October 30, 2007 we are now at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland. We went out to breakfast and then got on the road about 10:30am. We arrived at the RV Park about 3:30pm, not a bad drive this time we didn't get lost at all, thank goodness the GPS worked this time. I need to do a recap of New York because tomorrow we start touring D.C.
I left off with us getting tickets to see Altar Boyz, and stopping and having a beer and burger to kill time but I forgot to mention that while walking around the streets we got to see Jennifer Garner and posted pictures. She is in New York doing a play, sorry didn't catch the name of it, we just saw people crowding around so we joined in and took pics. The play Altar Boyz was great, it is a musical comedy about a Catholic boy band, the lead guy in the musical was the runner-up on "Grease: You're the one that I want" reality show, which Dave and I tried to watch every week. It was funny and very entertaining, thanks Spanky for the recommendation. We didn't get back to the coach that night until 11pm and boy was Valley happy to see us. It was also a big Halloween party night so there were a lot of people dressed up walking the streets looking for the perfect bar to party at.
Sunday, we hung out at the coach until around 11am then went and caught "Path" to 33rd street. When we got to 7th & 50th street they were having a street fair going on, about a miles worth I think, food vendors selling products ect. We walked around until almost 2pm then headed for our next musical, which was "Spring Awakening". Another very good musical, Dave said he liked that one better then Altar Boyz, probably because he got to see breasts in this one, just kidding, but not about the breasts. Again, thank you Spanky, this one is about young teenagers in the 1890's in Germany that are just learning about their sexuality, when the one character kills himself, I got all tiery eyed, I really liked him, didn't want to see him go. Anyway, very good and makes you think about how you have to tell your kids about the birds and the bees or hope someone does.:)
Monday, we went back to the city again, Dave wanted to look at the camera shops and check out his xmas present. He did research Sunday night when we had gotten home and knew what he wanted. After talking to the sales guy we left without buying anything, amazing. He then got on the phone with David Jr. to ask him about the camera Dave wanted, which he said was good. We walked to Central Park walked around it, it seemed like every corner you turned someone was doing filming. The kids in the park you could tell it was the nanny's taking care of them, all the horse carriages were neat to see. The cost was $34 for 20 min. to pricey for my blood, Dave did get a picture of me jogging in Central Park. We found our way to Strawberry Hill. which is a section of the park dedicated to John Lennon, that's why it is named that, we got pics of that too. Dave will shoot me if I don't mention this, but I was the only person in New York City with shorts on. Honestly, I was even shocked I didn't see anyone, before we left the coach I said I would bet him, because the sun is out, that people will wear shorts, it just wasn't happening. It was probably 50 degrees, and the only thing cold were my fingers, I think my legs must have been numb because I didn't feel anything, or else the hot flashes were really kicking in. After the park we did go back to the camera shop and Dave did get a new camera, now I don't have to do any xmas shopping for him, because that is it!
I thing that about sums everything up, I know I left stuff off, that's what happens when you get a few days behind. Anyway, new adventures start tomorrow.
Happy Halloween, because I believe we will be out late tomorrow, Halloween in George Town.
Spanky, do you want me to save you the Playbill's?

October 29, 2007 well, it has been a very fun and eventful time in New York. So much to see and do that we didn’t even see or scratch the tip of the iceberg, will have to come back but not stay in this RV Park. I shouldn’t say that, if I didn’t have a dog and want to take a shower everyday, then maybe I would stay here again, it really wasn’t that bad, just the driving here was. “PICTURES ARE POSTED” by the way.
Well, recap time;
Saturday, it did rain all morning but we took off for the Statue of Liberty anyway. The 1st boat was leaving at 9:30am and we were only 5 min. away from the park where it took off from. We left at 9:10am it was raining and off season so there shouldn’t be that many people there, wrong. We saw so many people and panicked but as we got closer to the ticket office we realized there was a diabetes walk-a-thon going on and most of the people were there. Because of all the security checks we just missed the 1st boat by 2 min., that’s when Dave said “you know we weren’t meant to see the Statue” but there was no way I was leaving now. We did catch the next boat at 10:15am and got off at Ellis Island. I called my brother, Mike, to ask him what Grandpa Tomaselli’s first name was, I knew I had heard it before but just couldn’t think of it. Dave and I wanted to look up what boat my Dad’s parents had come over on when they left Austria/Italy. Ellis Island has a library to look up this stuff from 1890 thru 1924, for a small fee, we paid the fee and started the research, Mike had given me some info, after calling him 5 times because I kept losing the connection, but we weren’t finding any info. I then tried to call our Uncle Renzo, my Dad’s brother, but he wasn’t home, it ended up we checked from 1890 to 1924 and didn’t find anything. We decided or figured out that my Grandpa Tomaselli didn’t come over on a boat to Ellis Island, where all the emigrants were suppose too, so he must have crossed over illegally and landed somewhere else. Thank goodness my Dad and Uncle were born here or else they would have been illegal too.  After Ellis Island we caught the ferry to the “Statue of Liberty”, really something to see. We joined up with a tour that was already going on and hearing the Ranger speak and give the details was very interesting. It just amazes me, that way back then, someone would say I want to build a statue and this is what I want to build and this is where I want to put it. Just like in South Dakota the guy that did Mount Rushmore, there is “NO WAY” in these days could anyone do or build anything like that without going thru “Hell” to get approval.
After the Statue of Liberty we came back to the coach for about 45 min. walked Valley around then hit the road again about 3pm. We took the train “Path” then tried their subway system, which was a bad day to do it. It was really hot in the subway, and crowded, and the damn thing kept stopping, then they finally they made an announcement that 3 trains ahead of us there was a sick person so we were going to have to wait. In the mean time this man, who had gotten on our subway, started talking out loud to himself, while doing so he was rolling joints. Everyone was trying, well not everyone, but most were trying to get away from him. Anyway, when we finally got to Broadway and 34th we got off of the subway. We started walking around and I was taking pictures, Spanky, my nephew asked me to, crowds of people and very entertaining. Sorry I didn’t get the picture, but there was a girl ½ naked in the middle of Broadway that was playing a guitar, what she had on was short shorts and tassels on her nipples. We kept walking around because we wanted to see where the play we were going to see on Sunday was going to be, “Spring Awakening”. While walking around we heard some guy offering ½ price tickets to “Alter Boys” which was one of the off Broadway musicals my nephew had recommended to us. We decided to go ahead and buy the tickets and go to the play, the only bad thing was it was 5pm and the musical didn’t start until 8pm. There was no way we were going to go back to the coach 1st so all we could hope for was that Valley had a strong bladder and could do without dinner for a long time. Really the dinner part wasn’t a problem and the bladder wasn’t either but I just hate putting her through that because she is 11 yrs old, but oh well. We walked around some more then stopped in an Irish Pub, had a beer and a burger then headed for the musical.
Better cut off now, and on the next blog do the review and recap of Sunday and Monday.

October 27, 2007
Yesterday we left Lebanon Pennsylvania and headed out for our next stop, which was Liberty Harbor RV in Jersey City, New Jersey. The drive was only suppose to take about 3 hours, well we left at 9:15am and arrived at the RV/Yacht Harbor at 2pm, that was well over the 3 hours. What we went thru I would have bet we would have never arrived, but thank goodness for a guy on his bike. (I’ll get back to that)
When we left in the morning we used 2 different GPS’s, Dave’s computer one then we took the one out of our car and hooked that one up too. Should have known after 1 ½ hours when they disagreed on which highway to take, this was not going to be a good day. You have to understand when Dave is driving and a GPS is on he believes what it shows but when it talks, especially in a female voice, he doesn’t believe what it says. After the one incident last year when we drove 5 miles out of our way then he realized it was taking us to the next destination, my brother Mike still laughs about that. Anyway, once we were in New Jersey, and going thru one of the toll roads, the car GPS said, “stay on the same road” (which was I believe 78 East) now the computer one was saying stay on 78 East, same thing right? When you looked at the signs it showed 78 East 95 Holland Tunnel, which Dave said there is no way I’m going thru that tunnel because then we will be in New York City, NO WAY. So we took the other Hwy, which makes the GPS’s recalculate and try to figure out a new way to get to the RV Park. That’s when the car GPS really said something totally different then the computer one, so I said to Dave we are going to go by the computer one because it knows we are an RV the car one thinks we are just a car. (You can program the computer one so it knows the size of your vehicle, for tunnels, bridges; ect. the car one doesn’t have that option) As we are driving in the corner of my eye I can see Dave keep grabbing himself, and I don’t dare say anything because I know what that means. Normally what I do, when I know he has to go is crack a joke and really make him suffer, but not this time to stressful time right then. After going back and forth on very small streets, Dave just stops at one corner, where no one was behind us, and puts the RV in park runs to the back and pees in the bathroom, he just couldn’t hold on any more. Then when we took off again, we took a road we hadn’t already taken, which the GPS was happy with, finally! As we were driving up these little streets dodging cars that were double parked, we heard some guy on a bike yelling at us, when Dave opened the window, the guy was asking us if we were on our way to Liberty Harbor RV Park and we said “yes” he said follow me. Which we did for the next 2 miles, the guy got us there and we gave him $20 and it was well worth it, what a nightmare of an RV Park to get to, would not recommend it, with all the construction going on. Besides that construction, you don’t have sewer plus no grass and the cost is very high, find another place to stay is all I’m going to say.
After getting set-up we drove to the Liberty Park and missed the last boat to the Statue of Liberty by 3 min., the same thing that happened to us 17 yrs ago., this time though, we will be here for 4 days so we have another chance of seeing it, the last time we were just driving thru when we missed it. We then decided to go into New York City, so we drove to the train station and parked then got on the train to New York City. Why anyone would want to live here is beyond me, the bumper to bumper traffic, tons of people on the street, horns honking, it was very stressful and entertaining. Police cars with sirens going trying to get thru the traffic, which was a joke, then it starts raining and of course we left our umbrellas back in the car. Dave and I kept walking around, it wasn’t a hard rain, dodging umbrellas trying not to get our eyes poked out. We stopped in a Irish Pub to dry off and have a beer then Dave asked the bartender about a good Italian restaurant. The bartender went and asked some guy sitting at the end of the bar and this guy told him about 1 that he has been going to for 20 yrs the best in New York called “John’s”. We walked there and the food was OK but we have definitely had better. We should have trusted our guts when an Italian restaurant is named “John” After that we caught a cab to take us back to the world trade center to catch our train back to Jersey. The taxi ride was very interesting it was an E-Ticket all the way, almost as good as the taxi’s in Italy. Anyway, that was our day, today, Saturday, it is suppose to rain all day, will see what we end up doing.

Amish Blog.
We decided to do the 4 hour Amish thing. What it included was a 45 min. tour of a 9 room Amish house, very interesting, you got to see how they live without electricity because they have stoves, ovens, refrigerators ect, you learned about their clothing, every day stuff and Sunday wear. The different hats and hair covers, the colors they must be and what age the colors change.
We also saw a 30 minute virtual film on an Amish boy trying to decide if he was going to be baptized Amish or live in our world. Every child, boy or girl, must make that decision after, I believe they are done with school. School, by the way, only goes to the 8th grade, then you are done, the Amish don’t believe anymore schooling is needed. The law here in Pennsylvania says that children must be in school until the age of 16 so in the 8th grade they are normally age 14 so the last years of schooling (until they are 16) is vocational, which means they work in the fields. They do have to go to school for 3 hours every Saturday with an Amish school teacher, which, by the way, only has the education of an 8th grader, very interesting. The kids can own cars, when of age, and do everything the outside world does, if they don’t decide to become Amish they are not shunned from the family, but of course if they don’t become Amish they normally leave. 5% of the children do leave by the way. If they decide to stay with the Amish way of life then they are baptized but if they should decide to leave after that then they will be shunned from the family.
We thought the Mennonite’s broke away from the Amish but it was the other way around. They were still as one back in the 1600’s but in 1690 the Amish became to be because they thought the Mennonite’s were getting to modern, how they hell do you get modern in 1690? Anyway, a few differences between the 2 groups are Mennonites have cars, churches, electricity, ect didn’t do any touring of Mennonite’s so can’t say too much about them.
Also on our tour was a bus ride for 2 hours thru the Amish, Mennonite, and our communities. Can’t just say Amish communities because they live, out here, among everyone the only way to tell if it is an Amish house is they have no wires for electricity. Some of the houses have what looks like an outhouse on the property but that is where they have their telephones. They at one time were allowed to have phones in the houses but the bishops found out that they were spending too much time on the phones then heard that people were gossiping and all phones where then banned from homes. Not every family has a phone some of them just share with their neighbors. While on the bus we passed a farm that had a bunch of carriages and all the horses were under a tent. Well, it was an Amish wedding going on, carriages are put to one side and the horses go under cover, so nice to see them treated well. Anyway, the Amish only have weddings on Tuesday and Thursday’s and only at the end of October thru the end of December. That is the off season time for farming so that’s the only time they are allowed. The wedding night is spent with the bride’s family then after that they either move into the bride’s or groom’s family’s house. There is no honeymoon and they stay until spring then they can move into their own home which they have either built or purchased and start their own farming of their fields. Wedding gifts are received by the bride and groom when they visit the people’s homes on weekends and each visit includes a meal. They said some of the Amish newlyweds will visit 3 to 4 homes each Saturday and Sunday to receive their gifts, but remember they have to eat a full meal each time; they probably start out fat then all the work in the fields they lose it all. Once married the men have to grow beards, that’s how you know a man is married, women there are no way of knowing.
I could go on and on but I’ll just give a few more highlights. Amish do pay taxes and believe in all medical care, they just don’t pay any Social Security Taxes and have signed their rights away to ever receive any Social Security payments. On the medical stuff they have no medical insurance so when they need medical care, doctor’s check-ups, surgery, anything they just pay cash. Either they pay it or their congregation helps them pay it. The Amish don’t believe in a church so their religionist meetings are held every other week in a family’s house. Each community consists of like 30 families but they share the bishops. The bishops have church every week because they have to keep switching off the communities. The services last about 3 hours long and they are held at a different house so the family that hosts the service that day then has to feed everyone. I forgot to mention each family has a minimum of 7 kids so that’s a lot of people at one house, good thing the communities are only 30 families. What the host ends up doing is clearing out rooms and then they bring in the benches to line up in each room, girls on one side men on the other, they also have like 3 bishops that come to the houses, I guess one for each room.
The Amish school teacher receives $1.00 a day per student; there are only 20 to 30 students, at the most, in the one room school thru the 8th grade. There are many Amish schools around because the Amish don’t believe a child should have to travel more then a mile away from home. Amish can ride scooters, no bikes, because they believe you can’t get to far away from home on a scooter.
I could go on and on, very interesting to me, a different culture living among us but living so simple and not stressed, how welcome would that be.

October 25, 2007 today we went to Hershey Chocolate World, last thing we were going to tour before we leave. We took the virtual tour, which was a little ride telling you about how the chocolate is made when you got off you got a little package of chocolate, today was "kissable". I have never heard of these before and I asked how long that they have been out and they said about a year now. They are just like M&M's, the only difference is they are shaped like Hershey kisses. Then you walk thru the Hershey Store, every kind of chocolate in every shape and flavor, even the stuff Hershey makes that isn't chocolate. Walking thru there was like dieing and going to chocolate heaven. You could even have your picture put on a chocolate Hershey bar, believe me they had everything, it is a must see if you ever get here. We were good we only spent $3.19 on some new Hershey stuff we had never seen before so of course you have to taste it, why not how offend will I be here. It was a rainy day in the morning so it was a good day to go to the chocolate world, then it was back home to clean up the campsite and get ready to leave tomorrow morning.
Yesterday it was rainy all day so it was a hang out in the morning then a run to Costco and Walmart. Walmart to get my nails and toes done and Dave got his hair cut, Costco was to get some groceries, not much anymore because I swear they package their stuff even bigger now. Last two days not to exciting, now Tuesday we did the Amish thing. I'm going to end this blog now and do another one on the Amish, to me it was very interesting, so I'm doing a whole blog on it. You pick and choose what you want to read.

October 22, 2007 well, we made it home safe and sound. We left this morning at 7:15am and drove to Elizabethtown to catch Amtrak to Philly. What a nice train ride, I know I always make comments about amtrak coming off the tracks, but it was a smooth ride today. I really don't believe I have ever been on amtrak or any train ride, not for amusement, Knots ect. and it was nice. The seats are nice, kind of like on a plane, they lean back and have lights for reading. Anyway, to and from Philly was uneventful, just comfortable. When we got into Philly we had to catch their Septa Rail to take us into the city, close to the visitor center. Good thing Dave has experience buying tickets and reading there travel times and schedules because I would have been totally lost. We got to the visit center and checked it out and decided to do the free independence tours, you had to get tickets but it was free. We went and saw the Liberty Bell and read up on the history of that. Then our time for the Tour was 11 am so we did the Independence Hall and the Congress Hall. After that we went back to the visitor center and got tickets to do the double decker bus tour. The bus tour had 20 stops, Betsy Ross House, Chinatown, City Hall, Basilica of St. Peter & Paul, "Rocky Steps", Zoo, ect. which were interesting to see but the bus went too fast to take pictures. Since they have 20 stops to make in 90 min. they move pretty fast. What I noticed, in Philly, we did a lot of circles because everything is right in the middle of the town.(hope that makes sense) We did get off at stop 16 because then we were on the search for the best Philly Cheese steak sandwich, which I wanted to do. The 2 biggest places that people talk about, plus they have had on food network,( we seem to be following their recommendations if you haven't noticed from other blogs) is Gino's or Pat's Philly Cheese steaks. They were across the street from each other and just about had the same amount of people at each. We stopped at Gino's and got one cheese steak with onions and cheese whiz, then went to Pat's and got one cheese steak with onions and provolone cheese, well Gino's wins. We did half and half on the sandwiches and we both agreed that the cheese whiz was better. I still thought Gino's steak was tastier, but Dave didn't notice a difference, but the cheese whiz made a difference. All and all Dave said he could make a better cheese steak sandwich better then either one of them, and I would have to agree. But then again Dave isn't selling to the public, that makes a difference on the cost of things, Pat's and Gino's prices where very reasonable. If Dave made the sandwiches, the way he wanted to, he would have to charge a lot more.
Anyway, when we got off at stop 16 we had to walk 9 blocks to try those sandwiches, by the time we walked back the 9 blocks to re-catch another tour bus it had showed up early and we saw it go by. It was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to walk back to the train station. It ended up being 20 blocks that we had to walk to get to the train station, so 29 long blocks in all, hopefully we walked off those Philly Cheese steak sandwiches.
We got back to the coach at almost 6pm and Valley was a happy camper to see us again.
Tomorrow Amish country, will let you know about that.

October 21, 2007 today was play day. This morning we just kind of hung around, even tho it was Sunday morning we didn't do the breakfast thing. We decided to hang out till about noon then go and have breakfast/lunch then head out to Hershey Amusement Park. The park opened at 2 and the weather was in the high 70's if not the 80's, just beautiful. The place was decorated for Halloween and the rides names changed to match Halloween themes. None of the water rides were open, just couldn't understand that with the weather so warm.:) We were there, at the amusement park, 16 years ago with Uncle Bob. That's when we were back there when Kim was 8/9, you know the brain tumor year. Uncle Bob had flown out to see his daughter, Kathy, but 1st he had come and stayed with us in Gaithersburg Maryland for a few days. One of the days we took Uncle Bob to the amusement park and it was a lot of fun, even back in those days, to try and get him on those rides, he wasn't walking good even back then. I was really looking forward to going on the one ride, where trying to get Bob on it was a challenge, because the tram kept moving and you had to really jump on the ride, he had almost missed it. Anyway, when I mentioned it to Dave he reminded me it was a water ride where you really get wet. I had forgotten that part, but once he mentioned it I remembered, when the water splashed up it went down Bob's back and he screamed, too funny. Anyway, back to the park, we got to go on all the big rides and some of the small ones too, the longest wait was probably 15 min. and that was only on one. They had a costume contest for 12 and under so we saw some pretty cute outfits on the kids, I did fell sorry for them tho, 80 degrees and they had to walk around in those things. We left about 7:30pm and went to Red Robin for dinner then back to the coach, it was a very good day.
Tomorrow, we head out at 7am and drive to Elizabethtown to catch Amtrak for the 8am ride into Philadelphia. So if you don't see a blog from me by Tuesday night, or if you hear of an Amtrak crash, on it's way to Philly, remember Valentine is in the coach and needs to be taken care of. Just a little nervous being on Amtrak.:)
I think we will be doing another "History tour" in philly, but the history I'm really researching is "who has the best philly cheesesteak sandwich". That's it for now, I sure hope I undate the blog again soon.

October 20, 2007 boy we had a hell of a storm hit last night but today was mostly sunny. Today was a hang around the coach day and get caught up on my pictures, emails, laundry ect. No exciting news today, also trying to decide what we will go tour next week, maybe Philly but not sure yet. Tomorrow we are going to Hersheypark in the Dark, it's only open on weekends now and tomorrow the weather is suppose to be clear and warmer. The park is only open from 2pm to 9pm, I think we can handle that.
Hey, to change the subject, I just saw on the web that Dolly Parton went to the hospital to visit Porter Wagoner, an 80 yr old guy she used to sing duet with. When I pulled up the article Porter's picture looked familiar so I did back checking on my blog when we had gone to the Grand Ole Opry and we had seen him there that night. Sorry, that was very interesting to me, blogs come in handy to back check on things.

October 19, 2007 today we got headed out about 9:30am and went to the Green Dragon Farmers Market, that is only open on Fridays, which is stupid by the way. It is in Ephrata, which in its own way is a pretty cute town, but that Farmers Market is hugh. It was more like a giant swap meet, even the Amish or it could have been the Mennonite's, who knows maybe both, that where there selling their home grown vegetables and fruits. We stocked up on fruits and vegetables, well as much as we could keep in the motor home, we had some for dinner tonight and they were great. After the swap meet we headed for Lititz to the "Wilbur Chocolate Factory" another recommendations from our neighbor and the RV Park recommended. When we got out of the car it was noon and the church bell started ringing 12 times, then right after that we heard "Sunrise Sunset" playing and that was from the insurance company next door, it played thru out the town, really neat. We went into the Wilbur Chocolate place, they have people making molds in front of you but really not that big of a deal. They had one sample, which was very good, but we sure didn't need to purchase any, after all, we had just brought a bunch of veg. and fruit, trying to be healthy.:)
Down the road from the chocolate factory was the "Julius Sturgis Pretzel Tour", which the visitor center recommended we do. It was cute plus we learned to make a pretzel ourselves, we even received an "Official Pretzel Twister" certificate that shows we had a diploma in making pretzels. The guide told us we can show this to any pretzel factory we would like to work at and we should be able to get a job. It was a fun tour and it had an interesting history.
Then we drove to Strasburg to the Train Museum, which is much bigger then the train museum in Sacramento. With the different train museums, we have been to, none ever seem to mention the "Call Girls" which my Mom was. All they ever show are what the men do, but when we talk to the people that work there they all know about the "Call Girls" and they don't know why they aren't mentioned.
After the train museum it was time to head home, and grill up some of the veg. we had purchased, which I mentioned earlier and they were really good.

October 18, 2007 yesterday we drove to Gettysburg and stopped by the visitor center and checked it out. While there we went to an electric map show they had that showed the 3 days of battle that were the worst in history. Dave then purchased the 2 hr. audio w/map that we could play in the car for ourselves and do the drive at our leisure. They even have, for $45.00, a ranger that will drive in your car with you if you want and explain everything to you, but didn't want that. The more we kept driving around the more it came back to me that we had done this drive either 15 or 16 yrs earlier. It was when Kim was either 8 or 9 and we had gone back to Maryland for a year, remember that year, that's when she got the brain turmor. We had done the Gettysburg thing before that tho. Anyway, the weather was high 70's it wasn't that crowded, not many tour buses, so it was very enjoyable. We could take our time or rush thru what ever we wanted. We ended up getting back to the coach about 5pm so it was a good long day.
Today, just wait I know you are going to be jealous, we started out going to the "Seltzer's Bologna Factory" one of the local attractions, what a joke. We thought it was going to be a factory tour, or something, it was just a sandwich place that sold lots of different kinds of bologna. When we walked in they had some free samples then a sign to the side all ladies shirts and pullovers are all $2 today, so that's where I headed. Dave tracked me down after a short while and said "you are not buying thrift clothes, let's go" I said why not they are only $2. As we were walking out, without buying anything damn it, there was a DVD playing that showed how the Bologna Factory operated, when we got back in the car we looked closer at the AAA book and it said it was only a DVD to watch. I must say the bologna we did taste was good, but it looked more like salami so maybe it's better that we didn't see a tour of how it was made, god only knows what was in it.
Then we drove to Costco, for gas, then to hobby world, Dave's knew hobby is building sail boats, gets him off the computer, then on to "The National Civil War Museum"
That has to have been the best museum we have ever been at so far. If you ever get to Harrisburg it is a must see. Believe me right now I have had enough history to last me a life time but this one caught my interest. It has reading, audio and short films that you can watch along the way. It starts off in 1850 and basicly ends in 1865 when Lincoln gets shot by Booth. It does show some of the memorials later on that are put up in the Gettysburg battle, but it was interesting. I must confess tho, ask me next year about it and I won't be able to tell you anything, maybe even next week, history isn't my thing, but I'm trying to learn. I'm like the kids today, what is history is history, we need to work on the now and the future, what can I say, simple mind. It's my blog so I can say anything I want.

October 16, 2007 OK I haven't written in a couple days, am I bad or what. Before I get going I forgot to mention that on Saturday afternoon we had taken the dogs to the beach, about a mile from our campsite, and there was a dog that looked just like Valentine, and the dogs name was Clementine. They say everyone has a twin, I didn't know that was true for dogs too. :)
We left Salem Sunday morning and drove thru 5 states that day, we got to the Thousand Trails in Lebanon PA around 6:30pm. Very long day since we had left Salem at 7:30am, we had been in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, then Pennsylvania. We did go out of our way for lunch which added on amost 2 hours for us, driving wise and eating wise. There was a diner that was on Guy Fieri's Food Network show that we wanted to stop at, Eveready Diner in Hyde Park New York. Great looking place, very crowded and what I had was great. I did the lunch thing and Dave had the standard breakfast thing, pancakes, which were great, the bacon had no flavor and I mean no flavor and the sausage was boring. I had pastrami and swiss Panini style which was great.
OK, lets move on, when we got set-up Sunday night it was dark so didn't want to spend a lot of time doing it, so where we parked we got TV but no computers. Monday morning we walked around and someone was just getting ready to pull out of a perfect sight so we ran back unhooked everything and moved. After getting the TV and computer working and setting up everything we decided it was kick back and clean day. We cleaned just about everything, windows and screens inside and out. In the afternoon the weather was just perfect, 74 degrees we drove into town and had the cars oil changed and lubed, at Wal-Mart of course. While waiting we did some shopping and got Halloween decorations for the coach, when the car was done we came back and sat outside BBQ'd later and relaxed, god it was nice to do.
This morning after walking and breakfast we drove into "INTERCOURSE" to mail a package to my nephew, we wanted that postmark to be on the package. After that we did some walking around looking at shops and then got back on the road. It was almost 2 so we decided to stop at "Plain & Fancy" for lunch, our neighbor in the park recommended it, and we had the Amish Farm Feast. Very cool, food was nothing to write home about except the fried chicken, it was good food don't get me wrong, way too much food and the Shoofly pie was really good.
That's it, I'm all caught up, now I have to get caught up on the pictures.

2nd blog for today. Well we went to the night time walk with the other 300 people, they said they were going to break us up into 3 groups but they didn't, 2 groups. Our guide couldn't speak above a whisper so we went back to the store and demanded our money back. The lady said NO REFUNDS now get out of here, another couple tried to get their money back too and she said get out of here then closed the door on us. We paid with a credit card yesterday so Dave and Lee are just going to dispute the charge, let that lady fight with the credit card company. They did offer to let us go on the 10pm tour because so far they only had 100 tickets sold, we said get lost.
Tell everyone you know that ever goes to Salem, MA do not ever take the SPELLBOUND TOUR. I must say it was more interesting walking around and seeing all the costumes that people wore though, Salem does have the best costumes that you can purchase. There were so many people out that it kind of reminded me of New Orleans walking down Bourbon Street, everyone having a real good time.
OK I'm done bitching now, but I am still glad I got to come to Salem and see the place for myself, everyone else, in our group, is probably mad that I picked it but oh well.

October 13, 2007 we are in West Gloucester, MA which is about 25 min. from Salem MA. We got here yesterday afternoon and after getting set-up we headed into Salem. We got a combination ticket which was for the “Witch History Museum”, “Witch dungeon Museum”, and the “Pirate Museum”. We did the 1st 2 and this morning we did the Pirate one. After the Pirate Museum the town was having a Halloween Bix Baz, which is a fancy name for a street festival. There were all kinds of people dressed up in costumes, and some of the vendors had some pretty neat stuff. Good thing we don’t have room in the coach otherwise I probably would have purchased a bunch of stuff. Now tonight at 8pm we are going on a walking tour for 75 min. hopefully will see some ghosts. 
Now a quick recap since I last wrote, which was Oct. 9th. Last Wednesday Dave and I drove to Sagamore to Pairpoint which is a glass shop; they had some demos of glass blowing, no big deal. We then went to Cape Cod and found the Kennedy Compound and took pictures. Then we went to New Bedford to City Hall and got a copy of Dave’s mom and grandpa’s birth certificate, he has time on his hands now so I guess he is going to do a family history thing for the kids. OK that was Wednesday, on Thursday even though it was kind of rainy we all decided to go into Plymouth and do a tour of the Mayflower II and then we did the Plymouth Plantation. Both were very interesting to do, very informative.
Oh, almost forgot on the way back from Plymouth, while Dave and I were driving thru a small town as I came up to the light it turned yellow. Next thing I know I hear a siren so I pulled over thinking it was an ambulance or something, I look in my marrow and see flashing lights right behind me, then I could see it was a cop car. I then pull into the gas station which I was stopped in front of. She came up to my window and asked if I knew why she pulled me over, for one thing I was already stopped so she didn’t pull me over, but I said “no” she said I ran a red light. I said turned yellow when I crossed the cross walk, she said No it was red, and then Dave piped in with a nasty tone. She said since we were from Florida and probably just visiting she was just going to give me a warning and no ticket. Then she told Dave that he better watch his tone, she was only doing her job. Thank goodness no ticket, I haven’t had a ticket since I was 17.
Tomorrow we head out for Pennsylvania, it’s about 400 miles away, so will see how far we make it tomorrow.

October 9, 2007 Tuesday night, we are in Foxboro, Mass. and today we went touring around Boston. We ended up not going back into Kennebunkport, Maine because we had rain yesterday, bummer, it's only like the 2nd time we have had rain throughout the day. We got to Mass. about 2 pm set-up, walked around and checked out the place, which is very nice, 4 pools, 1 indoor, 3 Jacuzzis, gym room, baseball diamond, tennis and basketball courts ect. very nice campground, and not cheap either but a hell of a lot cheaper then staying at motels and buying meals out.
We went around Boston today, taking the trolley tour, which is you get on and off the trolley and see the things you want and jump back on another trolley to get to the next sight. What we actually did was the Freedom Trail tour. When we left this morning we had to drive to the "T" which is like Bart in San Francisco. That was a 40 min. ride into Boston then by 11am we were on the trolley and toured around until 5pm. Although it rained all night long, today was sunny, windy and sometimes a bit cool, but Dave and I stuck it out in shorts. We saw Paul Revere's House, and statue, the Old North Church, "Old Ironside" ship which is the USS Constitution, The Old State House Museum ect. pretty nice day. I'm not a history buff, if by myself I could have probably covered everything in about 1/2 the time, but I'm slowly learning to slow down and read and learn things. When you read some of the history stuff probably the stupidest things stick in my mind, like Paul Revere had 16 kids, 8 by the 1st wife, and when she died, shortly after the 8th kid, he remarried 5 months later and she had another 8 of his kids. My mind retains the unimportant stuff, not the history stuff, oh well, that's just me.
Tomorrow, I believe, we are going to go to Plymouth and check it out. We are planning on moving on Friday to Salem so we can tour around the witch hunt stuff, I mean it's almost Halloween and what a better time to check out this place.
I left out Thursday, that might be Cape Cod day or Boston again, will write about it later.

October 7, 2007 we are now in Kennebunkport, Maine in a RV Park called the "Red Apple" Campground. Nice place, a lot of Seasonals, but tomorrow the whole place closes down. Most of these places after this Holiday weekend close for the winter, so it's been fun trying to find places to stay. Although the weather is a heck of a lot warmer then it normally is it is still the time of year that they close down. After we left this morning we stopped in Gardiner Maine, because it is Sunday and that's out breakfast out day, and there was a place that Lee and Vicki had heard about from the show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It is one of the Guy Fieri's shows and it was a diner. Very neat place, very small, breakfast was great, but the waitresses needed to do a lot of work on their attitudes. There were only 6 tables that could hardly hold 4 people then there was the counter which on one side could seat 6 people and the other side 6 people. The place was split in half and each waitress only took care of the people on their half, because the place was crowded and they only had counter space Dave and I sat on 1/2 and Lee, Vicki and Ava sat on the other half. When more counter space opened up by Dave and I, Lee, Vicki and Ava moved over by us, well their waitress was upset with them because she lost out on her tip I guess. When our waitress brought us our breakfast Dave had asked for more coffee, which she gave to Dave and I then she walked right by Lee. Lee had to stop her and ask for more coffee even tho he was sitting right next to Dave then, she was getting the tip now I guess, she should have been happy to wait on him, who the heck knows. That is the only complaint that we all had, the food was great, but for such a small place the waitresses should really work together, who knows maybe they had a fight with each other. enough of that. Hope what I said makes some kind of sense.
After setting up camp we drove out to the "Bush Compound" where former President Bush lives, very impressive place to see from a distance. Daddy Bush was in town so the place was crawling with Secret Service, SUV's everywhere, and yes they were black ones. We then drove around town and went to the beach and walked around then back to the coaches and had a great seafood dinner that Dave had made. He had made the broth and vegetables yesterday and tonight he added the fresh mussels, clams (all in shell) then some white fish. Vicki and Ava made a salad and we also had some fresh baked bread and the dinner was great. We then sat by the fire, and thought about "what the un-retired folks are doing now", just kidding, it was a great evening. Tomorrow, we plan on going into town again, I didn't mention that when we drove thru today the place was packed with people, great weather and a Holiday weekend so we didn't get to stop and see anything. We will check it out tomorrow and then get back on the road again, we have to be in Foxboro, Maine tomorrow and will be there for the next 4 nights. Remember the place we are at tonight is closing down tomorrow, so we have to leave.

September 6, 2007 When I told you we were in Ellsworth Maine I didn't mention the RV part we are staying at, it is Patton Pond Camping Resort, and it's a pretty nice place. We don't have paved roads but there is a lot of walking around you can do it looks nice and it has a really pretty pond you could go out in if we were here before the season closed.
Today, Dave and I left at 9am to go back to the Acadia National Park and see the things we missed, because of the camera problems. We told Lee and Vicki we wanted to see the sites then we were going to Bar Harbor to walk around and have lunch. They had said that was there plans too so we would call each other later and get together. Dave and I ended up seeing the sites we missed and were in Bar Harbor by noon. The place was crowded because they had 2 cruise ships in so Dave and I just windowed shopped. Around 1 we stopped at the Opera Cafe and had coffee, very cute place, it's a help yourself to coffee, danishes, chips, soups and different snacks, microwave available, juices, sodas they had all kinds of things. Oh, plus it was an Internet cafe too, on each table was a little note pad that you wrote down what you drank or ate and when you left you paid, very neat. Dave and I did more walking around and window shopping and ended up finding a new lamp for his desk. If gives off more light plus has a sailboat on the base, you would have to see it, it's cool.
Lee called us at 1:30 and said they had just gotten to Bar Harbor and were going to do shopping around and then eat a late lunch/early dinner about 4pm we said we would see them back at the Rv's. We wanted to have lunch then, my fault, they had said the day before a late lunch/early dinner, but since we had gotten going so early that was just a little to late for us. We ended up going to lunch at a place called "Chowdas" which one of the locals had recommended to us once we asked. It was a little out of town and had really good food she had said. Well she was right about the food, but we didn't know we were going to get it for free, if we had we would have ordered the full seafood meals, but we had just ordered 2 lbs of steamed clams and 2 cups of clam chowder. The only reason it was free is because when one of the waitresses had walk by, after cleaning off a table, she dumped some of the stuff off her tray on my back. It wasn't much, will see if the mark comes out of my skort, if not had just said this morning it had stains on it already and I was going to throw it out. Lucky thing, plus it was a great lunch. That's about it for today, we head out again tomorrow.

October 5, 2007 I guess I should update my blog especially after I bitched at my nephew for not updating his.
We are back in the USA, we are now in Ellsworth, Maine and will be here until Sunday morning. When we went thru the border this time they boarded the coach and this time only took the last 2 frozen chicken breasts that we had. When Lee and Vicki went thru they boarded their coach too and took their lemons, so I'm sure this time it was chicken fajitas instead of steak fajitas like last time.
Let me do a quick recap since I last wrote.
Last Sunday we got back into Canada at St. Andrews, beautiful place, wouldn't mine going back there again. In the afternoon we drove into St. Stephen to do some shopping and look around. Monday morning we went to Ministers Island Historic Site, we drove across "the bar" at low tide to see the summer residence of the visionary railway builder Sir William Van Horne. You can only drive your car over when the tide is low, when we went that was between 9am and 1pm, after that when the tide comes back in the road that you drove over is 18 feet under water. It was an interesting trip to make, it just doesn't have enough history, they would be better off selling the island to a private company and I'm sure they could make a great resort out of it, at least for the months of May thru September. At one time is was a hunting lodge, but it would be better as a resort. When we got back from that Vicki, Lee, Ava, and Fleetwood showed up, we were just leaving (Dave, Valley and I) for a walk so we went ahead and left because we knew they needed time to setup and get settled in.
Tuesday, we all went Whale watching at 1:30pm, which was great. We saw Fin Whales, Humpback Wales, Minke Whales, Porpoises, and seals. We were out there until 5:30pm then we rushed to a dinner reservation we had at the Rossmount Inn, not a cheap dinner but a great one.
Wednesday, since we were leaving Thursday, I did up all the laundry and we got things ready for travelling. In the afternoon Dave and I drove back to St. Steven to visit the chocolate factory. St. Stephen is famous for their chocolate, so since we were there we at least should visit what the towns are famous for, as long as they don't cost too much. It was a great tour, actually history, because we didn't get to see the factory, because it has moved now and it's only opened to the public 1 week out of the year, and that's the chocolate week in May. The history was neat to hear plus every corner you turned they had a plate of chocolate out, a big variety. They actually still have 4 women that hand roll the chocolate, just like in the I Love Lucy Show, very neat. That night it was nice enough to have a fire outside of our coaches, great day, a little foggy all day but still a nice day.
Thursday we got on the road at 9am, we really thought about staying because the fog was gone and very sunny and warm, but we had to get going.
That's it for the last 4 days, I'm all caught up.
Today we went to the Acadia National Park, the temp. was 78 degrees and hardly any wind, we have been so lucky with the weather. It's hard to explain the sites that we are seeing, it really is breath taking, pictures couldn't even do it justice but when we post them we try.
In the afternoon after on picnic lunch Dave's camera got condensation on the lens so we took off to Bar Harbor to see if they had a camera shop to fix it. Lee, Vicki and Ava were in their car so they kept going thru the National Park. Bar Harbor didn't have a camera shop, but boy what a place, we decided that tomorrow we are going back there just to walk around and window shop, yuck, mainly just to walk around and check things out. We ended up stopping at a Wal-Mart and buying a new camera on the way back to the coach. With all the sites we are seeing anyway, we really should have a back up camera.