Tryin' to reason with hurricane season - Part 2

Well, last night was certainly more than was predicted in terms of wind and weather. There are hundreds of thousands of people without power in the Ohio valley region. Indianapolis got hammered (which is on our route to SD). Chicago got 10 inches of rain. Anyway, the talking heads on the news are suggesting that obtaining gasoline is going to be problematic due to lack of power to run the gas stations. We're going to stay here for a day and let things out there settle down. When you have a small gas tank, the ability to get gasoline frequently is of paramount importance. So, the park has power, they lost a satellite dish so cable is not so great, but we can do laundry and go for a brisk walk. But the aircard is working well here, so we'll recap the recent travels. This is from the old Air and Space Museum. It's been updated with many more planes and descriptive text. I like this one because in one frame we see Lindberg's plane, Yeager's plane that broke the sound barrier, and Paul Allen's attempt at a space going plane. 

After the time spent in Washington DC we went up to the Newburg KOA to meet up with the Waddles. We spent one day in the Hudson Valley touring the Vanderbilt mansion, FDR's house and Mrs. Roosevelt's house. The Vanderbilt mansion was not as ornate or large as the Biltmore, but it was pretty impressive. The guide told us a lot about Mrs. Astor, the Social Register, how where you ranked decided which guest bedroom you got and all of that. Sounds like a lot or people took themselves very seriously. The Vanderbilt mansion had a pavilion for single men to bunk in outside of the main house. They will not allow you to take pictures inside which was disappointing. It was one of the last of the Gilded Age, which I learned was ended by the imposition of a federal income tax by FDR to pay for the New Deal. At FDR's house we learned a lot about FDR and how he basically saved the planet. He has his critics, some of his programs didn't work out, but he did restore faith in the government and he planted trees. Controlling the dust bowl devastation was largely done by tree planting. And in fact that's what FDR put on his income tax forms as his occupation, tree farmer. But if he had not dragged America out of the slough of despond, we would not have been able to support Britain in the second World War. The exhibits are very informative. Mrs. Roosevelt was quite the person in her own right. I never knew that JFK thought her endorsement was so important that he agreed to expand his civil rights agenda so that she would endorse him over Adlai Stevenson. The Hudson Valley is just stunningly beautiful. It's full of cute towns, old mansions, many of which have gone to rack and ruin, but it's gorgeous. 

Jim and Kim in the Italian gardens at the Vanderbilt mansion.

We took a guided bus tour one day into New York. We took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and then to Ellis Island. Then it was back to NYC. We came back two days later to see Ellis Island. It was well worth the trip to see where so many people came through. They had a temporary exhibit on Germany's attempt to exterminate the Jewish people. We learned that it was not that big of a secret among the world leaders. They knew, they did not protest, which Hitler took as tacit approval. The exhibit was dedicated to people who risked their lives, families and careers to save as any people as possible from the camps. The picture below is Ellis Island.

New York is really cool. It just hums. After awhile it wears you out.

We were in NY the second time on September 10. This is the construction site that was Ground Zero. The tour guide told us that they still do not know exactly what will be built there, but they're starting. Apparently the legal wrangling has not made it easy to go forward. So, at some point they have to shoot the lawyers and get on with it. 

After New York we returned to PA for the Hershey RV show, which is said to be the world's largest. We really did go with the intention of not buying anything, but there you go. This was an amusing little camper. It was getting a lot of attention. It's a tear drop camper with attached tent.

  So that brings us to now, where we are waiting out a day so that we can continue on to South Dakota with some assurance that gasoline will be available. Perhaps we should have flown!

Tryin' to reason with hurricane season

We're in Columbus OH which is currently being affected by the tail end of Ike. The wind and the gusts are pretty impressive. We pulled in to a KOA and paid extra money to not park under the trees, since several of them have come down in the wind. The power is out, so I'm sitting here with my hair in curlers (no blow dryer) typing by lantern light. I think I'm channeling Abraham Lincoln.
We're on our way to Sioux Falls SD. Do you have any idea how many people can not spell that? That would be most of them. We're going to go get driver's licenses and set up insurance and register to vote. It's important to have the SD drivers license so that when we go to buy the new diesel pick up to pull the new 5th wheel that we bought at the RV show, that we only pay SD sales tax which is pretty dang low. Yes, we disobeyed the non-acquisition fatwa and bought a new RV. We couldn't help it, it was RV show pricing, and she's so pretty, and she has 90 gallons of grey water capacity. That is sooooooooo enticing. So, there you go.
So anyway, we're heading up to SD for residency, back to Fort Mill SC (where my brother lives) to dump the bicycles (5 of them) out of the truck, trade gas truck in on diesel truck, off to Spartenburg SC to pick up 5th wheel when it arrives, then back to Fort Mill SC to build bike rack for "basement" of 5th wheel to carry the 3 road bikes, and then off to who knows where. It's getting late in the RV season, so we have to stay south and avoid altitude because snow is evil.
The goal is still to be in Tucson for Thanksgiving with the Hancocks and to start whipping my sorry butt back into shape. We are truly pathetic in our deconditioned wretchedness. The first ride up Gate's Pass should be just awful.
Hope you are all well and happy. Despite the fact that we're going to South Dakota, we are in fine spirits and looking forward to a larger home.

Trip to the Udvar-Hazey museum

Greetings and Salutations Readers! I come to you from the Keystone state of Pennsylvania, recently of the Empire State of New York. I am dreadfully behind in posting due to a complete lack of connectivity in said Empire State. Very Frustrating to one as verbose as moi. So, catching up will have to be done.
We spent time in Washington DC. At this point I can't remember when. But it was fun. One of the things we did there was to see the Udvar-Hazey air and space museum. It's out by Dulles airport and I can not recommend it highly enough. Boeing has a wing out there, the Dash 80 is there, and it's just extremely well done. Even if you are not an airplane person, you will enjoy it. The staff has done a wonderful job of adding a human element to the exhibits. Here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

The Blackbird. The coolest thing to ever take flight. I can't believe they don't make this plane anymore.


The original shuttle. This is the one they would dump off the 747 to see if it would actually glide or just sink like a rock. She never got to go into space.



Apollo command module. Can you believe they sent people into space in these things? And they lived?


This is the model used in the filming of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was the mother ship that landed in Wyoming before Richard Dreyfuss got to go live with the aliens. Apparently the model makers had a sense of humor and glued R2D2, a Volkswagon, fighters and other assorted objects to the model. We could only find R2. He was easy to spot.




The gorgeous Stratoliner. This is the one they restored, took out on a test flight, ran out of gas and ditched in Puget Sound. She has been re-restored.


What the heck is this, you may well ask. This was the "basket" for a balloon that went across the ocean (the Atlantic, I think) in the 70's. They used a catamaran in case they had to ditch in the water. It's just amazing what people will do.


This is a close up of the boat. They had a chemical toilet.


They could make tea.


They had lawn chairs.


That's a red cooler next to the porta-potty, with a Hershey bar and a loaf of Wonderbread.


This is the Enola Gay. It's just eerie standing there, thinking about what that plane accomplished.



One of the Concords. Such a pretty plane.


So, this catches me up with air and space museum part of the DC stage of the trip. Still to go... The Smithsonian!

As of today, September 10th, we are in Lancaster PA. The world's biggest RV show is in Hershey, about an hour away from here. We were not able to get an RV park any closer due to all of the people going to the show. It's in a rural part of the state, and it's just beautiful. We came down over a hill, and as far away as the horizon we could see corn, and silos and white farm houses. It was pretty spectacular.

.

Eastern Shore of Virginia

Before leaving VA beach we drove through the bridge/tunnel that connects Norfolk with Virginia's eastern shore. It's pretty cool. It won awards for being an engineering wonder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge-Tunnel

The eastern short is still very agricultural. The dreaded developers have made some inroads, but much of the area is unspoiled. The concrete plant is the largest employer, then the sea food industry. The brochure described all of the small towns as just way beyond cute. Who ever wrote that should get an A in creative writing. We finally found Oyster, after several failed attempts. How can you be a tourist destination if you can't be found. Its industry has collapsed, it's sort of a sad little place.

Cape something, one of the more prosperous looking areas.


Oyster. I think they've seen some big water here. These houses were recently put on stilts.



We have pictures of the Udvar-Hazey Air and Space Museum, but they're not uploaded yet. These things take time. Tomorrow, which I believe is Tuesday, we are heading into Pennsylvania. Coming up I95 from the beach freaked me out so badly that I decided to be a complete wimp and go up west of New York city to get to the Newburg KOA. So, it'll be two short days, which is OK because we need to clean house, swamp out the black tank, and do some more laundry. DC has been good in that we saw the new Air and Space which is VERY impressive, museums, and had dinner with our good friends Sheldon and Rob; but I must say the traffic and the pace of living here is somewhat frenetic. So, I will get busy clogging up the internet and send you more pictures of that which we have recently seen. Hope you are all well.

Aquarium trip

Today we slept in (again!) and mooched around a bit. After awhile, we decided to go to the Virginia Aquarium. It's under renovation, so navigation was somewhat difficult. But overall it was pretty good. We're still getting the last of Faye so it's windy, gloomy and overcast. We're hoping it will rain hard tonight so the people next door will quit having bonfires. They're smoking us out!

Sea turtle tank.



Giant big lobster. Dinner......


This is a snapping turtle. His back is covered in algae and slimy stuff. They sit on the bottom and wait for food to swim by. Then they pounce.


Well, the rain is here with vigor!

We're in VA beach through Thursday. Friday morning we head out to the DC metro area. We're sort of dreading taking the RV through the tunnel that we have to transit to leave Norfolk, and the circumferential highway around DC, but we are looking forward to being back in the area.

We're finally on the move

We are in Virginia Beach. The original plan was to stop just north of Richmond VA, and then travel on north to Washington DC Tuesday, but we're just too dang frazzled to move two days in a row. So, here we are. We had the trailer at the Tammy Fay Bakker RV Park from Satan's Most Inner Reaches of HELL, while we were loading. Remember the pictures from Heritage Park from an earlier post - if not, scroll down. The place was full of ANTS. The RV was full of ANTS. We had ANTS in our PANTS. Well, maybe not really, but it was just nasty. It has to be one of the worst parks we've ever seen. We're going to be here for 4 nights, and then up to DC for a few days, and then on to New York. I'm using my air card to get to the web. Now that I have Vista, none of my old photo software I used for resizing pictures works anymore, so I can't upload pictures at the moment because they are too big. So I can't show you anything. Take care, we'll be in touch.