Exciting News!

Another trip is in the works!  Our friend David Williams was mentioning last week that he really wanted to do a cruise to the Balkans this coming year.  That's on the bucket list for me, mainly for the stop in St. Petersburg, Russia.  He wanted to do the early one, in April of 2013, because of a really good deal Holland America had going.  I thought I would gather all the info and present it to Marcia as it would change our vacation plans for the next year or two, but when I talked to David on Sunday and found out he already booked, Marcia said that we could too!

So we are booked.  A 14 day Jewels of the Baltic cruise out of Rotterdam, The Netherlands on April 27, 2013.  It happened so fast my head is still spinning!  Now, it's my job to figure out how we are going to pay for this.  We are going to be on a somewhat strict budget for the next 8 months as this is more expensive than the other trip we had in mind.  The airfare alone is awful, but we have a wonderful itinerary:  Copenhagen (the only stop that I've been to before); two stops in Germany; Tallinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Stockholm, Sweden; and Visby, Sweden.  I'll have to see what I can do for a before and after cruise excursion since we will be in The Netherlands.

Now, what can I find to put up for sale on Ebay?  The children have been warned that they are fair game if they sit still too long! 

Days 18/19--Making Our Way Home

On Monday we headed to North Carolina to stay and visit with our friends, Beth and Sandi.  We got there about 330, so had plenty of time to chat, go out to dinner and still get to bed early for the long drive on Tuesday.  We decided to take the 441 route and not go anywhere near Atlanta.  It was a much prettier and less stressful drive.  Everything was going well until we hit Florida and the rains from Debbie started.  We got to I-10 and the traffic was backing up.  They had closed I-10 due to flooding and were rerouting traffic.  That had everything backed up to Lake City.  We sat in traffic for almost 2 hours from I-10 to Lake City.  When we finally got to the Lake City exit and traffic started moving again we saw that there was a big tractor trailer that had flipped in the far right lane and that had been part of the problem.  A mile or so up the road in the other direction there was a very recent accident of two tractor trailers, and they blocked all three lanes, so I'm sure that I75 northbound was blocked for hours.  We were really glad to make it home in one piece and see all of our babies.  Laurel reported that everyone but Beau had been an angel (Beau likes to knock things off the counters) and after Buttons reprimanded me for leaving her, everything was back to normal. 

We had a great time on our vacation (and are still talking to each other!) but are glad to be home, back in our own bed with cats sleeping on our heads.  I'm sure I'll come up with another trip before too long.

Day 17---Celebrating Marcia's Birthday

So today is Marcia's birthday and we are not at home.  I wanted to do something that was a little different that she would really enjoy.  I found a Drive Thru Safari Park not far from where we are staying and only a few miles from Natural Bridge, a spot we were going to visit anyway.

We got there by 930 this morning and were probably about the third car through.  We bought four buckets of food for the animals and off we went.  Here are the pics.  Just to mention:  the animals were a little pushy, camels steal the buckets, the animals that can reach into the windows will REALLY reach into the window after those buckets and we have animal feed all over the inside of the truck.  Oh, and we had a BLAST!

When that part was over, we went to a little (or so I thought) zoo area off to to the side.  Turns out they had a LOT of animals there.  What can be cuter than baby pot bellied pigs?

They had kangaroos (all napping), a variety of birds, two tigers, two servals, several giraffes, including a little bitty one that I couldn't get a picture of, some Galapagos tortoises, and some monkeys, including this little baby that was playing.

We were also able to be there when a baby camel got his bottle.  Turns out his momma spent two days in labor with him and then when he finally got pulled out by the zookeepers, she wouldn't take care of him, so he is being hand raised.  He's a big boy, 6 months old, but the size of an 8 month old.  He saw the keeper coming with the bottle and got all excited.  He sucked it dry in record time.

And Marcia fed the big male giraffe.  He wasn't really interested in the food, but she did get slobbered on for her birthday.  Hope it means good luck!

After almost three hours at the safari park, we headed a few miles up the road to Natural Bridge.  There are all kinds of things included with the ticket, but we just did the bridge and part of the walk.  George Washington surveyed the area in the 1750s and Thomas Jefferson actually owned this area and the surrounding 157 acres--he purchased it for the equivalent of $2.40.

It was quite a pretty walk after we took the shuttle down so we wouldn't have to do the 147 steps.  Unfortunately, it was all an uphill slope.  I made it to the Indian Village on the walk while Marcia stopped at the benches on the other side of the Bridge.  The walk back was downhill and much easier. 

After a break this afternoon, we went to dinner at Cracker Barrel, which is about the only choice around here and is therefore packed, just like last night.  Marcia was thrilled however, as the vegetable of the day was boiled cabbage.  So she claimed to have had the perfect birthday.

Tomorrow we will be on the road for several hours on our way to North Carolina to spend the evening with Beth and Sandi.  Tuesday we do the long slog home and Wednesday, I plan on sleeping most of the day!

Day 16--More Presidential History

Today we continued on down I-81S and stopped in Stauton to visit some Woodrow Wilson historical sites.  The museum was open, we were between tours of his birth home (which was next door), and his library (appointment only) was on the other side of the museum. 

These two pics are of Wilson's recreated study from Princeton.

It was a little museum, kind of superficial in some ways. There was no mention of the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations or of Wilson's stroke.  They did have some interesting info on his family, including his daughters.  One daughter had been a singer and then had left to join an ashram in India.  I thought that was an interesting move for the time.

They also had a recreated trench from WWI that was kind of neat and Wilson's 1919 Pierce Arrow.

It's a really BIG car and they had an interesting history on it after Wilson died.  It had been neglected for years and then finally restored.  The museum had to buy the lanterns for the car off of Ebay in 1996.

For some reason everything around here is packed--all the hotels and all the eating places (and there aren't many).  Apparently there are three or more major events going on this weekend in this little area.

Day 15--More Caverns

After yesterday, we weren't sure if we would do more caverns or not.  However, the Shenandoah Caverns claimed to have an elevator and level walkways.  The elevator part was true, the level walkways part wasn't. It was still a spectacular place, though I don't think Marcia will ever do caverns again.  She's done three on this trip and that's probably enough.  Some really nice formations in this one as well.

It took about an hour and a half to do the tour.  When we were done we ate at the little cafeteria there and moved on to another part of the building which houses an exhibit called "Main Street USA".  This is a collection of store display windows from around the 1950's.  Marcia remembers going into Boston and seeing the windows at Christmas when they were all fixed up.  That's a memory I don't have, but some stores in Europe still have a somewhat similar tradition so I am familiar with it.

 

Then it was back in the car and down the hill just a bit to a big barn like building called "American Celebrations".  This is full of old parade floats from all over.  Little info boards would tell you about the floats, which parades they had been in, which parts had been recycled and used in other floats, and some had buttons you could push that made parts move.  Here are some of my favorites:

And then once again across the street to the "Yellow Barn" (all this was included with the cavern ticket).  They had some old cars and farm equipment there.  Marcia tasted some local wine which she found to be quite good, but didn't buy any as we are already transporting a couple of bottles of wine home and she is worried how they are doing in this heat.

Tomorrow we head south on US 81 a little further and will make another stop or two.

Day 14--On Our Way Home

We left Amish Country a little before 11 am today.   The trip to the Luray Caverns took longer than I expected.  It made for a much longer day than I expected.  We didn't get to the hotel until after 6 and when you added in dinner we didn't get to relax at the hotel until 8pm.  They do have some good British mysteries on TV, so Marcia is very happy.

The Luray Caverns are right off 340N, which runs parallel to the Shenandoah National Park Skyline.  Nice drive because there wasn't much in the way of traffic.  The caverns are magnificent.  We got there just as a tour was getting ready to start.  Unfortunately, it was down a lot of steps and there was a lot of walking involved.  Fortunately the walkways were paved making walking much easier.  It was a little over and hour and I think it was hotter in the caverns than it was up top, and it was also very humid.  Anyway, here are some pics of the formations in the caverns:

 

One more set of caverns tomorrow---one with an elevator and no stairs.  That is the only way Marcia is only doing another one.  At least tomorrow will be a lot less stressful with a lot less driving.

Day 13--Saying Goodbye to Amish Country

No pics today.  This morning we hit the laundrymat again and got all caught up so we will have clean clothes this next week when we are making our way home.

Then we were off to Amish Country.  We tried another "Amish" restaurant and the purpose was mainly to see if Marcia could have her new favorite---chicken corn noodle soup.  They did have it so she was happy.  We then spent the next two hours saying goodbye to Amish country.  We just drove the back roads and absorbed what we could.  We just enjoyed the countryside so much. We saw farmers baling and stacking hay and more scenes of farm life.  The buggies, the laundry hanging outside, the handwritten signs advertising the produce and pies for sale---we are going to miss that.

We did make one stop at an "Old Country Store" because they had a Quilt Museum upstairs and figured we would be remiss if we didn't visit it and report to the church quilting group about it.  They had mainly more contemporary quilts on display, but they were pretty spectacular.  The ones that were for sale were downstairs.  We found some we liked, but at $1000 or so each, they stayed there.  Handmade heirloom quilts and cats just don't mix.

We got to the hotel and started the packing process.  We leave in a few minutes to head to a Lancaster Barnstormer baseball game.  We had fun at the last one.  It is much hotter today (mid to upper 90s) so we'll see how long I last.  We head out in the morning for our stops in Virginia.

Day 12---A Trip Through Time

We were time travelers today. First we went to the Landis Valley Museum. This is a very nice living history museum in Lancaster. We got there in time to take a tour and hear more about the place. Two bachelor brothers who grew up in the area decided to spend most of their time and money collecting things that showed the German heritage of the area and eventually turned it into a small museum. They added more to it as time went on and then gave it to the State of Pennsylvania, which continued to  add to it by bringing in more buildings and buying up more land.  Here are some pics:
The gun workshop (there was a special exhibit in the main museum on the Pennsylvania long rifle):

 
This was in the flax/linen/wool room.  They were having a class on a special kind of painting based on stencils, an artform that had almost died out before the Rockefellers liked it and it became the "in" thing. 

The brothers' house, built in 2 stages and quite comfortable.

Across the way was a reproduction of a country store, set up as if it were around 1902-1910.  Kind of neat to look in and around.





One place that was fun after that was a big barn type room that was full of farm equipment that the brothers had collected.  I get the feeling that this was the first kind of stuff they collected.  Here we have a Conestoga wagon (which was invented in the area) and a couple of early motorized tractors:

That took care of the morning.  After lunch, we headed southwest of Lancaster and headed to Columbia.  We were looking for the National Clock and Watch Museum.  We ended up spending two hours here and I found it to be one of the more interesting museums I've ever visited.  Think about it:  how do you measure time?  How has man measured time in the past?  We saw ancient ways to the most modern ways, learned about clocks and clockmaking in the colonies and United States, learned about how watches became synchronized, how clocks became a status symbol and then became something that everyone could own.  We even saw a special clock that took 20 years to make that  the owners would take by carriage up and down the east coast and people would pay money to see what it would do when it would hit the different times.  The curator explained how it worked and then rang the quarter hours and on the hour for us so we got to see the entire show in about 10 minutes.  They had hands on stuff in the museum as well.  It really was a lot of fun.

Marcia wanted me to mention dinner tonight.  She chose a diner up the road as our stop for the meal.  She was thrilled to find that they had beans and hot dogs in a casserole and she could get coleslaw as a side (as well as pickled beets).  This is Marcia's favorite meal in the world and just topped off her day.  Unfortunately, there was so much food she could only eat half and we couldn't bring the other half back with us. 



DAY 11--A Yummy Day in Lititz

Today turned out to be a day full of yummy discoveries. We headed up to Lititz, a little town about 10 miles north of Lancaster. Our first stop was the Julius Sturgis Bakery.

This little bakery has been there forever. You can do tours now where they let you practice making your own pretzels with what looks like dough, but it is really clay. First you roll it out to about a 12 inch rope, turn it into a U-shape, criss cross your hands and fold the ends over and you end up with a pretzel. The pretzel was invented by priests and monks as a treat for children when they learned their religious lesson. The U-shape represents the prayers going to heaven, the crossed arms represented the way they used to pray, and the three sections of the pretzel represent the Trinity. Mine came out really well and we all got a diploma when we were done with that part.






You then get to see the original ovens and learn about how Sturgis learned how to make hard pretzels instead of the traditional soft pretzels. He used the residual heat from the ovens in the second floor to cook them a second time on a lower temperature. When the tour was over we got a sample of hard pretzels and we bought a soft pretzel (the best I've ever had).

Across the street was a square that was anchored by a Moravian church and related buildings. It also has the oldest girls school in America--back to 1742 if I remember correctly. The school is called Linden Hall Residential School for Girls. The guy at the pretzel factory told us that Bea Arthur used to go there, but got expelled for sneaking booze in by using perfume bottles.


In the truck and down a couple of blocks brought us to Wilbur Chocolate Company. Here you could smell the chocolate in the air.


They were famous for Wilbur Buds which are kind of like unwrapped kisses, but much better. Marcia doesn't remember them, but apparently they were a big deal. Basically now it is just a store, but there is a small museum feel to it as there is a large collection of chocolate memoribilia and molds.


At the back of the store was a section where women were hand-dipping some chocolates. We talked to a woman who was dipping these HUGE dried apricots. Turns out that she is from Tampa. Kind of a funny coincidence.


After a quick lunch we headed back to where we had been in the morning and did a visit at the Lititz Historical Museum. It was a nice little place. Our favorite piece was a very large clock that was made of 50,000 pieces of inlaid wood. It was gorgeous. I can't imagine the work that went into that.

Next, we headed off to Manheim in search of a winery. It's kind of funny looking for a winery in the midst of all the field corn and barley. We found it though and it was a very nice place. We did the tasting of six wines, with the cheese plate with it. Marcia wasn't impressed with the cheeses, but I liked most of them, except for the mushroom and leek cheese (which I did try, but didn't like). The wine, however, was actually very good. We ended up buying two bottles, a white for Marcia and a rose for us to share.

When we were leaving the tasting room, we were met by the family dog, who was waiting by the door and who had her tennis ball and wanted to play. We threw the ball for her for about ten minutes before we headed back to the hotel.

We actually did go out to dinner after all of that, but it's amazing around here: every restaurant we've gone to has been PACKED. We had to wait over half an hour to get a seat at the Olive Garden, on a Monday night.

More fun scheduled for tomorrow.

Day 10--Wolves and a Cloister

Today had a unique combination of events. This morning we visited a wolf sanctuary that is just north of Lancaster. We did get a little lost, but the lady at the gas station knew where it was so we made it in time for the 10am tour. There were enough people that they divided us into three groups and we were in the last group.

The sanctuary has been there for a while and has several packs of wolves and several new arrivals that are still in quarantine that we didn't get to see. Most were rescued from people who thought the pups were cute but had no idea how to raise wolves. We learned all about alphas, feeding, pack life, pups and all kinds of things, including how they do things at the sanctuary. I'll just post some of my favorite pics from the 2 hour tour.











The sanctuary let Marcia in free because she is a veteran, but we ended up spending $85 at the gift shop, so they made it back up. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting the sanctuary and learning about the wolves.

After a quick lunch, we headed to Ephrata to visit the Ephrata Cloister, a religious community that was established in the 1740's. I have an interest in religious utopian communities and this was a very interesting one. Founded by a German fellow and his followers, he had a community of celibate brothers and sisters, as well as married couples who supported the community but who didn't have to live under the rules. It was a very regimented life, involving a lot of praying and worship, a lot of work, and very little sleep and food, and not much in the way of comfort.

This pic shows a "cell" or a room a sister might live in. The bed is a wooden plank that is 18 inches wide, and the pillow is a block of wood. They slept from 9pm to midnight, then got up for a 2 hour church service, then went back to bed from 2am to 5am.


This is the meeting house where the sisters would hold their services.


We got to take a tour of the insides of the women's dormitory and meeting hall and the founders house and had a great guide who was very informative and quite funny. The rest of the tour was self-guided. Nine of the original buildings remain and the rest are recreations, but the location is original, though it would have been farmland at the time. The setting now is absolutely gorgeous and very relaxing. The cloister is owned by the State of Pennsylvania. These other pics are just of some of the other buildings on the grounds.








We then donated heavily at the Museum Shop (books for me) and headed back to Lancaster. We stopped at the Outback for an early dinner because once we got to the hotel I knew there was no way we were going out again. It was a wonderful day, but it was our longest day of touring so far.