food and memories and great places to stay, really nice people and we hope to reciprocate in the future in Phoenix. Seemed to rain all week, off and on but we managed to get some quality sight seeing done anyway. Here are the highlights:

*Mystic Seaport-old time village of ship building and whale boats

*Lighthouses-we did 3-Stoneington, Castle Hill and Point Judith, the last 2 in Newport 

*Submarine Museum and USS Nautilus tour

*Village of Essex; Steam locomotive ride, museum of Connecticut River, historic downtown, Goodspell opera house and Gillette castle tour

*Newport-historic ocean drive with mansions, Eisenhower's summer house, America's cup yachting museum, we just scratched the surface here-we need to return!

All in all it was pleasant, we even visited two casinos, one was the MGM Foxwoods and they had there grand opening while we where in town. They where nice but after Vegas everything is just average. Sue dropped 10 bucks in a penny slot and won a $100! WOW!! The chowder is good here but prices are high, gas is $4.09 and across the border in Rhode Island it goes for $3.85 a gallon. Now on to Bar Harbor Maine tomorrow.

http://www.savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/features/1998/19980718/gillette-castle.shtml

MAY 11-16; NEW YORK CITY

I set the GPS and prayed after looking at the maps for this trip, I have driven in many large cities but was tentative about this venture to say the least. Well the GPS walked us in but not necessarily out, more later. Well Liberty Harbor RV park is essentially a parking lot with water/electric hookups, not much but considering you only sleep there it's handy for visiting the Big Apple.

One thing my wife and I agreed on was watching the people negotiate the sidewalks/subways/trains and buses was like watching rats in a maze, amazing. You also do a lot of walking, unless you cab it all over. We relied on using the water taxi from our RV park to wall street then used the subways. Our daughter taught us how to negotiate the tunnels,escalators, stairs and walkways. It really was fun but tiring, our arthritis is showing:(

What did we see? Wall street and the stock exchange including "the bull", World Trade Center site, Grand Central Station, Times Square, Rockefeller Center , the Chelsea District, Yankee Stadium, 5th Avenue, Central Park, History Museum, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty and Queens where my daughter lives. Four days full tilt, boy did we need a rest, which we are now getting in Connecticut!

It truly was a unique experience and we would like to go back someday, here are some of our memories:

*coffee and rolls practically at every corner

*people everywhere

*traffic

*unique buildings and architecture

*lots of walking

*not many places to buy groceries and getting them home

*wall street was interesting

*Ellis island and statue of liberty

*top of the rock!!!

MAY 2-10; PENNSLYVANIA

First we stopped at Gettysburg to do the new Vistors Center, it was truly eye opening as far as understanding the battle. It brought it more to life and explained each days battle through short film narratives with diagrams. We drove the loop the next day using the audio tour with booklet, another great day. we camped at Drummer Boy and I was not impressed at all. prices where high considering it was almost empty and the pools where not full and operating, complete ripoff, even the internet service I paid for was basically a no show, I got 4 hours for 4.50. 

I did, however, get excellent service at Mar-Bar Tire Center. I was having a front end alignment problem and my tires where wearing drastically on the outside edges since I left Phoenix. They rotated all 6 and did an alignment for $227, turns out I had a severe "toe-in" problem. I hope the 2 tires will last the trip, we switched them to the outside rears and inverted them so the bad side is inside, they should hold up and wear flat but I have some doubts:( 

We did a day trip to Hershey for the experience (chocolate) and York for the Harley motorcycle tour, neat!

Later in the week we moved Eastward to Allentown to Pine Hill RV park, quite nice and the people had just bought it in March and they are very nice. They put on a Mother's Day breakfast on Sunday, which was our get away day for New York City, Mom's free and dudes where $5, great stuff! We met a guy who was from Sun City but working in Pa. so he was living in his RV until he could get an account on the Wet coast. Also there where several Rally's going on, The bounders, Shriner's and campers for Christ, all friendly!  

While in Pa. we found my Dad's grave site (quite an experience in itself) and made contact with my cousin Johnnie who I had not seen in 54 years, we spent an afternoon together and went to dinner with him and his wife Cookie! More neat times! We toured the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside for barns with the Hex signs and found a neat place on the mountaintop called hawk mountain, a migration sanctuary for hawks, eagles and other species, it had trails that ran into the famed Appalachian trail system, we spent about 20 minutes there and saw several large birds and Sue sat on a bench donated by John Denver:) 

APRIL 24-MAY 1; WASHINGTON DC

Heading further North to meet our daughter in DC, we overnighted at Flying J for gas/dinner/wifi and a parking spot. Well it was a first for us as we usually use Interstate rest areas. The food was lousy, the internet slow and gas pumps crowded, not my cup of tea. we arrived Friday morning around 11 a.m. at Cherry Hill RV park. Seems they had a 3 day rainy spell and sites where wet to muddy, ours was the latter, it was an adequate park and easy for access to DC as the Greenbelt station is a 2 mile drive down the beltway. The drive in was error free and not bad at all, I guess it helps to hit the beltway after rush hour, say 9:30 or later.

All i can say about DC is that if you have never been there you need to go, this was my 3rd visit and I am still finding new museums, memorials and places to go. Twelve years ago I saw the new Korean War memorial and hated it, this time I saw it at night and it was haunting, completely different effect. The night time tour overall we thought was a bust but we did discover the FDR memorial and it's many faceted "rooms", quite nice. Our daughter Amy came in from NYC on the AMTRACK to see DC with us and we had a great time together, we will also see her in NYC in a few weeks when we get up there.We picked her up at Union Station and had a Capitol tour from John McCain's Senate staff and as we exited the Senate subway and mounted the stairs to the Senate chambers Senator Kerry was descending, only interesting person we saw on the DC trip.The second day we toured the Holocaust museum and it took over 4 hours to see it all, a tremendous amount of information and pictures/displays to process and so disturbing, but something every person should visit. Our daughter had heard of the new Spy museum so the third day we left Mom home and went there and also walked Dupont Circle and Embassy Row, rather interesting architecture for sure, especially the Brewers Castle, his brewery was at the present site of the Kennedy Center.

The spy museum was 3 floors of real cool stuff! The shoe phone, 007's Aston Martin and a lot of hands on stuff (for the kids) and virtually the history of spying which had it's start in the Bible. Think about that for awhile! The Ford theatre was around the corner from the museum but it's closed for restoration. We still have places to see in DC and next visit I will get on line reservations months in advance for 2 places, the Washington monument and the White House, we also need to visit the Library of Congress which was closed on the day we had set aside for it (Sunday) so we visited the Postal museum. Wow, what a treat, it is a neat exhibit, well done and entertaining and you will be surprised by the history I am sure. We spent several hours there, sent special postcards and viewed an exquisite stamp collection with  stamps that started in 1841! there is so much to see/do in DC that I could go on forever. Just go!