A Cross-Country Driving Trip in Our Morgan
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The Hendersons A visit to Mel's cousin Janet and her husband Norman |
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A Cross-Country Driving Trip in Our Morgan |
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Monday, July 10 - Yorktown, VA to Annapolis, MD My cousin, Janet has lived in Annapolis for many years - we visited her in 1992 on a trip to the East Coast with our sons. The drive from Yorktown to Annapolis wasn't all that long and the traffic wasn't bad - the Virginia countryside is quite pretty, with tidy farms and green fields. When Norm, Janet's husband got home from work, we loaded into their van, dinghy on trailer in tow, and headed for the creek where they moor their boat, the Wind Song. There was a good, stiff breeze and some fairly respectable waves, so it was a more rigorous sail than normal - we sailed out and around a picturesque lighthouse, then back - we didn't get back until it was dark, so we left the boat without everything stowed properly - Janet said she'd return the next day to take care of things. Tuesday, July 11 - Annapolis, MD Another hot day! Janet took us to the harbor area of Annapolis. We parked the car and walked around a bit - mostly at the Naval Academy. Janet also drove around parts of Annapolis - it is a really pretty setting. However, Tom and I still aren't used to the heat and humidity of the East Coast - we really felt it. It was hot even to the natives - Janet closed up the house early in the morning and turned on the air conditioning.
In the afternoon, we went for another sail, this time with Janet and her son, David. It was a lot tamer than the prior evening - and much cooler on the water than on land. David, who sails for a living, has a wealth of experiences and stories about his adventures here, there and everywhere.
That evening we went to dinner in Annapolis. In the summer, the waterfront area is very lively, even quite late in the evening - the downtown area is not the decayed hulk of so many American cities, which makes it very pleasant. Wednesday, July 12 - Annapolis, MD to Plainview, NY We had decided to stay on Long Island, thinking it might be easier to get into Manhattan. Two years ago, we had stayed in New Rochelle, and getting into the city was a long process. What we hadn't accounted for this time was getting to our hotel - what a drive. We left Janet's and the early part of the drive was fine. Then we got to New Jersey. Ohmygosh was it ever terrible, and the closer we got to NYC, the worse it became. The roads in NJ are terrible - I can't understand what they do with all their taxes (we talked to a man at the restaurant where we had lunch - he told us that taxes on a modest home in NJ ran about $13k a year! Plus income tax and sales tax. Well, we know the money isn't spent on roads.) I really dislike expressways with 'speed bumps'. Then we got to Staten Island, and, although the roads were better, the traffic was terrible. Crossing onto Long Island, we became ensnarled in increasingly heavy traffic. I'm not going to complain about Seattle traffic again! Our hotel (Residence Inn) was quite nice, and after the terrible drive, we didn't feel like going out to dinner (and it was raining), so we ordered in a pizza - it took several attempts, because the person answering the phone didn't speak English - a great frustration - why in the world the owner would put someone who doesn't speak English in charge of taking phone orders is a mystery. Thursday, July 13 - Plainview, NY to Manhattan, NYC We took a cab to the train station and went into NYC - unfortunately, it was a much longer trip that we had expected - even longer than from New Rochelle. We weren't impressed with the mapping and signage in the subway - it isn't done nearly as well as the London Underground. The system is efficient enough, but for a tourist, not very intuitive. We had a real problem trying to figure out the difference between 'uptown' and 'downtown' - to people living in NY it is probably very obvious, but not to us! We spent the morning and early afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I love this place. The collection of American artists is excellent. One of the things that we thought was interesting is next to some really fine paintings we displayed some truly dreadful ones - many museums would probably put them in the attic, but at the Met, they are displayed, so you see the good, the bad and the ugly. They had on Van Gogh which was truly dreadful - a painting of a baby from his Arles days. After looking around the Met for a while, we had lunch there, then strolled around Central Park for a while - it is hard to believe how 'central' this is to the life of Manhattan, considering that in the 1970s it was a wasteland of garbage and crime. It is a wonderful place for families, joggers, nannies with their charges. Our tickets back to Long Island were 'off peak' so we had to catch a train prior to 4:00 pm so we walked to the subway and took it to Penn Station. Once back on Long Island, we took a cab back to the hotel - we had an extremely chatty cabbie - he wanted to make sure that we understood the route out of NYC to get to Pennsylvania - even though we planned to leave on a Saturday, he warned us that the traffic would be bad, especially if the Yankees had a day game. Dinner was home made pasta e fagioli - great standby meal, especially for a kitchen which was somewhat limited - no oven!. Friday, July 14 - Long Island, NY Although we haven't seen but a tiny bit of NY, we couldn't face another train ride into the city, so we decided to explore the island. Neither of us had realized how large this island is. We drove eastward, where the dense population gave way to farm lands, vineyards and wineries. It was a world apart from the city. We stopped at a winery and sampled some of their offerings - nice enough, not great - and they are very 'proud' of their wine - I was surprised at how expensive they were - the least expensive (and least palatable, to my taste) was $19.99. However, they had a quite nice chardonnay, so we each bought a glass and ate our lunch on their deck. Most pleasant. We drove past more farm lands - there are a lot of farm stands selling produce here - I bought some raspberries, the first I've seen that were reasonably priced and fresh. The fruit-vegetable stands are something that we don't see in our area any more, but they are really common in the East - some are merely a few shelves with a couple of zucchini and a few cucumbers, others are elaborate affairs selling the whole gambit of fresh fruit and vegetables, perhaps even flowers and plants. I wish we had more of these where we live, because they are colorful, interesting and usually the produce is much better than in the supermarket.
On the way back to the west part of the island, we stopped at the little village of Port Jefferson - it is very charming - lots of quaint shops, clean and not as crowded as Plainview. After we returned to the hotel, we went down to the pool - it is quite lovely and the water was very refreshing. Then, we cleaned up and had dinner in the hotel restaurant - it was our 33rd wedding anniversary, so worth a bit of a splurge! Saturday, July 15 - Plainview, NY to Gardners, PA Up, packed and loaded by 9 am, we headed out, fearing that we would be caught in Yankees traffic. Surprisingly, we only had a small backup getting onto the George Washington Bridge. Go figure - we'll never be able to second guess the traffic around here. The drive across New Jersey was very pleasant (except for the speed bumps) - much better than the route in. Then we got into Pennsylvania - at first the drive was fine, and the road better, but we noticed that the skies ahead of us were threatening, so we pulled off the interstate to put up the hood. Before we could find a place to stop, it began raining seriously. We pulled into a park, under a tree, put up the hood, and waited out the storm. For an hour we endured thunder, lightening and torrential rains. We actually got a bit worried as we watched the drainage ditches filling and the water coming closer and closer to us - we wondered if we would be able to get out of the park once the rain stopped. At one point we saw a lightening flash, followed immediately by a huge thunder clap - we knew the storm was right over the top of us. Thankfully, the lightening didn't hit the tree we were under (yes, you aren't supposed to hide under a tree in lightening, but there really was no place to go). The storm abated and we proceeded back onto the road. The drive was fine, although we ran into heavy construction traffic, which lasted for about a half hour. Our destination was my cousin Helen's home, near Gettysburg. Her home is an old German style farm house, located off the beaten track in the countryside, surrounded by a beautiful garden. Helen had already begun preparing dinner by the time we arrived - a nice, organic pot roast. Then she started adding things from her garden until the pot was nearly over flowing. Then she started preparing the side dishes. Her friend, Russ arrived and helped in preparation, then her friends Linda and Bob arrived, loaded down with fresh zucchini. Linda prepared zucchini cakes - they looked a lot like crab cakes, and they were really good! What a feast! After dinner, we sat in the living room and talked - about food! Sunday, July 16 - Around PA, including Gettysburg The countryside near Helen's home is beautiful - tidy farms and small villages for the most part. Helen gave us a map with markings for a couple of covered bridges in the area and we headed off. Our ultimate destination was Gettysburg.
We had toured the battlefield at Gettysburg in 1992 with our sons. Since Tom and I knew we'd be coming here, we both read the excellent book "Killer Angels": by Michael Shaara to help us gain an appreciation for this horrendous battle. We joined a guided tour, on a bus, knowing that even with the knowledge we had gained from the book, we would be hard pressed to understand the battlefield.
After the tour and visiting the Visitors' Center, we drove around the countryside a bit more - a-hah! another covered bridge - this one over Tom's Creek.
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