Cork Factory Hotel - Lancaster, PA

 

Up and ready for our promptly served breakfast at the Inn at Watson’s Choice.  We were expecting toast hoping for bagels, we got fruit bowl, omelettes, home made sausages and banana bread.   Our scheduled tour at Falling Waters was at 9:30 and since tours are already booked through the end of the year, late was not an option.  Although I had been there years ago with Son two, Deb had never seen it.  Surprisingly, it is as modern and relevant now as it was 80 years ago, with open spaces and a focus on the surroundings.

On to the Flight 93 Memorial.  After walking the black walkway that defined the path of flight 93, we stopped at flight path lookout, which overlooked the crash site, but it was all somewhat confusing.  So we went to the visitors center which had a timeline of what happened that day with quite a few exhibits.  There was a 1.2 mile long circular walkway that lead eventually to the crash site.  Deb and I talked about what it must of been like on the flight.  You can’t go to the crash site but there is a large boulder that marks it.  After reading the names of those who died, we walked back to the car.  It was not a remorseful visit. Afterwards, I googled the architect, Paul Murdock, to read that this was precisely the way he wanted the memorial to be viewed!

On to our rest stop in Lancaster.  Son one went to college there, and we had always stayed at the Lancaster Arts Hotel, but they insisted on a minimum two night stay, so this time we stayed at the Cork Factory Hotel, another upscale boutique hotel.  Because it was Friday night, I went big time and booked reservations at the fanciest restaurant in town, John J Jeffries.  Well it turns out that the John J Jeffries is the hotel restaurant for the Lancaster Arts Hotel and we ate there many times on college trips.  The dinner was delicious, served with a heaping plate of deja vu!

Inn at Watson’s Choice - Uniontown, PA

This is new travel for us: we have been traveling by RV for seven years.  Our first test of our new car travel life style is to just park on the street in the quaint little town of Warrenton, VA and have lunch at a sidewalk cafe…easy peasy! Although there are many ways to get from here to Uniontown, PA, Deb has requested that we take shortest, straightest route.  Google maps is only showing winding roads to get there but the GPS in the Lexus is showing only straight interstates (of course it would, it’s her car!). 

When we get to the inn, there is a sign at the registration desk that gives the phone number of the innkeeper.  Nancy, the innkeeper, answers the phone and chastises me for not knowing the name of my room (it was on the confirmation e-mail!).  With detailed instructions on where she would meet me, which I vaguely remembered, we headed out to find our room.  This was sort of like an escape room adventure.  As we neared some cabins at one end of the property, a man posing as a landscaper said “no, no, those are not it, you have to go over there.”  Once we got to the pavilion area, a woman posing as a a guest said “Nancy went in that door.”  In exasperation, Nancy appeared and redirected us once again to the correct door which had a combination lock that was encoded in the receipt she gave us along with a key which had fob with a floral pattern that we had to match with door to the room.

A check of é mail revealed that the third destination of our trip, Longwood Gardens, had to close because of an accident with a fuel spill.  During dinner, we made a tactical decision to leave the gardens for another day and instead spend the last night in the Shenendoahs.  We booked the last room at the Big Meadow Lodge while sitting at the table in a wonderful Italian restaurant waiting for our entrees.

Home

Down the dreaded Northeast Corridor, we sidestepped Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC.  All together the trip lasted 46 days and was slightly over 9,500 miles.  We enjoyed every minute of it!

Spruce Run Recreational Area - Clinton, NJ

 According to their web site, there are 7 sites with electricity here, and this is the only park in New Jersey with any hook-ups at all.  This place pretty much splits the trip home into two equal parts.  I bet Deb a nickel that she would want to just keep going and not stop, just to get home…I lost!  There are so many cicadas here, it is deafening (and they land on everything), and the park ranger just informed us that there will severe thunderstorms in about six hours. 

Surry Lane - Pelham, NH

 Arrived in the old family stomping grounds.  It’s been well over a year since we have been here.  The plan is to settle in on the first day, see family on the second, play some cards on the third.  

Executed with perfection!  It was great to see the extended family again…it’s been a long time

We followed it all up with dinner at the Tuscan Kitchen in Salem, it seems that knowing the entire staff has some advantages…thanks Marie and Nan.

Savoy Mountain State Park - Florida, MA

After a short walk on the Hudson River, we departed for Savoy Mountain.  We are back in the part of New England which is more familiar to me.  Our mission today is to make Mac and Cheese for the week-end get together.  There is a local cheese maker just outside of Williamstown.  It is a self-serve, on the honor system place with a chiller full of cheese and a freezer full of meat.  In the corner is a scanner and a credit card reader.  Having purchased the cheese and milk, we head to our campsite for an early afternoon of hiking and cooking.

Tomorrow we head for the family reunion.  We have put together our slideshow of nearly 300 photos, which include my world famous videos of waterfalls in slow motion!

Schodack Island State Park - Castleton-on-Hudson, NY

 We are getting close to Massachusetts.  The plan is to be there for the week-end, so we have slowed our progress to a few hundred miles a day.  It was probably a good idea.  The first half of the drive from the finger lakes region was pretty hilly and since we travel with everything, including the kitchen sink, we tend to take hills very slowly.  We have driven through lots of state capitals and have enjoyed the architecture of the capital buildings.  Albany is no exception,  the capital building is a huge egg.  I was enjoying it so much that I missed my turn and ended up on the road that went directly to an elaborate tunnel under the egg itself.  My GPS just looked at me dumbfounded!  As it turns out the tunnel ends up in a u-turn right back out the other way exactly to where I wanted to be.  I sort of felt like I was the ball on a miniature golf course.

The park is lovely, but almost directly under the New State Thruway bridge over the Hudson,