Washington D.C. (9/11-12/2015)

Well, I guess this trip should just be called "Winging It" or "Traveling on the Fly" since we keep changing our destinations.  So this morning we pulled up stakes in our Pennsylvania campground and headed to the Washington D.C. area.  On Sept. 11, how cool is that!!!  And we did see some people at overpasses waving flags today, and one fire station had its boom up and a flag flying on the end.

We had found a campground in Maryland, Cherry Hill RV Park, that advertises itself as the closest campground to D.C., and when I called there, they had plenty of room, so that was where we headed.  We were on the road by 10:00, and since we had less than 100 miles to go, that wasn't bad.  We fueled the RV once we crossed into Maryland for $2.229, a little less than Pennsylvania had been.  We crossed the Maryland state line at 11:10, and were surprised at how close we were to Maryland. 

We arrived at our campground about 1:00, and it is completely the opposite of the one we stayed at in Jersey City, the closest campground to New York.  Not only is this one very nice, clean, with lots of amenities, the people are extremely helpful and actually make you feel like they are glad to have you.  There are 2 pools, a hot tub, a cafe, little cottages to rent, nice big laundry, game room and "ball room."  In addition, at 4:00 every weekday, they have a little session to explain to their campers how to maneuver around D.C., the different tour packages available (one bus trip goes right out of the campground), how to use the subway system, and any other features one might be interested in.  This was a very pleasant find.

So after listening to all the offerings, we decided to take the sunset tour into D.C. tonight to see some of the monuments lit up and get our bearings around the city, especially since is was 9/11.  The "meeting" ended just after 5:00, and the bus left at 5:55, so we went back to the RV, I threw some hot dogs on the George Foreman while we changed our clothes, and off we went.

The bus ride was all fine, but once it got dark, it was hard to see much of the monuments -- at least the ones that were not lit up.  We were on the open top of a double decker bus, so we got the full benefit.  We did get to see the White House from a little distance, and we walked over to the Viet Nam Memorial, but it was too dark to see it, and the FDR Memorial, again, too dark.  Couldn't find the Korean War Memorial or the Martin Luther King Memorial in the dark, so we will have to catch them tomorrow.

Lincoln Memorial all lit up

My favorite -- Washington Monument, with Capitol Bldg. behind it.  Capitol Bldg. is being worked on, scaffolding all around the dome.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial (and Eleanor).  This Memorial is HUGE!

We got back to the campground about 11:00, trying to figure out how to tackle tomorrow.  Joe wasn't thrilled about getting an early start, but there is so much to see that I knew we would have to get on the move pretty early. So at 7:30, I went over to the office and got some more information, got Joe on the move, and we drove to the subway station, which we found without any problem.  We negotiated the subway, transferred to a second train, got to Union Station, and bought our 2-day bus pass to begin our exploration in earnest. 

I had tried to call our senators to get a tour of the Capitol Building, but never got in  touch with anyone at either office.  Nevertheless, when we got there, we were able to get right on a tour, so that was awesome. 

One of Arizona's two statutes -- Barry Goldwater

After we finished this tour, we walked through the tunnel to the Library of Congress, an absolutely beautiful building.  We caught the tail end of a tour here so we got to see this building pretty well too.  We missed the film that started this tour, so we caught that at the end.

Back Pack Joe

Beautiful Building

The Mainz Bible and the Gutenberg Bible were on display here.

Joe captured this picture-postcard-perfect photo, from the window of the Library of Congress, of the Capital Building, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument all lined up in a row.

We finally left here, then walked forever back to our bus, in the misty rain.  We stood next to the Peace Monument waiting for our bus.

Me and My Umbrella

Our next stop was the Washington Mall, which is really monument row, where we had been last night.  We found the Korean War Memorial, which is awesome, then walked another mile over to the WWII Memorial, also awesome.  We walked back along the reflecting pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monument.  Joe decided he had to walk up the steps to see old Abe, so I wandered back over toward the Viet Nam Wall, then waited for him to get back down all those steps.  But I didn't have the camera, so we never got any photos of the Viet Nam Memorial.   Then we headed back over to wait for our bus. 

Jefferson Memorial

Back side of Martin Luther King Memorial

 Loved the Korean War Memorial

Bob Dole was at the WWI Memorial -- that was a surprise.

 "At nearly 91 years of age, the former presidential candidate and Senate majority leader [Bob Dole] treks to the World War II Memorial nearly every weekend to greet his fellow veterans (“every Saturday and some Wednesdays,” according to Dole.) The longtime advocate for veterans’ causes remains tightly bonded to the generation that fought with him in Europe, and across the world in the Pacific."

 This really is an amazing memorial.  It represents not only those who actually served, but also those who helped on the home front as well.  At the entrance, there were a couple gals dressed in period costume dancing, an old jeep, a nurse, and some GIs, (don't know whether they were retired, active, or costumed, but it set the stage, that's for sure).

 There were also a lot of old veterans on their "Honor Tours" here.  One of our classmates, Toni Schultz Holmes, was able to do this with her dad a few years ago, shortly before he passed away, and I can imagine what a thrill that was for both of them.

"The purpose of the Honor Tour is to recognize and honor the service and sacrifice of our veterans. This is the Greatest Generation, the generation that literally saved the world. While at their memorial, these veterans will be admired and thanked for their service to this country and the world by many visitors at the memorial.
People visiting the memorial from around the world crowd around these veterans to shake their hands or pat them on the back and say thank you. The kindness and thankfulness shown to these veterans will live in their memories for the rest of their lives. Many WWII veterans don’t have the financial or physical ability to take themselves to Washington D.C. to see their memorial, a memorial for which they have waited 59 years. Our vision for the future is to take veterans from the Korean and Vietnam Wars to see their memorials."

Washington Monument

Flags around the base of the Washington Monument

Love this picture with the reflection and the clouds

Taken from the Lincoln Memorial steps

Lincoln Memorial

Picture taken from the WWII Memorial, other end of the reflecting pool

Wedding party on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

We were both really tired and glad to be done "touring" for the day -- we just stayed on the bus, all the way back to Union Station, caught our two subways home, found our car in the subway parking lot, and found the RV park.  We decided to take advantage of the cafe here since I was too tired to mess with food, so that took care of dinner (they also gave us a 20% discount as one of the amenities when we checked in).  Then we came back to the RV, changed our clothes, and went over and sat in the hot tub for 15 minutes or so.  That helped a little, but we are two tired puppies tonight.

The Washington Monument was my favorite 50 years ago when I was here on my Senior Trip.  And it still is my favorite.  It is just so stately, you can see it almost anytime you look, and it just speaks to me, I guess.   And walking along beside the reflecting pool between these two monuments was really special.

But the new monuments are amazing, and the creativity leaves me speechless.  

We were Seniors when we were here before, and we are Seniors again.  My, that was a fast 50 years!!!

Back to the bus tomorrow.  We have a bit of a plan -- a few things we definitely want to try to see, but it will take some subway maneuvering, so that should add interesting element to our Excellent Adventure here. 

Gettysburg (9/10/2015)

After our day off yesterday, we were ready to take on Gettysburg today.  In the rain.  We got an 11:15 narrated bus tour, on an enclosed bus.  The double decker bus, with the open top, stopped back in the Visitor Center while we were waiting to get on ours, and they switched to an enclosed one too.  Many of the passengers were soaked, so we were glad not to be amongst that group. We browsed around the gift shop while we waited for our tour, and Joe found what might be a replacement for his "Authentic Personnel" hat. (We didn't buy it, but it looks good, doesn't it?)

  Our tour was good, although I need to refresh my Gettysburg history because I don't remember too much about the significance of the battles fought here.  And the rain prevented us from getting any good pictures, too many raindrops on the window.  But the guide made it real, and we saw many of the 2000 monuments and historical markers, but not near all of them.  After the tour was over, we drove back through part of it and did get a few pictures.

"The monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield commemorate the July 1 to 3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Most are located within Gettysburg National Military Park; others are on private land at battle sites in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Together, they represent "one of the largest collections of outdoor sculpture in the world." . . . As of 2008, the National Park Service unit managed 1,320 monuments and markers, 410 cannons, 148 historic buildings, and 41 miles (66 km) of roads (8 miles of them, unpaved)."

You can see in the photo above there are many of these monuments, some of which are along the lines of the battlefield, almost in a row.  There is a monument for every state that fought in these battles, and many monuments representing a particular officer, battery, company, etc. 

Our drive to Gettysburg took us through some nice Pennsylvania farm country, looks like many of the corn and bean crops are close to harvest.  This part of Pennsylvania is rolling hills, very pretty.

We did stop at one gift shop next to where we parked for lunch, and we drove by a place that had a lot of neat gourds hanging from the rafters.  Joe is still fascinated by gourds and trying to make them into birdhouses, so he got a picture of them.

We got back to camp and re-evaluated our travel agenda.  Joe really wants to go to Washington DC, so he got some information about bus tours there and found a campground in College Park, Maryland, that will probably work as our base, so it looks like that is where we will be headed tomorrow.

About 5:45, we drove into New Cumberland, only about 10 miles from our campground, and met Brian Clayton for dinner.  Unfortunately, his family did not get to join us, but we had a nice visit with Brian, and a nice steak dinner (thank you again, Brian).  On our way home, we saw 4 deer, so it was good to see some wildlife again. 

The rain kept up most of the day, intermittently in the evening.  But when we got to the camper, it was chilly and we kicked the furnace on.  Supposed to get down in the 60s here tonight, then I think we are supposed to stay in the 70s for a while.  That will be nice.  Summer may be over back here.

A Day Off (9/9/2015)

We took the day off today -- a first, really.  We are not very good at "down days" as Marilyn calls them.  But we both felt like we needed to recoup after Boston and New York City, and this Gifford Pinchot State Park Campground seemed like the place to do it.  We lazed around this morning and about 11:00 decided we should go up to the office and extend our time here two more nights, and maybe drive into the next town for Joe to get a haircut.  And get the car washed.  Maybe do a little shopping for a new camera bag.  See how good we are at "down days."

Anyway, we drove up to the campground office.  Found out the spot we were in was reserved, so we had to move.  This whole park has 289 campsites and there probably aren't 2 dozen people here, but our spot apparently had been reserved.  We unfortunately chose a site in the "pet section" which cost $3 more, so we saved $6 by moving, but still.  They told us the pet sites go first, so we just chose wrong.  We didn't know that was a big deal, and we didn't know the pet section cost more. 

We went back and put stuff away, pulled the slides in, and drove over to a different site and got set back up.  Then, we drove into Dover, and on into York.  We found a place for Joe to get a haircut and I browsed the Big Lots store while I waited for him.  Then we had lunch, and stopped at a car wash and vacuumed the inside of the car.  We had seen a few car washes and he thought he had seen one with better washing mechanism, so we didn't run it through that one.  Well, we never saw a better one, so we didn't get that task done.  We didn't want to turn around and go back, so we left that for another day.  And it's supposed to rain tonight, so maybe that was just as well.

We got back to camp, Joe added Freon to the Explorer (another item on his chore list), we read our books, I laid down and maybe dozed off for 5 minutes, read some more, made some phone calls, had dinner, and spent some time on the computer.  All in all, we got some rest today.

Tomorrow we have Gettysburg on our agenda, a bus tour.  However, as I said, it is supposed to rain so we will have to make a final decision in the morning.  But we have plans to meet Eric's brother Brian and his family for dinner tomorrow, so we will have that to look forward to before we pull up stakes and head out of Pennsylvania.

From NJ to PA (9/8/2015)

I decided to get the laundry done first thing this morning, so I left Joe in bed and drove over to the laundry.  I finally got some photos of our $65/night camping facility -- the overflow or "dry" area -- this boatyard behind the campground.  Not too many amenities, and since today is a work day, I was awakened at 6:30 by the pounding of hammers on this construction site immediately behind us.

The laundry, which was ok, was right beside the tent area, where each tent has about an 8x10 rectangle on astroturf, with a brick sidewalk marking its territory.  No Taj Mahal tents in here!

This campground is the Liberty Harbor Marina and RV Park.  It is right on the harbor, and you can see the Statue of Liberty from the parking lot.  I also took a photo of our PATH train station as we were leaving this morning.

Round building is train station

By the time I got back with the laundry, and we decamped, then Joe dumped the tanks and filled up the water tank, it was 10:00.  I got directions from the campground on how to get to the freeway (which we could see from the campground, but it was still several turns away).  We made that ok, and across another bridge.  We drove past the New Jersey harbor -- very busy harbor, lots of bridge cranes to load/unload the ships, and a couple of huge ships that we think transport automobiles.  We also saw huge parking lots of brand new cars, waiting to either load onto ships or load onto trucks.

I had to take these pictures through the window, into the sun, so they are pretty hazy.

Once we cleared the city traffic and got a few miles under us, we decided to take a break, have an early lunch, maybe find a Verizon store and also a Walmart to pick up some groceries.  I picked a Walmart on the GPS that ended up being about 10 miles down a different highway, but all that worked.  We parked at Walmart,  unhooked the car and headed over to a Verizon store, which happened to be right next door to Chili's.  So we had a nice lunch, there was a Michael's there too so I shopped it real quick, then talked phones to Verizon, but didn't make a decision.  We fueled the car for $1.989 (should have topped off the RV too, we discovered once we hit Pennsylvania), worked our way back to Walmart, got our shopping done there, hooked the car back up, and were ready to go the 10 miles back to the I-78.  All that took 3 hours!!! 

We crossed the Pennsylvania line about 3:38.  I had picked out a state park south of Harrisburg that I thought might be our target for today, but it was getting late in the day, with at least 100 miles to go.  But Joe just kept plugging along, out here on the interstate with all the traffic.  I used to complain about the truck traffic on the interstate, that's one reason we try to stay off of them in the RV.  But now, after our NY episode, I like seeing the trucks.  If they can go under the overpasses, so can we!!!

We were on toll roads a couple of different times today, $8.25 the first time and $7.50 the second.  We usually set the GPS to avoid toll roads, but we did that in Maine and it took us on and off the interstate a few times just to get around the toll section, so we decided to bite the bullet in this part of the country and just pay the tolls (Joe still complains, though).

Anyhow, we got to the Harrisburg area just about rush-hour, of course.  We got off the freeway, cross the very pretty Susquehanna River, and found the state park office about 6:00 p.m.

But that wasn't where the campground was.  Fortunately, a park ranger stopped by and gave us directions -- drive another 2 miles down the road, turn, then another couple of miles, and there's the campground.  Brenda called from the "Phone Rock" at Big Lake just as I was trying to get all this figured out with the Park Ranger, so it all got a little confusing, but we eventually got to the campground, got set up, and were settled for the night.   That all took an hour, but we had picked up a rotisserie chicken and potato salad at Walmart, so we had dinner figured out in advance.  We drove 206 miles today, South and West, so we are making progress.  And we are going to take tomorrow off!!!