~Boston, Massachusetts ~

 Today we decided to head into Boston.   We were advised NOT to take the van in.   We drove to the subway station, parked and took the train into downtown Boston.  When we "came up" from underground the view of all the large, old buildings and churches etc...was lovely.   We walked all around taking in the sights. 

 This is the Old State House - just beautiful.

 This is the pub where they filmed the TV show "Cheers"

 A statue of George Washington in beautiful Boston Common.

 We walked all around the park, went over the old suspension bridge, saw the frog pond and the area where they do swan races.  Lovely clean park with many people enjoying it.

 We walked down Newbury street towards Fenway Park.   Lovely bricklock streets with beautiful buildings.   Fancy, schmancy stores and many restaurants.

One of many sidewalk cafes - all so lovely.

~Essex, CT~

We stopped in this cute, very old town in Conneticut. The town was called Essex.    

 The Griswold Inn has been there since 1776 – just amazing!

 We walked down to the wharf where people were fishing for perch as well as these “blue crab” - quite a bit smaller than our dungeness and red rock but apparantly still quite delish!!

 

The view was so lovely and they had a replica of “Mary E” - a schooner that served as a cargo ship, US mail carrier, fishing vessel and rum runner.

~New York City~

 Since it was Sunday we decided to drive into New York City hoping that it would be a little quieter - ahh - NYC quiet - NOT!!  Also the prices for any type of transportation (bus/subway/parking) in NYC were absolutely ridiculous - esp....for 7 of us!   Anyhow....we had some lovely views of the city as we entered over the Brooklyn Bridge as well as some great shots of the famous NY sights.   We drove around for about an hour down VERY narrow alleys at times and between all the yellow cabs honking all around us until we finally found a parking (that the "bus" could actually fit into!) near the New York Public Library and beautiful Bryant Park.   FREE parking on Sunday - yay!   We walked over to the park which had cute little tables and chairs that the public could use, also a lovely green area (where people were lying, doing yoga and relaxing), a few ping pong tables, a reading section with free books, newspapers etc.....for borrowing etc....  We enjoyed our lunch there and then headed for the next 9 hrs to see all the sights!!   We had a GREAT day walking around.   The city was SO loud, there were SO many shops - all huge, restaurants, characters dressed up walking around, sidewalk cafes, protestors - you name it, NYC has it!!!

 This is Times Square.   They have a nice pedestrian only area.

 There are literally hundreds of yellow taxis all over NYC that enjoy honking very much!   Apparently many of them don't even have insurance if they hit you!!  They drive SO fast and get SO close to you it's actually quite scary at times.   This is in front of Madison Square Gardens.

 This is the best we could get of the Statue of Liberty.   The ferry across to see it was SO full, it was getting dark, the ocean was very rough and the prices were very expensive so we took the photo from Battery Park.

 It was hard to get a good photo of the Empire State Building as it was SO high.   There are "ticket sellers" on every corner trying to get you to go up to the observation deck - NO thank you!!!  A tad high!!

 The building on the right is one of 4 new ones the city is building as the new "World Trade Centre".   The black building as massive as it is was a 1/3 of the size of the Twin Towers - just incredible the size of all the buildings in downtown Manhattan.

 This is the site of the 9-11 Memorial.   It has only been open for one year and security is very strict.   We had to get tickets to go and see it (2hrs in advance).  The whole area around where the Twin Towers used to be is SO sad and quite eerie.  We were there on the 9th of September and even we felt a bit nervous and looked up every time we saw a plane flying over us.   The memorial is beautifully done with 2 large pools where the Twin Towers originally stood.  Thirty foot waterfalls cascade into the pools, each then descending into a centre void.   All the victims names are inscribed in bronze around the pools.

 This iron statue used to be in the entrance of the World Trade Centre.   It stood there for 30 years.   After the attacks this is what remained of it.   They had it moved to Battery Park where it is now a memorial.

Statue of Liberty in the background.

~Gateway National Recreational Area - Floyd Bennet Field~

WOW- what a day!   We drove into New York City via Staten Island and then into Brooklyn -  with the trailer!!  YIKES!!  Crazy driving with all the cars, people, shops, narrow roads etc... We found this "rv park" which used to be the original NY airport and now is a National Recreation Area.  Basically we "slept on the runway" but we did have a great waterfront view of Jamaica Bay and only paid $10 a night with our National Park Fee discount - can't beat that!  This is a photo of us all wading in the Atlantic Ocean with Queens in the background.

Jamaica Bay Beach

The boys even had a chance to do the Jnr Ranger Program there - Yay!

Shortly after we arrived this crazy storm rolled in.   The clouds were black and the wind was so strong we could see them moving so quickly in the sky above us - even swirling a lot.  We actually were quite nervous and shut all the vents and windows so we wouldn't lose anything and then we got in the car and drove to the Rec. centre to seek shelter.........and then DOWN the rain came!!!   Apparently a few hours earlier a tornado touched down within 1 mile of this park.

This is a view of our "runway"!!   They even gave us bbq pits.   We met such a lovely family staying next to us who are homeschooling their children too and travelling through the USA as well.   We are hoping to connect with the Lionbarger family again on the east coast. :)

~Fun at the Fair~

     Well.....we didn't make it to the Saanich Fair this year but we did find one in York, PA. We saw an ad in the local paper which had some specials for the day. Entrance fee was only $1 per person and all the rides were $1 each!!!! What a deal!!! We had no idea how big the fair would be............it ended up being about 10 times the size of the Saanich Fair! We had such a great day. We watched an incredible ventriliquist, pig races and a spectacular circus performance – all for free! And.....you all know we love free!!!

     The one thing we find so funny about the USA is the food – everything is fried – fried oreos, fried twinkies, fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fried ice-cream, deep fried green tomato sandwich, – it is SO gross!!! Who eats this stuff??? Also at the fair is all the regular “fair food” - hotdogs, LARGE ham buns, LARGE turkey legs, LARGE curly fries, etc.....And......everyone is eating it!!! The smell at the fair is sickening when you are not used to that type of food. Give me good old Amish food any day!!! We did however find a good deal (really??) on some cotton candy. It was $4 a bag at all the stands except we found in a little corner a man selling his equally delicious cotton candy for just a $1 a bag – another sweet deal to end the day.

~Hershey's Chocolate World~

This morning we went to “Hershey's Chocolate World." We learned a lot about about Milton S. Hershey. What an amazing and extremely generous man he was.

We were able to take this FREE “tour ride” through the factory which explained exactly how the chocolate is made. All very interesting. 

 That is all chocolate behind us – yum!! The smell throughout the factory as well as in the store was incredible. We were given 3 chocolate bites at the end of the tour as well as 2 Hershey kisses – WOW! (Golden's – a big improvement from Ethel M!!!!)

~Lancaster, County, PA~

We had another fantastic day in Amish Country! We spent the entire day going from village to village and going in and out of different Amish stores. Everything is homemade – quilts, food, furniture, meats, cheeses – just amazing. All the stores have samples of everything they sell. We actually were FULL from all we “tested”. We did buy some meats, cheeses, peanut butter schmier, etc....

Some of the towns were actually quite big and there were buggies everywhere.

 This is all the stuff we bought – all for under $30.00. We stopped at such a great Amish farmstand. It was so cheap too. We bought ½ dozen corn, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, 3 x cukes, onion, sweet potatoes and an “orange crisp” watermelon. Then off to “Stoltzfus Meats” where we purchased feta cheese?? (is that a meat?), beef sticks and peanut butter schmier (a delicious spread!) and our last things came from “September Cheese Farm” - a family run operation – parents and 5 kids – we bought Muenster cheese, Farmer's cheese, 3 x cajun cheddar curds and 1 x tomato and basil curds – all DELISH!!

Ok....so who said “camping” had to be hotdogs and hamburgers??? We had such a great dinner with all our purchases – roast beef and gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, beans and spaghetti squash and then our watermelon for dessert – thanks Amish!