Well we shagged our way on the Interstate from Conn. to Chambersburg PA yesterday. Our plan was to attend our Sister in Law’s birthday party Saturday night in Blacksburg. Oops we were a week early. That will be the last time Vickie believes that I know anything about dates. Thank goodness we have Outlook on our computer at home to keep up with life. Hope I’m not a week early for my funeral. Since we were in the neighborhood we decided we’d just head on home. Yesterday was your normal Interstate day of dodging trucks and avoiding folks that can’t seem to keep a constant speed. I like to play a game of setting my cruise control, then seeing how many times a particularly bad speed varrier will pass me and vice versa. We had a crazy encounter with a physco truck driver that twice tried to kill himself and run over a couple cars. When he made an attempt to run over me, I boxed him in and made him drive 55 for a while, then went to light speed and all he could ever see after that were my taillights. He tried, but every time he started closing the distance, I politely danced out of his way. After a while he must have gotten tired or turned off. We ended up at a nice Country Inn and Suites in Chambersburg PA with a cool discount coupon. (for the record, this place passed the curved shower rod test, but lost style points for the old magnets in the shower curtain on the fiberglass tub trick) This is a relatively new motel chain, and I recommend them. All we have stayed in or seen so far are new and include an indoor pool. Had supper at a Fuddruckers nearby, they really do great burgers. Up early this morning and hit the pool. Usual Continental Breakfast fare. (I made my own waffeel with no assistance, Thank you very much) We will be on the road soon. I-81 is one of my least favorite, but does go down through the mountains, and is pretty scenic this time of year. Thanks for sharing this trip with us. Next we are off to Lake Powell in Arizona with 2 other couples for what we are calling our House Ship Trip in mid-late October. (actually it’s a houseboat, but Vickie calls it a ship cause it’s pretty big) Take care.
Cheers,
Wes
We ended up today in Torrington CT at a Quality Inn. Stopped a little early cause we reached empty on the laundry tank. Going to do a load today to get us home. This is without a doubt the weirdest room we have ever stayed in. It is also sort of rough, and won’t get a good review from me. (I think carpet was at the Battle of Gettysburg) The room is your normal something by something motel room with AC unit and bathroom. But then where the back wall of the room should be there is like another little room ½ again as big and the regular room with a ceiling light directly in the middle of it. Looks like a dining room. Very strange. We called the desk to ask and the girl said she didn’t know perhaps it was converted from something else. Oh and while I think about it---does anyone know why Massachusetts has this little hangy down part where Rt. 202 crosses the border into Connecticut? The entire Southern border is straight except for one little rectangle hanging down. I told Vickie pr obably back in 1789 or thereabouts, someone wanted to live in Mass. rather than Conn. Since they couldn’t move their land, they paid someone off to change the border. Or perhaps they were an influential politician. Other than the above mentioned hangy down part, and some jumbled street signs, wasn’t much to see today, and pretty slow going on Rt. 202. We have decided we’ll jump on the Interstate tomorrow and make some miles Southwest toward home. I uploaded some more pictures of Acadia and various other stuff. Continental breakfast at the Quality Inn was the usual fare with a new twist. There was a sign on the waffle batter dispenser that said "Do not touch the waffel machine, someone will assist you". Well the person who couldn’t spell waffel (pronounced wafeel) was nowhere to be found, so after waiting a while I just toasted a bagel and ate some yogurt. While I was eating, the breakfast attendant returned and started fixing her own waffel. There was a tip jar on the table, and I was conspicuous by my non-contributory nature. Well we’re off to utilize Ike’s legacy, ought to be an interesting day exploring uncharted territory for us. More later.
Wes
Left Bar Harbor yesterday and headed south along Rt. 1. The coast of Maine is quite beautiful and the water vistas just keep on coming. Yesterday in Maine, however, it was 92° in some places and above 90 almost all day. (don’t anyone tell Al Gore).
Made myself a note of a couple of soapbox items yesterday. Has anyone noticed the "Project Planet" placards hanging in motel rooms nowadays? It is the motel owners looking to save money masquerading as saving the planet. The placards encourage you to reuse your towels and only have your sheets changed when they need it. (boy that’s novel—seems like exactly what we do at home) I went on the web site of Project Planet, and guess what business they are in? You got it, selling stuff to hang in motel rooms. On their sight they tout some motel chain that was going to save $1.3 million with their program, while saving 4 million gallons of water Seems to me the $1.3 million is way more important than the water when everything else at the motel is disposable. (especially the new little coffee pots with the extra plastic disposable thingie) And oh yea, how about the water saving shower head you have to run around under to get wet, directly across from an old style 3 gal per flush toilet? Also, it allows the illegal alien room people to handle way more rooms per person if they don’t have to change the sheets. I don’t mind that they are saving water, but don’t tell me you are doing it to save the planet. (I’m dumb, but not that dumb)
The second box I want to get on is, who are these guys that design motel rooms? How come the air conditioner always blows up into the drapes causing you to have to engineer some kind of holding device for the drapes to keep the spotlights aimed directly at your window out? You know my ongoing position on curved shower rods. This place got the installation right, but added an interesting new wrinkle. They have magnets in the bottom of the shower curtain—with a fiberglass tub. Must have missed high school physics class. And what is it with desks and no place to plug in anything?
The third soapbox item is tourism. Dawned on me day before yesterday at Acadia—this horde of tourists doesn’t really even include the Boomers yet. Vickie and I are "Early Early Boomers" in that we are early boomers and retired early. The make up of the crowd at Acadia was all mostly older folks like 65-75 and beyond. In addition most of the folks we see on the road are this same advanced age. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in 10 years when the Boomers really start retiring. You better get your National Park reservations 3 years in advance.
Along the way down the coast, we passed through Bucksport Maine that calls itself "The Center Of The Known Universe" It is the site of the British Battle "Disaster On The Penobscot in 1779" and also site of the new Pneobscot Narrows bridge and observatory. The bridge was very interesting. It has nitrogen pressurized chambers the suspension cables run through to prevent corrosion. It also has an observatory in one of the 420’ towers. As we proceeded further down the coast of Maine yesterday, we decided we had seen enough water vistas, and headed inland. My great navigator found some Maine back roads (read barely roads) and we cut across to Rt. 202 which we intend to follow for a while. Oh and something I wanted to mention, when the State of Maine posts a sign that says bump, they really mean it. (like 1 mph bumps) Also I was introduced to a new sign yesterday called "Frost Heave" The frost heave sign is usually followed by a road that looks like the aftermath of an earthquake, bu t with more rounded edges. We set our sights on Rochester NH for the night. Well turns out when we got to Rochester there were 3 motels. One that really fooled us was named Residence Inn. I don’t believe it will be entering the Marriott system anytime soon. The other two were its brothers bad and worse. So we headed on to Concord NH which was the next bold (on the map) city. Our GPS showed motels there, and we had coupons for several. By this time it was getting late and we were tired. Our first stop was a Fairfield by Marriott. They were full but the Day’s Inn down the road was supposed to have rooms. To make a long story short, we got one of the last two rooms at the Day’s Inn, cause it seems like there were a bunch of Democrats in NH having a debate. The Day’s Inn refused to honor our coupon siting a special event. What was that special event? Not the Democratic debate but Fall Foliage! Guy said oh they’re coming in from all over for it. However the coupon is valid for September and October which is when the fall foliage is, so we are a little miffed. We’re going to write the Room Saver folks and the National Day’s Inn folks just for the venting of it. (we weren’t dumb enough to not take the room, regardless of coupon or not) Since it was late, we called for Chinese delivery, and had a great room picnic in front of the TV. Then right after dinner, the water died in the whole motel. It was back before we went to bed, but made for a harrowing night. We’re heading East tomorrow. Good Continental at the Day’s Inn this morning and quite a bit of rain. Made instant mud on the car. Looks like it might continue for a day or so. More later.
Wes
Made it to Bar Harbor ME yesterday. Rt. 1 in Maine is a rough old girl in many places and quite a bit of construction. Vickie and I were wondering how they would ever get it all finished before the "permafrost" sets in. You can tell there might be something to the winters here by the way their firewood stacks are often almost as big as the house. Most of our day yesterday was spent at Acadia National Park. This is one of the few National Parks on the East Coast. Basically it is a lot of islands and peninsulas that stick out into the Atlantic from the coast of Maine. Bar Harbor is pretty much completely surrounded by the National Park. Last I was here, many many years ago, Bar Harbor was a sleepy little town where you caught the ferry to Nova Scotia. Well you still catch the ferry here, but boy has it built up. Looking at some kind of local paper we picked up, 9 cruise ships are scheduled to dock here this week. One of the "cruisers" said the Queen Mary 2 was due here next Saturd ay. I was curious where cruise ships would come from to get to Bar Harbor. I asked one lady, and she said her ship sailed out of NYC with stops in Boston, Bar Harbor, Halifax, and some other places. This is really off-season for Acadia Park, but because of the cruise ships, it was slammed yesterday. Nothing like meeting a 48-passenger giant bus coming down the mountain road around a curve at you. However despite the droves of people, Acadia is a most beautiful place. The view from Cadillac Mt. at 1500+ feet above sea level is worth the trip. There is a park loop road that takes in most of the more popular sites. We spent our time on the loop with the roof down enjoying the park. Also there is a bus service that you can utilize to see the whole park. Since it was late in the day, we decided to stay in Bar Harbor. After the cruise ships pulled out around 5:00 (so they could get out past the 12 mile limit and open their casinos) the place was pretty empty. We enjoyed sitting on the ba lcony of our room at the Quality Inn with beautiful weather, and surprisingly few bugs. (oh and on the scorecard—this place didn’t get the memo, the curved shower rods were installed so that the shower area is now smaller than before) We later went across the road to something called The Saltwater Grill, and enjoyed the early bird specials. (makes me feel like a very old tourist to say early bird special) However in this case 1 of the early bird specials was a lobster, fries and slaw for $15.95. Great deal and it was good. I added an appetizer of steamed mussels and was in heaven. Miss Vickie ate the early bird sirloin tips in that she doesn’t do well with shellfish. I rounded it all off with a crisp Maine apple back at the room, and collapsed into a protein coma. Tomorrow, we plan to continue down the Maine coast on Rt.1 and eventually turn back inland before we get into the millions of folks called Boston. Oh and last night, Old Blue didn’t have to sleep alone for a change. He go t to snuggle up to a nice new maroon C6 with the same color top. I was hoping I might find a little Corvette pedal car when I went down this morning but nothing happened. (probably both boys) Ran down this morning to see the departure of the ship called "The Fast Cat" to Nova Scotia. It is this huge all aluminum catamaran car ferry with 38,000 hp (4 engines/9500) that runs from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth Nova Scotia at around 45 knots. Came back and went to breakfast at the same restaurant as last night. Usually isn’t possible to screw up breakfast but they did. Food was bad service was worse. More later.
Wes
Yesterday I made myself a note to mention the cute little coffee makers they have started using in most motel rooms. They have little disposable baskets with coffee already in them, and they brew only one cup at a time. Also don’t have warmers so you don’t have to worry about leaving them on. You brew directly into the Styrofoam cup you drink out of. So now instead of biodegradable paper filter packs and coffee grounds, we have an additional plastic tray per cup of coffee. Much simpler for motel though and people don’t take the coffee packs with them to use later. (unless they have one of these curious little machines at home.)
Helen’s restaurant is in the same parking lot as our motel and is supposed to have good food. We are going to wander across the parking lot and partake of their fine food some time this evening. We stopped today at Calais at the Maine tourist bureau. We picked up a lot of literature for our trip down Rt. 1 and two very pretty free Maine apples. We asked the nice lady if there was a good diner in town for lunch. She directed us to Karen’s diner, which she said was the most popular. We found it quickly. They had posted that their off season hours were only till 2 p.m. on Mon and Tues. We got there about 1:15 and they took us in. The menu had all sorts of cool things. I ended up with a cup of split pea and ham soup (excellent) and a "Haddock Sandwich" Boy was it good. Vickie ordered Macaroni and cheese with a diner roll. It was quite interesting made with a vegamel sauce laced with cheese. Well it's later and we are off for the restaurant across the parking lot for dinner . (back) Food was pretty good, I had stroganoff and Vickie had a hot pork sandwich with gravy. I brought back a piece of Maine apple pie for later. Rose early this a.m. in time to see the sun rise over the water (a Kodak moment) then proceeded to Helen’s Restaurant once again for breakfast. We got back to our room and the water had risen to within feet of the deck. Going to upload some pictures to share and get ready to go. Headed for Bar Harbor today.
Wes
Monday morning finds us in Bangor Maine at a Holiday Inn. We used a great coupon out of one of those paper travel books you pick up at the State Welcome Centers. (we have saved like 30 or 40 dollars off the normal walk in room rate by using them) Vickie has a great method. She doesn’t show the coupon until after she asks if they have a room. That way they can’t say they don’t have any rooms, and then point to the fine print that says subject to availability. I let Miss Vickie handle all the hotel room negotiations. She is a tough negotiator. I think I mentioned that we stayed at a VERY pricey Comfort Inn in St. Johnsbury VT Saturday night. Well the place just wasn’t up to the standards of the price they charged. I was outside cleaning the car windows and packing up, and the lady at the desk made the mistake of asking Vickie "how was everything?" Vickie, being honest, told her we were quite disappointed and that we had paid half as much for better quality accommodations at severa l other places. Turns out Comfort Inn has a satisfaction guarantee and we ended up getting the room free. This was not our intention but we did feel they really hosed us on the price of the room at the self proclaimed "Taj Mahal!" of Vermont.
We left St. Johnsbury heading East following Rt. 2 and eventually came to the New Hampshire border and Mt. Washington. For those who don’t know, Mt. Washington is like the highest peak in New England and has an auto road to the top built in the late 1800’s. I had been up it years ago on a motorcycle with a friend. I suggested to Vickie we ought to try it. (little did she know I was really talking about driving up a mountain) It was a beautiful sunny clear day, and we got to the entrance pretty early ahead of the crowd. The sign at the entrance said there was a high wind warning at the top, but I decided to go for it anyhow. We headed up the narrow winding road, which is a 12% or better grade for over 8 miles. The road is just barely wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass and there are no guardrails with thousands of foot drop offs. It was really a fun time but Vickie was terrified. We got to the top and lucked up cause 9 out of ten times the top is cloud covered. Because of the high wind, we had several times when the clouds rolled off and we could see the whole vista. It was really amazing watching the clouds go by directly in front of the windshield moving VERY fast. Mt. Washington is the place where the highest wind on the surface of the planet has ever been recorded of 232 miles an hour at –47 ° . Glad it wasn’t yesterday. We got safely down and continued across New Hampshire and Maine to Bangor. The fall foliage just keeps getting better and better. We camped at the above mentioned Holiday Inn and found out the Cole Land Transportation Museum is right next door. So this morning we are off to see that. It is supposed to have the largest collection of snowplowing equipment anywhere and several 50’s tractor-trailers. More later.
Wes
Saturday morning we left Rutland VT in good time, and headed up the road to St. Johnsbury VT. After the "bus people" left the Inn in Rutland, we were able to partake of their fine continental breakfast and carb load for the day. We stopped on the way out of Rutland and topped up the gas. Other than one time I got snookered at a Sunoco station we have not paid more than $2.99 for high-test the whole trip. At the mentioned Sunoco station, they had 4 grades of gas, and they advertised their 91-octane stuff as top grade on the sign. It was advertised for $2.99 but when I pulled up the 93 octane was $3.03. I should have pulled off but we were in the middle of no where and I didn’t know where the next gas would be. Back to today. We had a beautiful trip, about 125 miles through the mountains. We stopped for coffee at a little roadside market and Vickie found a beautiful "Vermont" embroidered hooded fleece sweatshirt for a great price. I got a giant homemade thing like a devils food ca ke except it was maple with that killer white cream stuff in the middle. I ate about a third, and saved it for later to avoid a sugar blowout. Along the way we went through a little town named Williamstown and the high school kids were having a car wash. This was the class of 2010, which made me feel 100 years old. (I graduated in 1967 which is 43 years before them) The car was real dirty after 1000 miles, so I turned back and let them wash it. Made their day, and we made a donation to their cause. After we had ridden a while and everything dried out, we put the roof down and enjoyed the incredible scenery. This country is really remote. There are very few Wally Marts, K-Marts or any Marts. Today I needed some McGuires Quick Detailer, so we stopped at a True Value hardware store, which was the only place that remotely seemed to be a possibility. They had a small automotive section and 1 bottle of what I wanted. It was too early to check into the motel so we stopped and had lunch at Anthony’s Diner that had been mentioned in our Road Trip USA book. Food was great and atmosphere was perfect. Had some New England clam chowder (first time to have it actually in New England) and Egg Salad sandwich on toasted white homemade bread. Sandwich came with homemade potato chips, and everything tasted great. After lunch, we checked into the St. Johnsbury Comfort Inn and Suites, which calls itself "Vermont’s Taj Mahal!" (complete with exclamation point) After we checked in, we used our Quick Detailer to get the car back to pretty. Then we took some cool pictures in front of the fountain with the hundreds of mums in front of the place. If I get time tonight, I’m going to post some pictures from the trip so far. Well by now you have probably gotten an invitation to view our pictures. Don’t know what is involved on your end, but I do know it’s free. We went swimming for a while earlier after finishing the car. Then I came back to the room and worked on editing the pictures. I t was getting late, and Vickie said hey there’s a button on this phone that says pizza delivery. I said go for it, and we ended up with a delivered Hawaiian pizza that was great. Vickie has been busy saving marigold seeds from some interesting white marigolds she found out front. She even taught the young pregnant desk clerk how to save and grow marigold seeds. We are working on our route for tomorrow. We plan to get an early start and perhaps get to the coast of Maine. We have gotten some good travel suggestions from our friends Mary X. and Charlie Russell. The pool opens at 05:00, and we plan to get in some aerobic swimming prior to carb loading at breakfast starting at 06:00. Hopefully we can be on the road as soon as it is light. Oh and just a few comments about the current Taj Mahal. The sign over the front door says #1 Comfort Inn and Suites 2003. Well, it’s been all down hill since then. A bunch of stuff in our room didn’t work and they took care of things, but we had to ask a lot. Latest not so good: dutifully got Vickie up at 05:00 so we could swim before breakfast at 06:00. Went to the Inn front desk for towels and the lady said, "oh the pool doesn’t open till 5:00." I said it’s 5:30, she said no it’s 4:30, I said but the clock in my room said 5:30, she said but it’s 4:30. Note to self—check the clock in the room against the cell phone. Oh well at least we went to bed an hour earlier. Someone had a good joke on us. Did our swimming, and sat in sauna and hot tub. Got to the breakfast that was supposed to start at 06:00, and the lady said she was running behind. We hung around and got some stuff to eat as she toted it out. She reported that for the second day in a row, the waffle makers were not working. All in all this very pricey Comfort Inn was not worth the money. I’ll have to write to Comfort Inn’s and post something on Trip Advisor.com. In any event, we will be on the road as the sun is coming up, hopefully to make it to the Maine coast tonight . More later.
Wes
Hello, it’s Saturday morning, and we’re in Rutland VT. Had a good day yesterday, rode with the roof down most of the day. We stayed late at the Red River Inn utilizing the good Internet connection and cell service to secure reservations for Friday and Saturday night. We don’t normally worry about reservations, but we’ve found Friday and Saturday nights in popular areas can be difficult with out a reservation. We found this to be true as many of the few motels available in New England were down to their last rooms. Last night, Friday, we ended up in Rutland Vt., which worked out perfectly. We didn’t set too aggressive a distance target for yesterday cause we got a late start, and we were driving the Rt. 7 trip we came up here to see. The trip up Rt. 7 lived up to its expectations. The scenery was beautiful and the drive was entertaining. The further North we get, the more the leaves are beginning to show color. I can’t imagine what it must be like at the height of the season. Alm ost every road here is like driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Also, often you are driving through long valleys with mountains on both sides of you. Many of the small New England towns resembled tourist traps, but I guess that’s what they do here. Along the way, we stopped at Kent Falls, a couple of covered bridges, and various other points of interest. The navigator had an easy day, as the route followed 7 the whole way. Last night we easily found the Comfort Inn in Rutland, and landed with no problems. It was interesting though because the whole place was full of older folks on bus trips. They were all wearing tags around their neck, and loaded up on the busses about 6:00 PM headed for somewhere. (dinner probably) We hung around for a while, and I wrote a review of the Red River Inn from last night for Trip Advisor. If you’ve never used it, Trip Advisor.com is a very useful web site. My friend Jerry hooked me up with it, and I now use it a lot and am starting to contribute review s. It is a community of over 17 million travelers that write independent reviews of various places they visit. It can be very useful when considering a visit to a resort, hotel or other establishment. Reading reviews yesterday morning saved us from booking an over priced room at a 3rd rate rundown motel. After hanging for a while, we went to dinner at the Sirloin Saloon just down the road. It was an interesting place with a creative menu. They had something called "Bison Bread" that if you could eat 2 slices of I’d buy you dinner. It was baked in huge loaves about 2 feet in diameter, and weighed about a pound per slice. It was very tasty, but way filling—texture like eating crushed grain. They had a nice salad bar with the dinners, and on it we found an interesting new treat. They are called Wasabi Peas. They look like little yogurt covered mints, but don’t taste that way. They are sort of like way hot little crunchy poppers you can sprinkle on top of salads. They really go good with salad or just by themselves. We looked them up on the Internet, and they are available for purchase from various on-line places. After the cool salad discovery, I had a nice piece of broiled Cod probably my first of many seafood dishes in the next week.
Today we are also going to stay in Vermont. We were headed into Maine, but in order to make it to anywhere we could find a place to stay, we would have had to drive way farther than was comfortable with the speed we can manage on these New England back roads. I commented to Vickie yesterday, the speed limits here are like musical chairs. 30-40-45-30-25-45-50-55-40-55-40-25-etc.etc. and that is all in about 5 miles. Then you never know when there is a local law waiting to get you for 35 in a 25. (have seen many speed traps in little towns) Needless to say our average speed is nothing to write home about. (pardon the pun). So tonight we’ll land in St. Johnsbury VT at another Comfort Inn. Oh and by the way one of the attractions at St. Johnsbury is a 1916 portrait of Abe Lincoln made out of 6,399 dried insects--we'll be looking for that one. Got to get going, we better get to the "Deluxe Continental Breakfast" ahead of the bus crowd or it will probably be like following a heard of locusts. Oops went to get Vickie some coffee and the breakfast room was overflowing with "bus people". The lady who took care of the breakfast was harried beyond belief. She was pouring OJ concentrate into the machine on a stool while the lady in front of me whined at her because there was no decaf coffee. She said, somewhat sharply, "I didn’t know 2 bus loads would all be coming at the same time". I grabbed Vickie a coffee, me a yogurt and we’ll hang in the room a while till the locusts are done. More Later
Wes
Well it’s Friday morning, and I didn’t get to write last night. We ended up driving late again and by the time we got back from dinner it was time to watch a little tube and crash. First thing I wanted to relate was a great story Vickie told me yesterday. It was about when we were checking into the Country Inn and Suites day before. It took quite a while to check in, but I never asked cause I was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, contented. Seems as though when Vickie went in to check in, there was an alarm going off, and the girl was on the phone trying to handle it. She told Vickie she was the only one there so she would have to wait. During the lengthy process, a woman happened to walk down the stairs from the second floor (of three). The girl turned to the lady and nonchalantly said, "There’s not a fire up there is there?" The woman replied she hadn’t seen one, and the girl turned to Vickie and said, "Good that saves me from having to check." Safety first of course but then what about the 3rd floor? If I’m the one trapped in my room on the 3rd floor while this girl asks any old passer buy the status of the fire, I hope the passer buy has at least been on the top floor. (Unlikely since the stairs came from the middle of the 2nd floor and most folks from the 3rd use the elevator or the stairs on the end of the building.) Oh well you get the picture, I was feeling very safe knowing this girl was on the job. Vickie said later when she went to get some change, she could hardly tear the slug away from the TV long enough to accommodate. Back to the trip.
Yesterday morning we utilized the great pool and hot tub at the Inn, and partook of their advertised "Hot Breakfast". Turned out to be quite a spread. We went from Best Western the day before with nothing, to $25 less with indoor pool and breakfast at the Inn. The breakfast was the standard "Continental" fare, but added the ubiquitous make it your self waffles plus some scrambled eggs and sausage patties in a steam pan. The eggs were a little rubbery and the sausage had a curious texture. However, both tasted pretty good, and if you are a big breakfast eater sort of rounded out the all carb fare that the normal "Continental" presents. We departed uneventfully, and traveled across Rt. 209 toward Stroudsburg PA and the Delaware Water Gap. Along the way we stopped in Jim Thorpe PA. This is an interesting little town that changed it’s name from Maul Chunk to Jim Thorpe after collecting nickels weekly from the residents to build a shrine to entomb the remains of the great athlete. Turns out Old Jim never even visited Maul Chunk alive. Very enterprising of the civic leaders to buy a dead athlete and rename the city after him. Leaving Jim Thorpe, we drove over the mountain (literally) and came down into Packerton PA. I saw a sign that said Flagstaff view which looked interesting, so I turned UP. We went straight up for about 3 miles and ended up back on top of the mountain overlooking Jim Thorpe we had just left. As we explored, a very nice lady said "Do you want to see the ballroom and deck?" She led us inside, and began explaining this mountain top, all wood ballroom was built in 1914 and that Jimmie Dorsey and His Orchestra were the house band for many years. She said Frank Sinatra and Teresa Brewer had performed there. The Flagstaff Ballroom was a beautiful old relic with an incredible view of the Lehigh Valley. What a find, glad I turned at the Flagstaff view sign. Later we stopped at a palatial PA visitor’s center near where I-80 and Rt. 209 cross in Strou dsburg. We got the lowdown on all that was to do in the area and headed out. We drove down to see the famous bridge that connects PA to NJ across the Deleware river. We then strolled across the pedestrian bridge to view the river. It was beautiful and the fish were frolicking everywhere. We rode a lot with the roof down, and headed up through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We stopped for a short hike to see Dunwoddie Falls which turned out to be worth the walk. After the park, we looked at our time and decided we could push on a little further, so we set our sights on New Paltz NY. The GPS listed several motels there and it seemed like a reasonable distance. Vickie said something about four colleges being there, but I didn’t think much about that. (1st mistake) Turned out when we got to New Paltz, it was bumper to bumper traffic, and a lot of congestion. I decided the place was too congested for our liking so we pushed on to Poughkeepsie, which listed n umerous motels. Unbeknownst to us (but probably knownst to many), when coming into Poughkeepsie across the FDR Hudson Bridge, you have to take the first right as soon as you cross the bridge cause that’s where every motel in the city is. I’m sure you can see what’s coming---it was the middle of rush hour—a million cars---we didn’t turn---found ourselves on the far side of Poughkeepsie with no motel. Rather than go back through the city, we broke out the laptop, and searched for the next possibility. It looked pretty bleak, but New Milford CT. listed some motels and was on route 7 the route we came to drive. So even though it would put us late, we headed out to there. The drive was very interesting and as we came into town we passed a couple of old motels. We rode on looking for the motel district—well it never came. New Milford has all the normal stuff, Wally Mart, Home Depot, McDonalds, Auto Zone, etc. etc. but surprisingly no motels. I finally stopped and asked a nice Pakistani s hopkeeper if there were any motels anywhere. We sort of did charades and I ascertained there were some back 3 miles past the powerhouse and big flag. Turns out these were the old ones we passed coming into town. We stopped at the first one the Red River Inn and Vickie inquired for a room. She said they had 2 for 2 different prices and she was going to look at them. One was in the "old building" and one was in the "new building". She ended up taking the one in the new building and we proceeded to unload. We are not motel snobs, and have stayed in many a little old strip motels, especially out West. Turns out the reason she took the new building was cause it was the most amazing motel room you’ve ever seen. It made up for all the travails we had been through during the day. It was brand new, and a sort of mini suite with a huge bathroom, main room, and little office with desk for yours truly. It was decorated in sort of "Pakistani Modern" which has to bee seen to be believed. We took a lot of pictures. But what was amazing was the amenities. On the wall was a 45" plasma TV, and there was a stainless ice bucket and a stainless tray with real glass glasses and coasters. We had a refrigerator, microwave, and huge closet. In the bathroom were a selection of herbal soaps and ointments and the bed king size and comfortable beyond belief. We relaxed a while in our suite at the Pakistani Ritz, then headed out for dinner. We ended up at The Cook House that was recommended to me by the owners son. The menu offered up all manner of stuff, but the specialty appeared to be barbecue. In fact according to them it was voted the best barbecue in Connecticut by the NY Times. Somehow when I think barbecue, Connecticut and the NY Times don’t jump readily to mind. Vickie decided to try though, and ordered up ½ a rack of baby backs. I went for the meatloaf which looked interesting. While we were waiting on dinner I had a PERFECT Bloody Mary. I say this because I have sampled house Bloody Marys all over the US and many other places, often to be very disappointed. (especially Applebee’s which I consider to be the all time worst) Also while waiting on dinner we sampled their "Sauces" They had Mild, Hot, Scary, and North Carolina Style. They all tasted pretty good, but I’ve had hotter than their "Scary", labeled Mild in our part of the country. Dinner came, and the food was good—not great, but good. The ribs were nothing to write home about---Pigs Are Us in Martinsville could run them out of business in a month. The meatloaf was interesting---they brought me a piece about the size of a Volkswagen topped with a large wad of horseradish mashed potatoes, with some brown gravy drooled around. The vegetable of the day was a corn-red pepper-onion sauté that was excellent. The service was poor and I left the dolt a $2 tip. (big enough so he would know I didn’t forget, but also small enough to let him know I wasn’t impressed) We went back to the room and plasma screened ourselves to sleep. More Later.
Wes
Well here we are on the road again. How this happened is sort of crazy. Monday morning I was reading my new Auto Week and read an article about an interesting "drive" that followed Route 7 up through Connecticut and Vermont. I walked in the dining room and asked Vickie if she wanted to go to Connecticut. She said, when, and I said tomorrow. Well, we were scheduled to go to my doctor that afternoon, (in Winston-Salem an hour away) to get the stitches out of my knee after my surgery last week. (Arthroscopic, to fix problems that developed after my last hip replacement) I said my knee felt good and if the doctor agreed, I was ready for a road trip cause I was tired of sitting on the couch reading Clive Cussler under the influence of strong drugs. She said ok with trepidation, and we set off for the doctor’s office. Got to the doctor (oh and by the way he’s a car guy) and he agreed that a road trip would be just the medicine I needed. So on the way home we started planning. It seeme d like a million things to do, but we took them one at a time and to make a long story short—ended up on the road late Tuesday afternoon. We drove to South Boston and took Rt. 360 North to Rt. 15 to Farmville, VA. Our GPS told us there was a Comfort Inn on the other side of Farmville exactly the way we were going. We rode past several motels when passing through Farmville and on to the other side where the GPS said we should stop but there was no sign of a motel. I’m not one to back track unless it’s necessary---so we pressed forward. I said "I’m sure there will be something down the road", but there was nothing. Looking at the map Rt. 522 (which we were on at this point) crossed I-64 down the road and I was sure there would be some motels there. Wrong again! Bottom line we ended up driving late (after dark, which is way unusual for us). Finally found probably the last room in Culpepper, VA at a Best Western for way too much money and no continental breakfast. (Us being the experts of the "Continental Breakfast") But I was tired, and several motels in the same area were already full. (What gives with this on a Tuesday in September in Culpepper, VA?) We landed, did our usual unloading routine, and checked out the bar, which also served food. Turned out the bar had really great food. We ordered "She Crab Soup" and 2 spoons along with a steak salad for me and a Caesar salad for Vickie. We also partook of some fine Yungling beverages and some great cheese spread with assorted breadsticks and crackers. The "She Crab Soup" arrived, and it was to die for. Creamy with tender crabmeat, a tomatoey cream sauce, with a hint of sherry. We shared that and soon the salads arrived. Mine was huge with beautiful strip steak slices medium rare, tomatoes, onions, hardboiled eggs, and great dressing. Vickie’s Caesar was exactly to her liking as well. Turned out to be a wonderful surprise at the end of a pretty hectic day. We went back to the room and crashed. In the morning we d id our normal up-coffee-shower-pack-load and vamoose routine. (Oh and by the way for those of you keeping track, this Best Western got the curved shower rod right) We were wondering tonight if the guy who invented the curved shower rod patented it. I hope he did cause every motel chain is copying the idea that started at Holiday Inn Express. We elected to pass up the over priced breakfast at the Best Western and headed down the road a little and found the Culpepper Diner. Had a great breakfast with all the attending local color, gassed up the Vette, and were on our way. We followed Rt. 522 up through the dairy country across West VA, MD, and into PA. At the PA Welcome Center we stopped and picked up an assortment of the ubiquitous motel coupon books and a detailed PA map. Along the way we decided to go topless. Temp was 76° and the day was beautiful. Since we were on the back roads rolling along about 55 ish it was like convertible heaven. Turned out to be a beautiful trip with many picturesque small towns and about a million miles of cows and corn. We ended up landing in Frackville, PA (or so we thought). We did our usual cruise around to find a motel with WiFi so we could get on the Internet in their parking lot and check out places to stay. Couldn’t find an accessible network, so we ended up in the McDonalds parking lot and paid a couple of bucks to get on their network for a 2-hr. hunk. (We decided we needed to join the McDonalds network later, cause they are everywhere, and we can get on from their parking lot). We did some research and finally headed to the Country Inn and Suites one exit down I-81 toward Harrisburg. We had a coupon from "the books" that gave us a good rate and they advertised a heated indoor pool, hot tub, and hot breakfast. We got off on exit 119 from I-81 and could see the inn up on the hill. Turned out to be quite a circuitous route to get to the place, but we are quite happy with the accommodations. While waiting in the parking lot for Vickie to register us I noted a great front plate on a Mercedes in the lot. It said "Latitude and Longitude-----To Boldly Relax Where No Man Has Relaxed Before" (a cross between Jimmy Buffet and Star Trek) We moved in, mixed one up, changed into swimsuits, and headed for the pool. We had a nice session soaking my knee in the hot tub and then doing some water aerobics in the pool that we had all to ourselves. After swimming, we found that there was an Italian restaurant (Di Maggio’s) that delivered to this motel, which is basically in the middle of nowhere. We ordered up some Tortellini Alfredo, Veal Parmigiana with angel hair pasta, bread, 2 salads, and 2 stuffed Cannoli for dessert (a first for Vickie). I waded into my writing, and the food arrived fairly soon—piping hot and delicious. We enjoyed our "room service" and now are planning our route for tomorrow. We plan to head from here through the Delaware Water Gap to Port Jervis, NY and on to somewh ere in Connecticut where we will land for the evening. Now full of great Italian food, and a couple of adult beverages, it’s looking like time to read a little and drift off to road trip dreamland. More later.
Wes
