(Minor) setback after (minor) setback

The nights are definitely getting cooler as our constant refilling of our propane bottles will testify.  Definitely time to continue moving south.  Leaving Pennsylvania for the second to last time (we’ll be back at Christmas) we headed to Delaware. 

Hate to imagine the size of the pills that
would be dispensed out of a bag this size

Our plan for the first day was to travel until we stopped.  We saw a couple of intriguing items along the way including this oversized doctor’s bag and this scary skull silo at Frightland.  Would have been keen to see this attraction at night time – it’s along the lines of the Headless Horseman that we went to in New York but since we had just been to the Headless Horseman in New York decided against another frightening (I use the term loosely) so soon. 

Skull silo came complete with glowing red eyes

We also saw this steampunk treehouse at the Dogfish Brewery.  Looks pretty cool even if they don’t allow people up in it.  Good thing there’s plenty more fun things in this country to satisfy our inner child.  Now, before you read this next sentence, make sure you’re sitting down and don’t have a drink in your hand.  We went inside the Brewery for a tour (complete with free samples) – the tours were finished for the day so we left … without having a drink!!!   The queue at the bar was 4 deep – and it was a huge bar – and the noise levels were higher than 10 school buses of screaming children.  Some days you can yell and scream and elbow your way to front with the best of them, other days you just need a quiet place to sup your brew and contemplate and I guess today was one of those days.  True story.

Pretty cool tree house huh?

Had a bit of an issue when we parked up for the night when the bunk room slide wouldn’t extend out fully.  Too dark (sun goes down around 5pm at the moment) to do anything that night so lucky Sue got to sleep in the bunk cave that night.  In the morning light Sue drew the short straw to crawl underneath to try and figure out what’s wrong.  Just at that moment a random stranger (Chris) pulled up next to us to see if we needed a hand.  Never one to turn down a helping hand even if his knowledge of RV’s was about the same as ours.  Between the 3 of us we worked out what the problem was and fixed it. 

With that little issue out of the way, it was full steam ahead to Laurel in Maryland where we were planning to meet up with our Pennsylvania friends, Sue & Jim to watch their daughter Lily skate in a synchronised skating competition.  We were going great guns time wise until we got to the Bay Bridge.  Some walkers/runners decided this particular Sunday would be a great day to have one of the two bridges closed off to vehicular traffic for some event.  Crazy people.  Took us over half an hour to get to and cross the bridge – should have taken less than 10 minutes.

Wye Mills?  ... we know why

We still had a bit of time up our sleeves so weren’t stressing too much as we made our way to the campground that was to be our base for exploring Washington DC and Baltimore.  Halfway to backing our RV into the site when we discovered the pick up had a flat tyre.  Bloody hell!  It’s like the travel gods are trying to tell us something.  It was our first flat in the pick up so not overly familiar with where everything is and how it works.  Had just figured out how to get the spare out from underneath (Sue drew the short straw again) when help arrived in the form of Travis who knew F250’s well.  Shame his name wasn’t Chris as previous random helpers have had that moniker and that really would have us taking the whole St Christopher thing seriously.

We made the skating with a couple of minutes to spare … only to find they were running 10 minutes behind schedule.  Could have had that bathroom stop after all …

No further problems ensued and the next day we located a Ford service centre.  Booked in for a service and to fix the flat for Thursday (3 days hence) and, as it was a beautiful day, decided to head back into Delaware and take the scenic drive along the Atlantic Coast that we didn’t have time for the previous day with the RV problems.  Barely an hour up the road when the Ford service centre called to say they can fit us in tomorrow.  Yay!  The travel gods are smiling on us once again.  Of course they wanted us to bring the pick up in that afternoon and by 4.30 if we wanted a ride back to the campground which put a bit of pressure on us for our return journey.  I won’t say that we broke any speed limits heading back into Maryland but lets just say that traffic was flowing nice and quick and we just flowed nice and quick along with it and got our ride back to the campground.

Back to the fun stuff.  Took the Metro into Washington DC for a day of touristing.  Was planning on taking the tourist trolley but several roads blocked off due to either Veterans Day celebrations and/or free concert that night so we decided to hit the Smithsonian.  Our first museum was the Air and Space Museum and that is as far as we got … for the rest of the day.  Good thing we are here for a week.  While we had seen a lot of the air travel history at other museums, the space travel was just fascinating.  As much as the idea of space travel appeals though … nah. 

Skylab - the complete version for you Aussies
that had one rain down on you back in 1979

Space Race be blowed - Buck Rogers got there first

Definitely an oops moment or, for you Kiwis, a minties moment.
This $100,000 tool bag went floating off into space - it could
even be seen from Earth for a while through a telescope

We may not ever get into space but we can eat the food
of astronauts - Freeze Dried Ice Cream - apparently a favourite
of our cosmic travelers

No problems with the trolleys running the next day.  Think of any famous Washington DC landmark and, chances are, we went past it today. 

Smithsonian Castle ... yes, of the Institute fame

Washington Monument

Stopped off at Arlington National Cemetery for an hour or so.  Very sobering place.  There’s an average of 27 burials a day there – we saw 4 during the time we were there and we were only in a small part of the cemetery.  There is a changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that we were fortunate to arrive in time to observe.

Sad that people need to be reminded of cemetery etiquette

Tomb of the unknown soldier, has a 24 hour guard posted

We also had a wander around the Lincoln Memorial and Korean Veterans Memorial.  A bit too much of a breeze in an otherwise glorious day to get a decent reflection of the Washington Memorial in the Reflecting Pool and can’t see us getting there at the crack of dawn for the optimum photo either.  Yeah, I know, no dedication.

Korean Veterans Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Chilean Embassy

White House

  

Just to show we got off the trolley at least once 

Love DC.  Does it show?

Jersey girls

 

But before we could start belting out the tunes we had a couple of stops in Pennsylvania.  After driving through the very scenic Delaware Water Gap we arrived at the Columcille Megalith Park in Bangor.  The wha-wha-what park I hear you say.  Columc … never mind.  It’s a sort of Stonehenge in the forest where you wander through the woods arriving at massive stones and meditate on your life’s journey.  We did the wander, we arrived at some massive stones but were too busy taking photographs to meditate.  Maybe another day.

Sue taking a break from all that meditation

From Bangor we headed to Doylestown where we just made the last tour

of Fonthill Castle.  It’s an amazing place fully made of concrete by Henry Mercer starting in 1908 and finished in 1912.  The concrete exterior may not endear a person to a structure but the design more than makes up for it.  The interior has nooks and crannies galore with rooms going off in all directions and is full to the brim with hand-made tiles from the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, old archaeological pieces and his 6,000 books.  It just begs to be photographed and shared but no photos allowed. 

Next morning we visited the Mercer Museum established by the same man. 

 

Back in 1907 Henry could see how industry and mechanisation was going to change the world so he began to amass tools of the trade, both domestic and industrial, before they disappeared forever.  The way it was all presented was pretty unique too.

Mercer Museum - also made out of concrete

Not content to have room after room of displays, Mercer also
hung items from balconies and even affixed items to the ceiling - 7 storeys up

 

After a quick lunch we headed to the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works.  This was also established by Henry Mercer who rued the lack of originality in design and again, was built fully out of concrete.  His original wooden pottery did burn down which was behind his reasoning for building these structures out of concrete.  He liked his tiles to tell stories and based them on old medieval tales.  Today the county runs the Pottery and they still hand make the tiles using the original equipment.  The only difference is that the kiln is run by gas and electricity these days instead of coal.  Plus you can take photos.  Needless to say, Doylestown goes down as one of our favourite destinations.

Funky looking Pottery & Tile Works - still in use today
 

Tiles in the museum made at the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works

Our first destination in New Jersey was a tavern.  Not used as a liquor outlet anymore (shame) but as a historical building.  It was built in 1756 and during the Revolution the upper storey was used as a hospital.  On our way to Atlantic City we saw this dinky looking Victorian house.  Legend has it that there used to be a chair on top (we’ve seen photos) and that a sea Captains wife used it as a widow’s walk and would sit on the chair to watch for her husband.  I think the person who made up that story used to visit the aforesaid tavern a bit back when they sold alcohol but, who really knows.  It’s a cute story.

Room enough at the top for exactly one chair

Next destination was the tourist mecca of Atlantic City.  The boardwalk seemed to run for miles – we walked most of them.  Casinos, food outlets, souvenir stores, sideshow rides and hawkers abound.  We were able to resist everything but the food.  Plus the rides are closed now for the season. 

Boardwalk at Atlantic City, New Jersey

Harry's & Ballys along the boardwalk

From Atlantic City we followed the coast down to Cape May.  Stopped in Wildwood and Wildwood Crest to see signs of Doo Wop Architecture.  We did find some of the signs but it was getting dark.  Now that Daylight Savings has ended the sun is going down around 5pm.  That should be an indication to us to change how we plan our days but, no doubt, we’ll still have 2 hour lunch hours as often as we feel like it.  Back to the Doo Wop – it’s buildings, predominantly motels, and signage from the 1950’s and 1960’s.  A lot of it is disappearing fast as developers tear them down and put up high rises.  It's the nature of the world now but that doesn’t mean we have to be happy about it.

At Cape May we were hoping to attend a haunted dinner show.  Unfortunately for us the dinner theatre wasn’t showing that night … but there was a band … playing country music …  Apologies to country aficionados but we’re not so we didn’t stay.  We did enjoy a beer and a chat with the bartender though.

Interactive Halloween decorations outside Elaine's almost made up
for not having the haunted dinner theatre

Did a day trip into Philadelphia.  Found a unique museum at the Philadelphia College of Physicians called Mutter Museum.  It’s only a small museum but jam packed full of medical curiosities and oddities. We were well entertained viewing exhibits of body parts, malformed foetuses, skeletons, a section of Einstein’s brain, limbs affected by gangrene and the like … then we stopped for lunch.  A very interesting place and probably lucky for you that they didn’t allow photographs as only the grossest would have been posted.

Jean at the Liberty Bell

Found the streets of Philadelphia a bit too frenetic for our liking, some too narrow, parking too sparse or too expensive so, after checking out the

Liberty Bell, headed out of town in the direction of Princeton Junction and Grover’s Mill.  Any fans of the original radio broadcast of War of Worlds will recognise that name and its significance.  Youngsters such as ourselves who only know Jeff Wayne’s Musical version or the movie in recent times needed to be educated.  In the radio drama, Grover’s Mill was wiped out by the Martians.  In reality, of course, it was business as usual in Grover’s Mill but some panicked person took potshots at the water tower beside the mill of Grover’s Mill thinking it was a real Martian.  So have to get a copy of the radio broadcast and listen to it late at night with the lights off.

Admit it.  If you were in Grover's Mill listening to the radio
broadcast you would have shot at this too

Cool mural at the Grover's Mill Coffee House - it even features the water
tower that got shot at (great coffee too)

Spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the towns of Lambertville and New Hope before heading back to our favourite town in Pennsylvania, Hershey, to gatecrash a birthday party.  Once again, Sue & Jim, thank you so much for your hospitality and so lovely to meet your family Sue.

Because there are never enough photos with us having drinks
(and because neither of us got our cameras out in Hershey)

 

New York, New York

Had a couple of days down time trying to sort out a water pressure problem.  That’s one of the hardest things when you are on the road and moving all the time – staying still long enough to get the minor problems sorted.  We are in New York for a week though and managed to get hold of a mobile service.  Shouldn’t have taken two days to diagnose though but we’re sorted now.

Light Dispelling Darkness fountain - the good guys are carved around the
column chasing away the evil-doers out on the limbs

 Did a day trip to the northeast corner of New Jersey to find ourselves some weird and wonderful.  Discovered the Light Dispelling Darkness fountain in Edison.  This was a WPA project done during the Depression and it helped that the creator was also the WPA director so his design was never going to get rejected.  It’s not your usual fountain but depicts good triumphing over evil in a graphic, allegorical manner.  It’s presently being restored which meant we could get up close and personal with the evil dudes.

 

Evil is represented by the Four Horses of the Apocalypse along
with the added extras of Greed and Materialism

 

Keeping with the Halloween theme (quite relevant really given this is October 31) we did a drive by of the house that was the inspiration for The Addams Family.  The addition of the deck reduces the creepiness but I’m sure makes it more comfortable for the present inhabitants.  I was humming the theme tune the rest of the day. 

Look familiar?  I'll have to re-watch the
programme now to see if it's really so

Our last stop in New Jersey was the Morris Museum in Morristown.  It houses the Guinness Collection of Automata and we arrived in time for some of the automata to be demonstrated.  Quite amazing.  Some of these machines are over 100 years old and still in good working order.  Advances in technology at the time turned them from luxury items for the wealthy to popular play things of the hoi polloi.  The museum had other interesting exhibits although it was definitely the automata that was the main attraction for me. 

This one still belts out the tunes loud and clear 100 years later

The dude on the left moves arms, legs and head and writes in his book;
the dude on the right does a one-armed handstand on the top of the ladder

This one?  Well, she just smiles and waves her hand

Couldn't be a New Zealand blog without sheep in it somewhere
- these ones are life-sized and made out of paper

An alternate use for a Webster's dictionary

We had initially planned another couple of stops in this corner of New Jersey but we spent so much time at the museum we missed their opening hours.  C’est la vie.  Fortunately we were far enough west of New York City to avoid the worst of rush hour traffic and had a smooth run back to the campground.  Saw a grand total of two kids dressed up trick or treating on our drive back.  Guess there’s not too much call for it on the Interstate.  It was a bit late for the wee munchkins to come calling when we did get back to camp.  Yay, we get to eat the candy!

Took a day trip down to Coney Island in Brooklyn, a place that featured in many a book we’d read about over the years.  There was a 50% chance of rain, we hummed and hah-ed and decided to book the tour anyway.  Yeah, we got the 50% and then some.  Not surprisingly, we were the only ones on the tour this morning.  Our guide, Kim, thought it was fantastic that we still showed.  He is so enthusiastic about his adopted playground of Coney Island and just loves sharing stories about the place.  Coney Island took a hammering in Hurricane Sandy and the recovery over the past couple of years has been phenomenal.  Interestingly enough, the old rides came through pretty much unscathed.  All in all we had a great time in spite of the weather gods doing their darndest to have us sit in a pub all day.

Nathan's Famous Hotdogs and starting point of our walking tour
on a cold, wet, windy day

Carnival posters

Wonder Wheel

Parachute Drop

Mmmmm, coconut dipped marshmallow

Still smiling after a couple of hours walking in the rain -
Sue & Jean with tour guide Kim



Which leads me to our next destination … a pub.  Not just a pub but The Australian – a little bit of Down Under in Manhattan.  It also helps that they are sports mad and have a TV every few feet and were playing the All Blacks v Eagles live.  We’ve noticed that the further east we’ve come, the more the Americans have heard of rugby.  Some even know about cricket but they are usually of Indian extraction so not sure if that really counts, India being a huge cricket country.  Back to the game.  The pub filled up pretty quickly with the smart people reserving tables days ago.  We found a good spot to stand with good views of several televisions then got lucky when a party of 4 who’d reserved a table didn’t show, so our small group that was now 5 were offered it.  Great game, great afternoon with new friends.  Lovely to meet you John, Cathy & Bob.

Sue & Jean with new friends Cathy, Bob & John

Grand Central Station with the Chrysler Building in the background

Caught the train into the city again the next morning to check out the New York Marathon.  Met up with Cathy who, after a welcome cup of tea, showed us around her backyard – Central Park - before we stopped to watch the marathon.  Cheered on as many Kiwis and Aussies that we could spot before succumbing to the cold and taking refuge in Trump Tower for a hot cup of coffee (see, it’s not all about alcohol).

Central Park

Some of the 50,000-odd people in the marathon

We even saw Superman out running

Headed north once we’d defrosted to check out the Headless Horseman (keeping with the Halloween theme).  What a fun place.  Quite pricey to get in but it’s so well done.  Security was a bit over the top we thought but apart from my camera (no photography allowed) we were sweet – no cigarettes, no lighters, no weapons.  First up was the witching hour hayride followed by several themed haunted houses and a corn maze.  All the while creepy characters are jumping out at you doing their best to make you scream.  No luck with the Mills Sisters but lots of teenage girls and boys obliging them.

 

And that was New York … for now … we’ll be back at New Years