Author: Bill

We arrived at the Red Gate campground early in the afternoon, so we headed into Savannah to find the visitor center and pick up a tourist map.   With that in hand, we set out to see the town.  But first I wanted to stop at the railroad museum, which was just behind the visitor center.   Since it was late, I asked for a discount on the admission and the person charged us half price.

We then took a stroll with the pups thru the round house full of locomotives and cars.  There was even a working turntable.   It was surprising that the Savannah visitor center would allow you to dry camp (aka boondocking)  in their parking lot for $7 a day.  But I don’t think you can put out your slides.

We wandered around the site for about an hour, then we headed out to tour the Bonaventure Graveyard.  It was huge.  Never seen anything like it.  It was closing soon and I kind of got lost for a little bit.  I was getting a bit concerned we might get locked in.  I bet it’s a pretty creepy place after dark.  That Spanish moss is everywhere down here.

We found our way out at about five of five and proceeded down to the riverfront to find a place to have dinner.  We read about Hueys as being pup friendly.   We got onto the riverfront street,  all old cobblestone and the bumpiest roadway I believe I have ever been on, even at a couple miles an hour.   The place has a few tables street-side and just across from it is a narrow park fronting the river, maybe 40 feet from our table.  Lots of small ships, and a few very large cargo ships were plying the waters.  There was even a small ferry that seemed to be going across the river every fifteen minutes to a hotel on the other side.

At around 7pm a large riverboat left the dock about 100 feet west of the restaurant.   You should just be able to make it out behind Kathy in a picture above.   I noticed its paddle wheel wasn’t spinning.  Apparently it’s not real.

The next day I headed back into town to see the market place I had heard about.  It was underwhelming.   I then took a walk thru a few closely spaced squares.  There were lots of them evenly spaced in all directions.   I think Savanna was a planned city.  Maybe Sherman burned it all down so they got to start over.

Overall I wasn’t impressed with Savannah.  It was kind of a letdown after Charleston.

We are starting our Westward Journey in the morning.   It will take two days to drive to Red Bay Alabama with a stopover near the Georgia/Alabama border.

We drove off to see D.C.  as our planned next stop, Cape Hatteras, was about to get hit by Maria in a couple of days.   We camped at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland.   It turned out to be another really nice park.    We ended up staying 5 nights.  Originally I had only booked for 2.    We drove into D.C the first  morning as I wanted to visit Arlington National Cemetery, but when we drove up the guards said no dogs.   What a bummer.  I then drove over to the Lincoln Memorial, but there isn’t any parking near it.   We then drove up along the Mall for a bit and found some parking fairly close (relative term) to the Capitol building and took some pics, walked the pups.   And Kathy wanted to walk to the Washington Monument, but I balked as it looked pretty far and it was already very hot and humid, and my knee wasn’t that good yet.  As we drove down there, she exclaimed that it hadn’t looked so far,

It was the first hot, humid day we experienced on the east coast for some odd reason.   We found a spot to park not too far from the monument and hiked over.   It was closed till 2019.  Seems it needs a new elevator.   Took a few pics and headed back to the car before the parking time ran out.  We then headed back out to College Park.

The next day we attended a meeting where they explained how to get around in DC and tours that are available.   It was a pretty informative meeting where they fully explained how to use the public transportation (buses and subways)  where to get off, etc.   They also talked about guided tours, and we decided to take one of the night tours thinking it might be a bit cooler then.   It was actually fun and we got to see a lot of things I didn’t even know were there.

First stop on the night tour was back to the exact same place we had parked to get some pics, just as the sun was going down.  It was pretty cool as the capitol building looked golden in the setting sun.

After that we went to the White House to see if we could see Mr. Combover in a window.   There were a lot of armed guards there, all carrying machine guns.  I will have to look up what they were from this picture.   The guide explained that recently they added more spikes to the top of the fence around the White House lawn.   You might be able to see what looks like sharpened pencils between the big arrowheads.

We then headed over to the WW II memorial which was a very impressive place I didn’t know existed.  Afterward they drove us to the Jefferson memorial.  Not sure why they parked so far away, but it was quite a walk to the entrance by the road, and then we needed to hike 3/4ths the way around to the front.   It was another nice spot and lots of steps to test my knee on this beautiful, warm, humid evening.

From there we went to the FDR memorial and walked along the Tidal Basin to the Martin Luther King memorial.   Both of those were also impressive in their complete difference to the grandeur of the Jefferson memorial.

We then got bused over to the Korean War memorial, which was kind of a haunting place with all the faces of the solders carved into the walls, and the center has sporadically placed solders on patrol sculptures.

Then a short walk from the Korean memorial, and 87 steps up the front of the Lincoln memorial (4 score and 7)   Those really tested the ole knee,  was wondering what it would be like going down them.   After getting a bunch of pics there, I decided to find a railing for the hike down them.   By the time I was at the bottom, my knee was fully “done”.    Luckily we only had to stroll over to the Vietnam memorial and then a short walk to the bus for the ride home to be back by 11:25.

I had installed an inside camera so Kathy could watch the dogs while we were gone.  It has a mic and speaker so we can hear them if they are barking.   We couldn’t see them most of the times we looked as I think they were sitting in the stairwell looking out that little window on the bottom of the door.  [Not fun to know they were crying and howling while we were gone 🙁 ]

We left Philly to camp near Assateague Island so we could see the wild horses.   We were pleasantly surprised how nice the campground was.  It had “resort” in its name so I assumed, like most of the others with that in the name, it wouldn’t qualify as a Resort.    But It did and it was a really nice place,  paved level sites with grass all around, a short walk to the Tiki Bar on the beach.  Kathy even approved of the bathrooms and laundry.  That’s been a  tough review since we’ve been traveling.  They even had a beach for the pups to play on.

What I thought was odd though was the quantity of golf carts in use.   This place rented them.  When driving up I thought we were at a golf club as there were at least 50 carts lined up in front of the office.   After a day or so and it got closer to the weekend, there were golf carts everywhere.   No one walks at the Castaways Resort…  I kept thinking about LA and the song about no one walks in LA.

The only drawback to this campground was the whole place was only about 6″ above high tide, probably due to Hurricane Jose still being offshore.  It made me think it could be a really bad spot if there was a full moon during a high tide.

Right down the road, on the way into Ocean City, I spotted this beauty in front of a restaurant.  I just had to get a picture, I hadn’t seen one of these trucks since I was about 10 years old.   They used to be around our neighborhood a couple times a week in the summer.

We drove over to Assateague Island to look for the horses.   There was a greeting committee; but after them, we saw no more horses, only lots of reminders they were all around.    The island is another low place and the water from the sound was very high.  You can see in some of the pics down below, things that shouldn’t be underwater were.    We were allowed to bring the pups out to the beach area here also.  Lots of big waves on the ocean side of the island.

The next day we drove the hour to Chincoteague Island.   What a dog unfriendly place that was.  And we did not see any signs of the Chincoteague Ponys either.  We did get some tasty Mexican take-out from a small trailer on the side of the road…    Thankfully the day wasn’t a total bust as we found the Berlin Fiddle Convention happening on the way back to the campground.   Quite a nice small town, surprisingly sans any empty storefronts.  That has not been the norm anywhere we have been while on this trip.   Most of the small towns had mostly empty storefronts on the main streets.

We arrived late in the afternoon, so a close-in parking space we found without any need for searching.   Turns out Berlin was a dog friendly place, with lots of them walking their owners.   They had closed off the main street and folks had just come for the show with their chairs.   There were lots of small booths selling trinkets, food and beer.   I found a beer right away as it was fairly hot in the sun.  Next thing was to find some shade, luckily it was also readily available.  Kathy perused the booths and I sipped a pretty good local brew.   The fiddling wasn’t bad either.

We drove down to Philly on a misty Monday morning, just a short trip of about an hour or so.   We were staying in the middle of downtown Philly at a Campus Park and Ride that had RV parking with water and electric and a 7,000 volt fence to keep the rif-raf away from the US Customs lot next to us.   As the place was located on Google Maps in a place called Forgotten Bottom, I was very conscious of Hurricane Jose churning off the coast.   We couldn’t see the river, but knew it was not far on the other side of some dense brush.

Then next morning we headed toward the old town and Freaking Google Nav   took us back into Jersey and we had to pay the $5 bridge toll again to get back into Philly to reach destination.   Glad we weren’t in the coach as I looked at my Ipass account and it was $30 to cross that bridge with 4 axles.

We located a parking place next to the US Mint, paid the parking machine and put our stub on the windshield showing we paid for 2 hours.  (the max)   I hobbled in the Mint with my crutches and did the self-guided tour.  Unfortunately, you are about 40′ above the mint floor and all the machinery looked the same.   I had to consult the pictures on the boards to know what machine was what.   I couldn’t pick out a sorter from a die press.  They were all housed in similar blue metal boxes.   I was kind of underwhelmed from what was visible.

After I spelled Kathy with the pups so she could take the tour, we walked to the Liberty Bell,   It was nearing closing time and we did the whirlwind trip thru the building.   Right next door is Independence Hall, and just down a ways further was Carpenters Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed.   Then it was off to find the car as our 2 hours were just about up.

The second day we drove into downtown without revisiting NJ to find a Philly Cheese Steak place I scoped out.   They had some outside tables, so the pups could dine with us, and the sandwich was pretty good.   After lunch we walked toward Penns landing and found this small park with monuments to the Irish Potato Famine and a Scotts’ memorial too.   While there it started to rain, so we walked up a few alleys to find the City Tavern for a brew.   It looked original inside and out, but I believe I read that it was a reproduction.  The beer was good and they brought out a pie tin with some water for the pups.

The rain soon stopped and we walked out looking for our car.  We walked past the first Bank in the US and snapped a pic.   It was time to head back to the coach and find a place to stay for the next day.  We were done with Philly.   Kathy thinks it’s the dirtiest city she has ever seen.  I guess she forgot what Tijuana looked like.

Our first full day there we decided to take a drive around the old neighborhood.   On the way we stopped at Delicious Orchards,  which I remember as a small farm stand we used to buy fruit and produce from as a kid.  Now it’s massive.  I couldn’t believe how much produce and fruit they have now.    I have not seen anything like it anywhere.  Kathy was impressed too.  And we thought there was a lot of choices in Cali!

We then drove over to the old homestead and around the neighborhood.  It’s amazing how different everything was.   I thought the trees were large when I was young, but now they are giants.   The big hills I remember as a paperboy look like flat ground now.  The downtown of my little town still seems the same but with different stores.  My favorite sub shop was still there.   Hard to imagine Joyce is still alive.

After driving around the town, we drove to the farm I worked on as a teenager.  It’s now a county park equestrian center.   Very few of the original barns are still there.  Only the big house,  the 5-car detached garage, and the horse barns are still standing.   In place of the others were a lot of brand new, low-slung barns.   I still find it hard to believe they tore down the old hay barn.  It was gigantic and built with hand hewn huge beams using only wooden pegs to hold it together.   It must have been from the late 1700’s similar to when the main house was built.

They also had redone the roadway that used to have a couple of sharp turns and one particularly nasty intersection on a blind hilltop curve.   I cannot remember how many mornings, mostly Saturdays, that I was out there digging up the snapped-off thick oak posts and putting up replacements after someone over or under-corrected on the curvy road coming back from some bar late at night.

We drove out to my old high school and on the way passed my old Jr high at the corner of Nut Swamp Road and Middletown Lincroft Rd.  (Wasn’t there a Springsteen lyric about the swamps of Jersey?)   It was still a long drive to my old high school.   The HS was letting out the students so it took a bit to get by it.  The traffic on those small roads and numerous new traffic lights made me glad I live in SD where there are freeways without traffic lights and they go practically everywhere.

On the way back to the coach, we passed the old Sears store where I worked nights after school,  It was all brick when I was there.  It looks like they have painted the brick white since then.  We also drove past the little church where I had my confirmation, St. Catherine’s.  It looks awful,  hard to imagine it’s still standing.  Appears the Historical Society owns it now.  Then back to the middle of nowhere to our campsite for the night!

I let my NYC knee injury heal for a few days and then headed out for another sight seeing day.   Took Kathy thru Fair Haven, then Rumson, and on to Seabright to see if my first apartment withstood Sandy.  It had,  but the gas station that had been in front of it was gone.   We then drove north toward Sandy Hook.   Checked out Fort Hancock, which had been an old Nike missile base protecting NYC back in the ’60’s.    When I lived here, you weren’t allowed on the base.   Now you can drive all around and see lots of buildings in various states of abandonment.

There is an old Cannon and a few stacked cannon balls which looked to be about an 18″ bore.  I had never seen one that large before.   We missed finding the lighthouse, not sure how but we did.   Then on to Twin Lights.   I decided not to push it and didn’t climb up to the light.  (not sure how the crutches would work on that spiral staircase)  Kathy went up.  Nice view from up there, as was the view of Sandy Hook and NYC from the front lawn of the lights.

After wandering around the lights for a bit, we made  our way down to the little town of Highlands.   It appeared to have taken a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy.    It’s a really low lying area with lots of older homes that are maybe one foot above the high tide mark.    Not a good thing when a storm surge of 17 feet rolls thru.   I have never seen so many homes either raised 15′ or in the process of being raised.  That storm hit back in 2012, not sure where all the folks lived for what must have taken years to rebuild.    I am thinking the town’s name, Highlands,  is very misleading.   I just looked up an article on Highlands and of the 1,500 homes there, 1,250 were destroyed.  (Highlands is a very very small place on the waterfront)

We visited Downtown Freehold with the family for a Mexican dinner at El Meson.   Pretty good fare.   I don’t think I had ever stopped in Freehold before,  but our campground was not very far away.

After viewing the Sandy Hook area, we headed back down the oceanfront back thru Seabright, Monmouth Beach, and into Long Branch to look for my old garage apartment.  It was still there on Bath Ave next to the railroad tracks and LB train station.   Took a quick drive thru west end looking for the Inkwell, but it appears to be gone, although the Brighton Bar was still standing, looking very poor.   Ah, the pinball games we played there.    We found the Windmill still standing, but drove on by as I wanted a Max’s Hotdog.   And to my surprise Max’s was still there,  although it looked a lot different.  We went inside for Lunch.   Amazingly,  they said we could bring in the pups as no one else was there.  It was fairly late in the afternoon for the lunch crowd.

After lunch we headed back to Bath Ave so I could show Kathy the 7′ high underpass that was behind my apartment.   It’s still astonishing to me that they still allow vehicles to go thru there.   If I took the coach there,  the top 5 1/2 feet of the coach would be ripped off.  🙂    We won’t go there.

We headed south for a bit till we found West Park Ave and took it toward Oakhurst to see what happened to a place I had worked just prior to moving to San Diego.  It was still there, but of course, was something else now.   We then drove up past Fort Monmouth and over to Swimming River Road, then back to the swamps of Jersey for the night.

On Friday we headed out for Asbury Park with my brother and sister-in-law for a stroll on the board walk.  (Thankfully it’s still a boardwalk,  not like the San Diego concrete walks they “call” boardwalks.)   Unfortunately, Convention Hall was closed for a private party that day, so we headed back south to find a spot for drinks and appies.   Then crossed Ocean Ave to snap a pic in front of the Stone Pony.  That place has really changed.  It’s almost the whole block now.  Last time I was there, it was maybe 40×40′.   You can still see the original building in the middle of the block with the rest of the new building totally surrounding it.

I was sad to see Mrs. Jay’s was gone.   It’s now an outdoor stage area for the Stone Pony.   When we were driving in, I sort of was lost as both Kingsley and Ocean Ave are now two-way streets.   They were one way the last time I was there.

On Saturday we headed over to Ocean Grove for a  birthday party at Christine’s beautiful house.  It was a festive event with lots of ex-Sony folks that I worked with for many years.  I was told that we had to bring the pups or I couldn’t come.. at least I think that’s what she said.  🙂  A great time was had by all!!

We took the ferry from Highlands to 34th street in Manhattan on Saturday morning after dropping the pups off at a doggy day care called Dogs on the Farm off of Navasink River road.    It was only a 10 minute ride to the ferry landing in Highlands.   We bought our round trip tickets and boarded the boat once it arrived and disgorged its passengers from NYC.   It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, but was a bit brisk in the wind on the water.

It had been many years since I saw NYC from this vantage point, I was maybe 10 when my father and I took his little Chris Craft up the Hudson and then around Staten Island on the Kill van Kull River.   Other than the view of Manhattan, the only other notable thing was me sitting on the bow watching for telephone pole sized timbers floating down the river.   They would have probably had us swimming if we hit one of them.

Anyway,  the boat was very fast over the water.  It looked like a catamaran when it pulled up to the dock.   We got to the 35th Street pier in about an hour, and after getting off we headed up 35th to find the Empire State Building and maybe something to eat for breakfast.

We found the entrance to the building and proceeded to walk up to buy tickets..  Geez,  $105 bucks later and we were off to the elevators, first to the 80th floor where we had to walk all the way around the building and then wait on another line for the elevator to the 84th floor.  At least there we could go outside the building for a bit where it was a lot cooler and a magnificent view, but then we had to get back on another line for another smaller elevator [one like the olden days in the movies with the scissor gate] that took us to the 102nd floor observation floor.   It was a really spectacular view!!  And we had a gorgeous day to do this.   I guess there has been a bit of inflation as I think it cost $5 the last time I was there back in the late 70’s.

We made our way down, again lots of lines for the elevators, but did finally make it to the street again where we walked around the corner to the Chipolte we had seen prior to going in.   By now it was lunch time.. so much for breakfast..

Afterward we headed outside to catch an Uber to 42nd street to get on a Big Bus for the uptown tour.   After checking out the schedules, we should have had time to do the uptown and then take the downtown tour and get out on Wall Street to catch the ferry there.

We found a great seat on the upper deck of the bus to see the sights.   A few stops later and there was a waiting list for the top floor, so we did good.   The traffic in Manhattan had other plans for what we were going to see.  For some reason, there was a Labor Day parade,  a week late from my POV, but it snarled the whole city that Saturday afternoon and we couldn’t even finish the uptown tour.   We did see some wonderful things:  Times Square, part of the theater district, central Park , the outside of the Cathedral of St. John the divine, Grant’s Tomb, Apollo Theater in Harlem, and drove by the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had many of the stars’ homes pointed out by the tour guide.  A funny one was the actual storefront of The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld!!! But  3/4ths of the way thru the tour route, we had to bail to catch a taxi toward 35th Street.   More unbelievable traffic, but the cabbie did get us near our destination, 2nd Ave & 35th.

There was no way he was going to get us to the ferry in 8 minutes, so we jumped out of the cab in the middle of the street there and ran down 35th.   About 1/2 way to the pier, I felt my knee pop and the ensuing pain of some pulled ligament.   We had to make that ferry if we were to get to the doggy day care before they closed.  The next ferry would get us there more than an hour after closing time.

I yelled for Kathy to run on and hold the boat [ha, ha] and I hobbled on at a slow pace.  The pain was bad, but I had no choice.   I made it because the boat was a few minutes late, and as I hobbled up to the pier, we were the last passengers to make it before they took off.  I was able to limp on and find a seat.  Kathy then brought me 3 Bourbon and 7s to ease the pain.

When we got back to NJ, it was even more painful to get to the car.   I guess the Adrenalin had worn off and now the real pain was poking me.   It took me a long time to hobble the 100 feet to the car.

But we made it with plenty of time to pick up the pups.

The following morning it still felt pretty bad, so I went to the urgent care.   They took x-rays.  The doctor figured they wouldn’t show anything, but they would be needed prior to getting authorization to do an MRI from my insurance co.

I left there with some anti-inflammatory meds, a knee brace, and crutches.  I hobbled over to my brother’s for a later dinner than originally planned.  Sorry Jeanne…