Amish Country Visit

Wednesday: (06/12) Granola and banana for breakfast. We prepared to roll and were on the road at 1030. We headed up Highway 95, 495, 83, then 30 to Lancaster Pennsylvania. We stopped in York, PA for lunch at the York Buffet, possibly the best chinese buffet we’ve been fortunate to find on our trip. Lou and Dawn examined the Tanger Outlet Mall in Lancaster while I relaxed. We intended to stay at the Walmart in Lancaster which said we could when we called. When we arrived, there were signs prohibiting overnight parking. We then tried the Cracker Barrel but they didn’t have any RV parking. So we looked for an RV park and decided on the White Oak Campground in Strasburg, PA, a few miles South of Lancaster. Looks like a nice rural park in the middle of Amish Country.
(GPS: 39.944092,-76.140832)

 

Thursday: (06/13) Lou made omelets with grapes for breakfast. We went over to Strasburg to look around. On the way we stopped at a farm that had  homemade ice cream. Nice start. In Strasburg we stopped at a bakery for a snack then visited several antique stores. Just outside town we stopped at another antique store and a really nice market that had everything a regular market had but it something was produced locally like baked goods or jams, that was all they carried. We then went to the Dienner restaurant next to Dutch Haven in Bird-In-Hand. We enjoyed an excellent smorgasbord for a late lunch. After lunch more looking at the shops and antique stores. It seems that most things close at 5pm so we headed home. While we had heavy rain last night today was nice until shortly after we got home.

 

 

Friday: (06/14) We went to breakfast at Dienners Restaurant where we had inner yesterday. Really good Amish breakfast. They eat well.  After breakfast we drove toward New Holland. We stopped for a while to watch an Amish farmer mowing hay with a six horse team. Interesting that the mower had a small gas engine on it powering something  In New Holland we visited several antique shops. No lunch today. We had an early dinner at China One in New Holland. On the way home we stopped at a Mennonite market and picked up a few things. I finally mentioned to Lou that my right foot is bothering me. It has been for the past couple of years. They want me to have it looked at. Unfortunately the nearest Kaiser is 60 miles South around Baltimore. I will probably until we get home. After some searching with Google I suspect it is Morton's neuroma (something like carpal tunnel syndrome of the foot.) Basically damage to the nerves of the foot. Causing a burning sensation and other pain behind the 3 and 4 toes in the ball of the foot. It mostly bothers me when I start to walk somewhere. Generally OK when still or after some distance walking. More recently it bothers me a little when I’m still. If relaxation, a change of shoes and icing helps I’ll wait to see if it gets better.

 

 

Saturday: (06/15) The office provided Father’s Day donuts in the morning. We prepared the RV to roll. We only had to move a few spaces down to another space for our next four days. We had leftovers for breakfast and lunch and I had chili for dinner. I relaxed at home all day. Lou and Dawn were out shopping at flea markets and antique stores all day. The did start there shopping by going to a nearby farm to get a shoofly pie. While there were out, som Amish kids rode up in the horse cart with chairs, tables and lots of baked goods. I got a nice peach pie as well. About 1800 I went over to the bluegrass music jam at the office. When Lou and Dawn got home , they joined me. Lou noticed my right foot was swollen and we had to dash off to urgent care to have it looked at. More may have to be done but definitely lots of time off my feet is needed. We got home about 2315.
(GPS: 39.944437, -76.139825)

 

Sunday: (06/16) Another day of rest. We had pie for breakfast. About noon, Lou made corned beef hash and eggs. I was occupied watching Dalgleish murder mysteries as well as some youtube. Almost all our neighbors left this morning. Weekends over. Lou made zucchini with sausage for dinner.

Monday: (06/17) Leftovers for breakfast. Lou and I were off to the doctor again. I’m trying to get a 2nd opinion on my foot from a podiatrist. It didn’t take long. The place the urgent care referred us to didn’t have any appointments for a couple of weeks so we stopped by another nearby doctor that Google suggested. We got an appointment for Wednesday. We returned home and extended our RV park stay another day. We stopped and did some grocery shopping on the way home. We then picked up Dawn and were off for my Father’s Day lunch at Dienners Restaurant again. Back home,  I settled in to relax and ice my foot and Lou and Dawn were off exploring the stores. Those smorgasbord lunches last I had a ham sandwich for a late dinner.

Tuesday: (06/18) Lou made our breakfast of blueberry sausage with eggs and hash brown potatoes. I relaxed at home all day and Lou and Dawn were off exploring antique stores. I had cottage cheese and fruit for lunch. They were back home by 1700. Lou made tuna stuffed tomatoes for dinner.

Wednesday: (06/19) Up at 0600 to take a quick shower and head off to the podiatrist office. We got to Dr Smith’s office around 0710. We were a bit early for our 0730 appointment. The doctor checked my right foot and confirmed I had Morton’s Neuroma, a swelling of the nerve between my 2nd and 3rd toes. He gave me a steroid shot and a prescription for  naproxen to reduce swelling. Also installed a metcookie in my insole to support my foot off the ball of the foot. We then stopped for breakfast at the Logan City Diner. Then a couple of thrift stores and the post office. We then stopped by a Walmart store and it was time for lunch. We, of course, visited the Dienners Restaurant again. We were back home by 1500. Lou made an apricot cobbler for dinner. They were busy in the evening watching and catching fireflies. 

Thursday: (06/20) Granola for breakfast. We got a new site in the RV park for the next 3 days. It is an Electric/Water only site, no sewer. I dumped our tanks and did a good flushing of the back tank before we moved. The park will be even busier this weekend than last, thus no full hookup sites. When I hooked up I noticed the outlet we were to plug in to was bad. Lou notified the office and before she could return a guy was there working on it. It came on after I flipped the breaker about 6 times. The outlet looked bad as well and the guy replaced the outlet. I just hope the breaker stays on since AC is really needed. Lou and Dawn  were off to do the laundry and I relaxed at home. They also looked at a recycled hobby store and did some shopping. They had lunch at a Weis Market deli. I had hm and cheese cold cuts and hummus with chips for my lunch. Lou made a nice green salad for dinner. Lots of new/different RVs were arriving all day.

 

Friday: (06/21) Up early. Lou and Dawn had breakfast and showered and were off to Philadelphia to a look around. I relaxed at home. My foot is pretty much normal now but I’m letting it rest. I had a chili size for lunch. My exercise for the day was a walk around the campground to dispose of the garbage and take a shower. Later I took a short walk around camp for a stretch at 1900. I prepared some ramen noodles and sausage for my dinner to take with the pill the doctor prescribed. Lou and Dawn were back about 1930 from Philly. We had a lot of rain in the morning and the afternoon was pretty nice.

Saturday: (06/22) Granola for breakfast. A really nice day. Almost no rain and mostly clear skies. We drove to downtown Lancaster to the central market  for a look around. On the way home we stopped at Annie’s Cafe for lunch. Back at the RV park we bought a pie from the Amish vendor that sells in the park on Saturdays. Mostly relaxed the rest of the day. Lou made tuna noodles for dinner.

Cherry Hill RV Park

Saturday: (06/08) Lou and Dawn were out exploring thrift stores around Loral, MD. I relaxed at home all day. Granola and banana for breakfast. Weiner sandwich and soup for lunch. Crawdad corn chowder for dinner. (GPS: 39.027595, -76.946324)

Sunday: (06/09) More of the same. Lou and Dawn did a Costco and Walmart shopping run. I spent the day relaxing. I binged through the 5th season of the Bosch TV show. It was a drizzly / Rainy day. We extended our stay a couple of days. Lou made a nice ham, eggs and potatoes breakfast. I had a wiener sandwich for lunch. For dinner I visited the cafe for a BLT sandwich.

 

Monday: (06/10) Leftovers for breakfast. Lou and Dawn were out all day to the Bethesda Medical Library. I relaxed at home all day. I made some phone calls and other business stuff. I also enjoyed a good afternoon nap which was interrupted by Lou and Dawn’s return. We went to dinner at the China Bistro buffet. In the evening I rode the tractor hayride around the park a few times.

Tuesday: (06/11) Granola and diced apple for breakfast. Lou and Dawn headed off to the US Medical Museum in Bethesda. They dropped me off at the RV Park bus station and I caught the bus to the College Park light rail station. I caught the yellow train and got off at the Prince George station and walked to the West Hyattsville station. Then I got on another yellow train and headed to the Crystal City station where I got some lunch then walked to the Pentagon and looked at the9/11 memorial there then caught a blue train from the Pentagon station to Largo Town Center. Then I returned to the L'Enfant station and caught a Green Train toward home. Lou called me on the train and I got off a few stops early at the Fort Totten station and walked to the Walmart where she and Dawn were shopping. My lunch in Crystal City was a nice beef lasagna and a cafeteria in the Small Shops there by the station. We had chicken and leftovers for dinner.

Time For A Change

Friday: (06/07) Leftover spaghetti for breakfast. I called Camping World in Thornburg, VA (Fredericksburg) and made an appointment to get the oil changed. We prepared to rol and were on the road by 1000. We arrived at CW at about 1150 and filled the LPG tank. It worked this time. It didn’t fill last time at the RV park in Williamsburg. I was prepared to have it repaired hre at CW if it didn’t fill this time. Our service appointment was at 1330 so we had leftover soup for lunch then Dawn and Lou headed off shopping. I got the RV in at 1300 and they finished at 1400. I had walked around looking at RV’s and the store before settling in at the lounge for a nap. They had really comfortable recliners. We got back on the road about 1430. We had some rain today as we left the RV park and showers on up from Thornburg. Traffic really got bad near Washington and was stop and go for our last 40 miles. We got a spot at Cherry Hill RV Park in College Park, MD. We’ll be here for a couple of days while Dawn explores a library in Bethesda. We had dinner at the park cafe. I have another cold so I’m relaxing tonight. (GPS: 39.027595, -76.946324)

Hershey "Tour"

Thursday: (05/09) We had a slow morning. We left Cabela’s and went over to the Cracker Barrel restaurant for breakfast. After breakfast , while Lou and Dawn were looking around the CB store, I walked across the street to an RV and Boat dealer to see what they had in RV accessories. We are looking into moving our toothbrushes to the kitchen sink from the bathroom and need a holder. Nothing found. It was an interesting boat store because they had three boats floating in a pool in the showroom. We then went to Walmart for a couple of things before then going back to Cabela’s for another look around. I finished early so i took the RV over to a nearby landscape supplier  to fill our LPG tank. We finally hit the road near noon. We visited the Hershey Chocolate “factory” for a tour since we were nearby. Unfortunately they no longer have a real tour. It’s more like a Disneyland ride with animatronics and fake displays.  We had leftovers for lunch before going inside. Our tour of the Oakdale, California Hershey factory was ever so much better. Luckily we did that several years ago before they move it to Mexico. We then took I81 South stopping for the night at a Cracker Barrel in Martinburg, WV about 1915. Just a few sprinklers earlier in the day.

 

New York Exploration

Monday: (04/29) We prepared to roll. After breakfast, we checked out and got onto Highway I95. We had to divert onto surface roads through Baltimore to avoid a tunnel where LPG tanks are prohibited. Eventually we got back to I95 past the tunnel. We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel restaurant near the delaware state line. We took the New Jersey Turnpike most of the rest of the way. Our bill at  the exit was $42, Wow! We arrived at our new home, the Liberty Harbor RV Park in Jersey City about 1500. We relaxed the rest of the day. Lou made gnocchi for dinner.

Tuesday: (04/30) Granola and diced apple for breakfast. Lou decided to rest today so Dawn and I were off by ourselves. We walked over to the PATH train station and rode the train to the World Trade Center station. We looked around the memorial site and shared some pizza bread for lunch. It turns out I bought the wrong transit passes. The Translink cards I bought for Dawn and I are not good for New York’s MTA. We needed Metro cards that would have worked for PATH. I tried using several vending machines to get the correct cards and all went through many screens and ended up telling me they couldn't issue the cards. I tried both my usual credit card and my ATM card, all the same. Finally, I tried a different credit card and it finally worked. With our new Metro Cards we were able to finally catch the subway train uptown. We visited the Jewish Braille Institute where Dawn has an account to audio books and she had problems with the account. The librarian was able to get everything working. We walked the streets nearby including walking past the Empire State Building. We then caught a train back to the WTC for dinner before catching the train back to jersey City where our RV park is located.

 

 WTC One on the left. Empire State Building on the right.

 

 WTC Memorial

 

 The survivor tree that fell with the WTC tower and stayed alive. Our lunch from Eataly restaurant.

 

Old wooden escalator on the 7th floor of Macy's. And on the right one of the many street flower planters.

Wednesday: (05/01) Leftovers for breakfast. We weren’t in a hurry today. About 1000 we walked off to the PATH train station and headed over to the World Trade Center. Lou hadn’t seen it so we showed her the memorial pools, the view of the Statue Of Liberty and such. About 1130, we had lunch at the Eataly market again. After lunch we caught the train up to the New York City Library near Grand Central Station. Interesting place, beautiful building. We got to see all the original stuffed animals that the Winnie The Pooh stories are based on. About 1700 we left the library and went to a nearby Panera Bread restaurant for dinner. We then caught a train toward home. We manage to go past our station and had to return to the WTC station, We caught a PATH train, but it was the wrong one and didn’t stop at our station so we got off a station earlier and planned to take the Light Rail train to our neighborhood. We caught a train and we missed our stop. Either it passed by our station, we didn’t hear the announcement or the name announced was the proper name? We caught a return train and the doors closed before we could get to the door to get off. So, we got off a taion past ours the other direction. We walked back home from there. Enough fun. We were home about 2100. The day was colder with occasional mist.

 

 Eataly market and Library reading room.

 

 Liberty Harbor Marina and lobby of NYC Library.

 

 NYC Main Library.

The Winnie The Pooh inspirational stuffed toys.

Thursday: (05/02) Lou made bacon and eggs with fried potatoes for breakfast.  We headed to to lunch in uptown Manhattan about 1100. We caught the light rail train about two blocks from our RV park. It took us across Jersey City where we caught a PATH train into New York to the 23rd Street station. It was only a couple of blocks from there to the Eataly where we met our friends Egino, Annette and their daughter Joana. Lou used to be the daughters teachers aide. The restaurant is across from the Flatiron building, the odd triangular building at 5th and 23rd street. After lunch we caught the train home for a short day. Lou takes care of me when I’m sick. Back home we took the jeep back to the post office and picked up our mail package. We had peaches and cottage cheese for dinner and Lou and Dawn kept my hot toddy glass full.

 

 Flatiron Building on left, Lou, Joana, Egino, and Anette at our lunch at Eataly.

 

 Madison Square Park.

 

Interesting to look over a Home Depot in the city.

Friday: (05/03) Lou and I headed off to our closest Walmart in Bayonne, NJ, about 5.5 miles away. We did our grocery shopping and got drinking water. In our RV, we used filtered water for cooking and drinking. We carry 10 gallons. We usually refill the bottles in Walmart or other vending machines. This Walmart had no refill machine and we haven’t seen any so we got new bottles. Seems like they would have lots of machines available because the water here is lousy. We returned with our supplies and had breakfast of leftovers. We then drove to the other side of the water inlet here at the marina to Liberty State Park. We caught the ferry over to Ellis Island and then to the Statue Of Liberty. We caught the 1240 ferry out and returned on the next to the last ferry at 1640, nowhere near enough time to see things. Since my cold is worst, I’ll be staying hoe tomorrow while Lou and Dawn return to the islands again for more looking. We had lunch on Ellis Island in the cafe. On the way home Lou stopped to pick up my dinner, some hot and sour soup which I use medicinally when I have a cold. A misty foggy cool day.

 

 The old railroad station near Ellis Island. A back view of the statue.

 

 The Statue Of Liberty and view of the cities.

 

 Ellis Island entrance station.

Nice to see my family fort.

Saturday: (05/04) Soft boiled eggs for breakfast. Lou and Dawn were off to the islands again. Lou wanted be to take the day off at home. So I relaxed and uploaded photos to the blog, a long delayed task. I had leftover casserole and hot and sour soup for lunch.

 

Our campsite here at Liberty Harbor RV Park and the moving boat crane.

Lou and Dawn spent the day at Ellis Island. Lots of displays to read and rooms to see. Their lunch was at the cafe, immigrants lunch. Leftover casserole and asparagus for dinner.


Sunday: (05/05) We had heavy rain all day. We also decided to spend the day at home. My cold is mostly gone now. Lou made a nice sausage hash and eggs for breakfast. We relaxed and watched TV much of the day. We started the recent season of Bosch on Amazon. Leftover casserole with asparagus for lunch. After we finally took showers during a lull in the storm, I dumped the RV tanks while Lou did the wash. About 1900 we dashed off to the Zeppelin Hall Beer Garden about 4 blocks away. We drove over due to the rain. I had a great roast beef nacho and Lou and Dawn shared some BBQ meats. We had plenty of leftovers. I admit I’ve never had a German nacho before. It was only today on Cinco De Mayo. We have extended our stay here another two days.

Monday: (05/06) Leftovers for breakfast. We caught the light rail train to Newport Station to catch the PATH train into New York to the 33rd Street Station then the #1 NY Subway trail to 66th Street. A short walk to Our Destination the American Folk Art Museum. However we decide to have lunch first. Lou and Dane got coffee, Lou bought a gyro from a street truck, I got Pizza at a shop, and Dawn got an eggplant roll. Then we returned to the museum to discover they are closed don Monday’s. We then took a walk in Central Park and the nearby area. About 1630 we started our return trip home. We still don’t get back until about 1830. Nicely crowded trains during the rush hour. Lou made Chili baked potatoes for dinner.

 

 

Tuesday: (05/07) Granola and banana for breakfast. We were off for our last day in New York. We caught the PATH train to the WTC and visited the Farmers Market in the Oculus at the WTC. We then caught the “C” train to Brooklyn. We walked around the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. We had lunch at the Peas and Pickles Market/Deli. We then walked downtown to the Fulton Mall. We then caught the “F” train out to Coney Island. We walked the boardwalk and looked around the area. Most everything was closed but a movie crew seemed to be setting up to film at several locations. We had dinner at Applebees before catching the “F” and “R” trains back to the WTC and home on PATH arrived around 2130. When we arrived in Jersey City and came out of the subway we found it raining. The rest of the day was perfect.