Natural Bridge, Virginia - May, 2002 

Natural Bridge      All Pictures   (Natural Bridge,  Safari Park)

This sight always puts you in a state of awl.  The Bridge is even more impressive than last time.  The walk along Cedar Creek is also very nice as you pass Saltpeter Cave which was mined during the War of 1812 for potassium nitrate resulted in a by-product of saltpeter was used in the production of gunpowder and other explosives.  Lost River is a stream feeding into Cedar Creek but with no known place of origin.  Finally, you end up at Lace Falls where Cedar Creek sprays over fifty feet of travertine.

Natural Bridge Wildlife Park     Wildlife Park

This is Virginia’s largest and only drive-thru zoo, set on 180 beautiful acres of rolling hillside in the Shenandoah Valley.  We drove less than 2 miles to get there from the campground.  There is a petting zoo, but not many animals.  I think they may have removed most of the animals because a whole bunch of kids just left.  We bought a bucket of food and proceeded to drive through the park.  Boy these animals know you have food, they walk right up to the car and stick their heads in the window.  Some of them even try to bit the bucket and try pulling it out of your hands.  Now that’s a real experience, feeding elk, deer, llama, emus and ostrich out your car window.  Believe me, they all eat as much as they can too.  It took about an hour to drive around the park, hopefully I got some good pictures but it was rather hard trying to take pictures and feed them at the same time.  It was fun and we saw some beautiful animals including young deer and one baby zebra.  

 

Moultonborough, New Hampshire - June, 2002 

Castle in the Clouds        Pictures

Moultonborough, NH - June 28, 2002

We parked the car and walked to the Carriage House to catch the tram to the “Castle.”  The tour is a self-guided tour and you can stay as long as like.  The “Castle” was the summer and retirement home of James Plant, a man who made a fortune, some $20 million, selling shoes in 1910.  He had this house built for his wife on the top of a mountain overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee on 2,400 acres – from the mountaintops around the house, down to the shores of the Lake.  The house is made out of stone with Spanish roof tiles and every stone in the structure is 5-sided to represent the five major powers in the world.  However, by 1940, he had lost all his money due to bad advice from good friend Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt on stock market investments.  In 1940 the bank foreclosed on the house and out of respect to him, allowed him and his wife to live there until his death in 1941.  His wife also died several years later, also penniless.  The house is really beautiful with numerous rooms, several baths and a secret reading room.  They had 30 servants to maintain the property.  He had several architects to design his house, but fired them all and designed it himself.  He installed such things like a central vacuum, telephone intercom in every room, a gas turbine and a refrigerator that didn’t use ice.  In one room he had an organ at one end and the pipes built into the wall at the other end.  Special hammered silver lanterns hung in the upstairs vestibule; there was a morning room with a splendid view of the lake and lots of lead and stained glass windows.  He even had pipes running underground for one mile from a fresh clear water spring to the house, using gravity only.  After Mr. Plants death the house was sold to two owners and finally purchased by the Crystal Springs Bottling Company.  Now it is a tourist attraction. 

 

After we toured the house, we caught the tram back to the Carriage House to get the tram for the tour of the spring.  This tour took us to the actual spring that Mr. Plant discovered for his own personal water supply for the house that is now the spring for Crystal Springs Water.  It pumps out 200 gallons a day of fresh pure water through it’s own filtering system of sand.  We then toured the bottling plant, which was just looking through a wall of windows into the plant that was not in operation today (holiday weekend) and watching a short film about Crystal Springs water.

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Portland, Maine - July, 2002

Portland, Maine Tour      All Pictures  

Portland, ME - July 5, 2002

We took the Discovery Trolley tour of the city.  The trolley picked us up across from the Visitors Center.  We drove down Commercial Street passed all kinds of neat looking shops; we have to come back tomorrow.  The tour guide took us passed a local pub called $3 Dewey.  It used to be a brothel where business was paid $1 for a lookie, $2 for a touchie, $3 for a doie.  When it was changed to a restaurant they kept the $3-doie ($3 Dewey).  We went through the Eastern Promenade that is the high rent district.  Some of the homes there were really something with their large homes, front porches and lavish lawns.  One Victorian home, called Victoria Mansion built in 1858-60, was noted as one of the most spectacular Victorian homes in America.  Down several streets through the city we passed a statue of Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow in the town square.  The Historical Society was his boyhood home.  One building, now a realty office, has four beautiful archways surrounding the doorway.  As we passed, the tour guide told us the arches were not real but painted on a solid brick wall.  One yard had a statue of a man swatting down to the ground that was made entirely out stones.  No one has figured out just what he was doing, some say he’s throwing up, some say he couldn’t find a restroom and some say he’s looking for his contacts.  We drove down by the docks and saw DiMillo’s Floating Restaurant and Marina; it’s huge!  Bath Shipbuilding assembled ships there during World War II and at one time they didn’t have enough men to build the ships they needed, so they recruited women by using the famous campaign with Rosie “the Riveter.”  240 ships got built in two years, Go woman.  We passed the Lady of the Streets, a large statue paying honor to those that died in World War II.  They put a small steel rod coming out of her head, not as a lightening rod, but to keep the local seagulls and pigeons from sitting on her head.  We passed the Shipyard Brewing Co. and saw the smoke stack for the factory where B&B Beans are made.  We drove through the Western Promenade and over to the Portland Head Light, Maine’s first lighthouse.  We got out for 15-minutes to walk around and take some pictures – a very picturesque area.  Finally, after 1-1/2 hours, we returned to the Visitors Center.

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Prince Edwards Island, Nova Scotia, Canada - August, 2002 

PEI - Canada   -  All pictures 

Charlottetown, NS Canada - August 12, 2002

We drove into town and parked at the visitor’s center.  You get a stamp on your parking ticket that gives you 1-hour free parking.  From there we walked into Founders’ Hall, Canada’s Birthplace Pavilion.  You enter through a “Time Travel Tunnel” that takes you back to 1864.  You have a headset on that narrates each exhibit as you watch a display of a woman explaining the progress of Canadian history.  There were holo-visuals, theaters with short films, on-screen trivia games, questions you had to open drawers to find out the answers to and ended with a film of contemporary Canadians from coast to coast.  It was very good.  We continued along the waterfront admiring the harbor and all boats at the docks.  The pathway led us to Confederation Landing Park, a very beautiful park commemorating the confederation with flowers and roses everywhere.  We ended up at Peake’s Wharf with all kinds of shops. We walked up Great George St. to Saint Dunstan’s Basilica Church.  This is the fourth church on this site originally built in 1896.  Fire destroyed the church in 1913 and it was restored of Miramichi freestone.  It is a very large stone structure and the inside is absolutely beautiful with stained glass windows, large marble columns, and beautiful architecture and carvings on the ceiling.  It is very impressive.

 

We continued up Great George St. to Province House where we watched a film about the first meeting of the Fathers of Confederation to discuss the union of the colonies leading to the formation of Canada on July 1, 1867.  This very building, completed in 1847, accommodated the provincial legislature and administrative offices of Charlottetown and is now a National Historic Site because of that meeting.  We walked the very same floors and entered into the very same rooms as the Confederation those many years ago.  From here we went to the Confederation Mall.  The Mall is two stories of shops placed around a central hall with stairways and tables and chairs.  

 

Gateway Village that is the entry point into PEI from the Confederation Bridge.  The Village is an array of shops lining the street where you can buy gifts and souvenirs of PEI and get information. 

 

Out to the farthest point northeast on the island is East Point Lighthouse.  We walked around the red dunes and at the gift shop I got two yellow ribbons that said, “I did the Island from Tip to Tip”.  When we stop at the North Cape lighthouse on the Western most tip of the island, we show the ribbons and we get a certificate proving we did the whole island tip to tip.  You can also get the certificate stamped and be entered into a contest to win prizes but I don’t think I’ll do that. 

 

Green Gables Village has several buildings as depicted in the book but we didn’t go.  We stopped at the House of Green Gables and Visitor Center.  We watched a short film on Maude Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, and walked around the site and toured the house.  The grounds had flowerbeds everywhere and the flowers were absolutely beautiful. 

 

Woodleigh Replicas and Gardens.  This is a Theme Park on 45 acres of gorgeous countryside where 30 replicas of castles and cathedrals of the British Isles have been constructed among rolling hills and gardens.  All this was built by Ernest Johnstone who while serving in England during WWI formed a dream to recreate some of the beauty of Britain on his native Prince Edward Island.  He labored for over 50 years clearing the land and gathering the granite rock for his projects.  After WWII he began to build replicas of the famous buildings and by 1958 it became such an attraction that he opened it to the public.  Some of the replicas were:  York Minster, one of the most important churches in England done in 1:20 scale taking five years to construct out of tons of rocks and over two tons of lead and thousands of pieces of stained glass for the 145 windows. 

 

The Dunvegan Castle is Woodleigh’s largest model being almost 60 feet long, 28 feet tall and two stories high with chandeliers, original Scottish oil paintings and antique furniture.  The Tower of London took five years to complete with hundreds of tons of concrete and granite for its construction.  The White Tower houses full-scale replicas of the British Crown Jewels, Officers Quarters and Waterloo Barracks.  St. Paul’s Cathedral is handcrafted with wood and lead measuring 30 feet long by 15 feet high.  Nelson’s Column, considered to be one of the outstanding landmarks in the world, stands in the center square.  Johnstone erected this 30 foot 1:6 scale model as he was approaching his 80th birthday.  There are other structures, a lookout tower, fountains and water gardens throughout the property.  They even have a 1934 Rolls Royce that is used to represent Woodleigh in local parades and events.

 

Kensington Water Gardens - The building you enter is a large medieval style castle.  Inside you walk through halls featuring a color and light display based on European Son et Lumiere exhibitions; pictures made with lights.  I’m afraid the pictures won’t come out very well, but they were interesting.  Outside there is a full acre of fountains, waterfalls, pools and streams, large-scale model castles.  The flowers were really beautiful planted in flowerbeds and arbors.  We then walked through the Medieval streets; hallways made to look like the narrow, rambling streets of Medieval London with signs, doors and store front windows.  Pretty neat.  They also had a “Tipsy Turvey Exhibition Galleries” where you walked through two rooms that were tilted to look at pictures and grave stone sayings hung on tilted walls. 

 

Summerside  - Spinnakers’ Landing is supposed to be one of PEI’s great marketplaces.  They had several shops, antiques, plenty of boats and a nice boardwalk.  We even walked into a mall on the other side of the wharf. 

 

Prince Edward Island Potato Museum  - The museum has an interesting display of the potato industry and houses a large collection of farm equipment and machinery related to growing and harvesting potatoes.  We walked through several rooms; the first had all kinds of posters with information about the potato, on to a room that had several old farm machines and a room with a movie that looked to be running for a while.  The next room had displays of different kinds of potatoes, pictures of diseases that infect potatoes and several short videos.  There were also three rooms crammed with all sorts of antique medical equipment, household items, radios and TVs, typewriters, cameras, etc.  Outside there was a Heritage Chapel, constructed in 1879/1880; a Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1900 and a Log Barn constructed in 1972 housing agricultural machinery and farm implements from the past.  Quite interesting. 

 

North Cape  - We passed lots of small villages, churches and got a few glimpses of the ocean.  We also saw three or four cemeteries right on the waters edge with nothing around them except a small fence.  At the lighthouse, I went in to get my certificate and Jack walked back in to get their yellow ribbon; now I have a yellow ribbon that say “I visited North Cape” and “I visited East Point”.  This lighthouse is the very tip of PEI and is one of the most important lights on PEI.

 

Cavendish Dunelands & Beach  - From the visitors center we walked over the dunes on a wooden boardwalk to Cavendish beach.  There were plenty of people there but the winds were very strong and warnings were posted that swimming was not allowed.  The dunes were very impressive.  Large mounds of golden sand covered by grass leading down to the beach; with all the red soil here in PEI, the beach here is like that in the states, true sand.  We walked along the Cavendish Dunelands crossing a pond and the dunes for ¾ mile and back.  There were also some spectacular cliffs along the way.  We drove back on Rt-6 to another part of PEI National Park and drove along the road passing Cape Turner to North Rustico Beach, a small fishing village.  We then continued on Rt-6 around Rustico Bay and picked up Rt-15 into the other end of the Park.  This is a much larger portion of the Park and not as close to the ocean as the other side.  At the end of the road was Dalvay-by-the-Sea Hotel.  A heritage inn and restaurant built in 1896 in Victorian elegance.  It was commemorated as a national historic site in 1994 because of its architectural significance.  We walked inside and found out the cost of a room to be around C$170 for a single to $340 for a double per night, including a full breakfast and a three-course dinner.  It is a really beautiful place with beautiful wood interior and fireplaces and gorgeous grounds.

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Nova Scotia, Canada - August, 2002 

Nova Scotia, Canada       All Pictures 

Charlottetown, NS Canada - August 12, 2002

Along the Glooscap Trail.  Our first stop was at River Hebert to see the Heritage Model Collection.  The building houses scale-model replicas by artist Reginald “Bud” Johnston of local homes, a railway, church, old schoolhouse, creamery, theater, sawmill, blacksmith shop and animated carnival.  We were given a tour of the collection that took about ½ hour.  Bud built and assembled all the models to celebrate the history of Nova Scotia.  It was something to see.  We then drove to Joggins Fossil Cliffs and Centre.  The Centre is a museum of fossils of animals, plants and semiprecious stones found along the coastline.  Jack dropped me off and I walked down steps to the bay floor and walked around the area.  There were lots of people combing the cliffs looking for fossils.  I could have stayed there for hours, not really looking for fossils but just enjoying the beach, cliffs and views.  They say the cliffs here are among the best example in the world of life on land in the “Coal Age’ over 300 million years ago.  I couldn’t find anything and wouldn’t know it if I had. 

 

Advocate Harbour.  We stopped to take pictures of a fishing boat tied to the dock that was sitting on the muddy bay bottom, no water.  The pier must have been 80 feet long and no water anywhere.  It was low tide.  At high tide there is water everywhere and the fishing boat is level with the pier.

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Fundy Geological Museum.  We toured the museum ourselves after watching a short film called Dr. Chronicle’s Time Travel Adventure aboard the Eonochron for a short history of geologic time.  We went from 5,000,000,000 years ago to present day.  The rest of the museum has displays of dinosaur bones, fossils, rocks and minerals.  Small but interesting.

 

Evangeline Trail.  Halls Harbour.  This was a small sleepy natural harbour.  There was a gift shop, bait & tackle shop, a photographers shop and a restaurant.  We walked around the harbour and along the beach.  Jack found me a small piece of quarts.

 

Digby Neck & Islands Scenic Drive.  We drove through the town of Digby passing several small fishing villages; one called Sandy Cove was exceptionally quaint and the bay/cove was really beautiful.  We reached the end of the island at East Ferry and went on the ferry over to Tiverton on Long Island.  The trip only took 5 minutes; we didn’t even get out of the car.  It felt really funny when the ferry started moving and the car didn’t.  On Long Island we drove past several more small villages and stopped at Midway Provincial Park.  The park is a lovely grass area on the edge of St. Mary’s Bay.  One beautiful spot and the water was so clear.  Back in the car and about half way along the island was a hiking trail that led to the “Balancing Rock.”  The trail went through woods, marsh and forest, some over wooden boardwalks to the wooden steps, 236 of them, leading down to the rocky coastline overlooking St. Mary’s Bay and to where the “Balancing Rock” is.  This is a large column of basalt rock that balances delicately half on half off other rocks at the edge of the shore; it defies gravity.  We walked back up the 236 steps, however, Jack only counted 234 so I told him he had to go back down and recount them.  He said no.  When we got back I asked the guy in the little shack at the entrance just how far it was to the Balancing Rock.  He said about a mile.  So we not only walked up and down 236 steps but two miles there and back.  We got our exercise today!

 

Our Yarmouth tour arrived; it was a full house with about 25 people.  The guide was retired and did this on the side.  She drove us through the town streets pointing out several old homes once owned by old sea captains and those now owned by businessmen under restoration.  We drove through the somewhat depressed part of town as well as the more affluent part.  Then we drove out to Cape Forchu to the Historic Cape Forchu Light Station and Lighthouse.  The fog started rolling in when we started our trip and was getting thicker so we couldn’t even see the lighthouse from the road.  This lighthouse is known as the “apple core” style lighthouse; meaning its shape is thinner in the middle than it is at the ends and is 91 feet high and painted red and white.  We stopped for ½ hour to walk around the lighthouse and get a candy bar from the gift shop.  The guide told us to please buy the candy bar called the Wonder Bar because 50% proceeds go to the Friends of the Yarmouth Light Society to help preserve the lighthouse.  

 

Lighthouse Trail along Rt-3 and checked out all the little towns and harbors there.  Not a whole lot to see, just farms, fisheries and small harbors.  We drove down to Cape Sable Island and through Clark’s Harbour.  There were no shops or tourist type places, just fishing villages.  We even drove down to the very southern point of Nova Scotia, called The Hawk.  It was just a bird sanctuary. 

 

Lunenburg.  Lunenburg is a quaint town of historic buildings and homes dating back to 1760.  The town remains as it was originally built with narrow streets and architecture that reflects their German, Swiss and Montbeliardian heritage.  In fact, it is so well maintained that it was declared a Canadian National Heritage District in 1994 and in 1995 was honored by declaring the Old Town area a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We walked around the docks, saw a beautiful four-mastered schooner and walked several streets looking through the shops.

 

Mahone Bay.  This town is one of the prettiest and most picturesque towns I have ever seen.  The main street is a narrow street lined with a unique collection of specialty shops, galleries and restaurants and the harbor was just gorgeous with lots of boats.   St James church is one of three churches built in a row facing the harbor.  The style is really different.  It was open for tours so we walked inside to take a look.  The ceiling was dark mahogany and really beautiful as were the strained glass windows that lined each sidewall.   Today is the second day of the Wooden Boat Races.  There were boat races in the harbor and races on the wharf that were called “Fast & Furious Boat Building” races.  A team of two had to build a boat within a certain time limit with a limited supply of materials.  They sure were working fast & furious too.  There were tents and tables with all kinds of artifacts and stuff for sale.  They also had several musicians performing along the street.  One old guy was standing in front of a band in a gold sequin hat and pink shoes dancing and enjoying himself.  We walked up and down the main street next to the harbor looking in each shop as we passed.  There were also some very nice looking Bed & Breakfasts on the street. 

 

Halifax Citadel National Historic Site.  This was the command post and landward bastion of Halifax’s defenses.  It stands atop the highest hill with spectacular view of the Halifax Harbor.  It was designed by Benedict Arnold’s son in 1819 and finished 28 years later.  Since that time, not one shot was ever fired in anger.  The Citadel is a really huge 8-pointed star and houses a schoolroom, gunpowder magazines, barracks, a museum, a gift shop and a tearoom.  We watched the changing of the Century’s and walked around for 20 minutes before we had to board the bus again. 

 

Halifax Public Gardens.  These are the finest and oldest Victorian gardens in North America that were established in 1753.  A guide also wearing the traditional kilt led us through the gardens and he played the bagpipes as he walked.  I felt like he was the pied piper and we were the mice.  We stopped at a beautiful gazebo with pots of flowers hanging from every rail and more flowers surrounding it, where he explained the bagpipes and played a few songs.  We continued passed a fountain that was a statue of a women standing on top with four children beneath riding dolphins.  There were flowers everywhere.  Back on the bus we continued to the Fairview Cemetery.  We walked to the gravesites of the Titanic victims.  There are over 100 victims buried here.  This is also the only cemetery that hired a designer for how to bury them.  The area is on a hillside and the gravestones are placed to look like a ship’s bow.  Each headstone is a small square engraved with the person’s name, the date of April 12, 1915 and a number.  The number was assigned as each person was pulled from the water so they could be identified.  Those that could not be identified had the date and number only on the headstone.  There were a few larger headstones that were put in by the family members.  There is one special headstone sitting at the top of the “ship” where a child was buried.  For years it was thought this child was four years old and the youngest son of a women, who was identified, and her four sons who weren’t.  Only last year was it discovered through DNA testing that the child was actually 17-18 months old.  The name was removed from the stone and replaced with “unknown” and is being researched further. 

 

Then he told us about the Halifax Explosion of 1917 when a fully loaded ammunitions ship and another ship collided in the harbor, setting off an explosion that completely destroyed the whole area.  Every window in every house from the harbor to the hill was broken out.  One girl survived after she was thrown the entire distance.  He also said there are still people receiving compensation from the explosion for their injuries.  Halifax is a beautiful city and even though buildings have been restored or new ones built recently, they are still designed to blend in with the old buildings around it.

 

Dartmouth.  Dartmouth is a large city with buildings both old and new, large buildings housing several industries and old homes.  We walked down to the World Peace Pavilion.  It’s not really a pavilion but several concrete walls placed around a large glass enclosed display housing stones and bricks donated by more than 75 countries, lying on a bed of Nova Scotia sand.  Pieces of the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China and a piece of the moon rock from the U.S. are among those displayed.  Metro Youth conceived it for Global Unity. 

 

Peggy’s Cove.  It’s a small inlet with boats and houses on stilts on the rocks overlooking the cove.  There are other houses placed sparsely around and an old church.  Not much grass around here but rather marsh and lots and lots of rocks.  Large boulders that, they say, were created by the glaciers.  Sitting on top of the largest boulder was the lighthouse.  This is the only lighthouse with a post office inside.  It is a really pretty spot.  Standing on the rocks watching the ocean waves crash against the rocks below was really nice.  It turned out to be a beautiful day. 

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New York City, New York - September, 2002 

New York City Bus Tour -   All Pictures

New York City, New York

September 6, 2002

No sleeping in this morning, we have to get a bus to tour New York City, so it was up at 6:30 AM to be at the KOA office at 7:15 AM.  The tour is scheduled as an all-day tour and expected back at 6:00 PM – boy,  are we going to be tired. 

 

Our bus driver was born in the Bronx and was going to show us all just how easy it was to drive through the streets of New York City.  Ha Ha.  Our tour guide was a young girl from Austin Texas but she said she had learned the NYC attitude.  We took the drive through New Jersey and entered into Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel.  It was ten minutes to 9:00 AM when we got to the tunnel and we had to wait those ten minutes because they don’t allow tour buses to cross until 9:00 AM.  The Lincoln Tunnel was built by Othmar Amman between 1937 to 1957 and has three tubes, each with two lanes.  The westbound tube that always goes into Manhattan is 7,482 feet long; the eastbound tube always goes out of Manhattan is 8,006 feet long and the center tube is 8,216 feet long; however, between 7 AM and 10 AM the traffic goes into Manhattan while between 3 PM and 7 PM it changes and the traffic goes out of Manhattan.  The tunnel cost $190 million to build and handles about 30.5 million vehicles per year. 

 

We stopped at Battery Park and boarded the ferry to the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe/Liberty Island.  We had to go through Security.  We had to take our jackets, watches and belts off and put them in a carton with our pocket books and cameras to go through an x-ray machine as we walked through a scanner.  There were lots of boats in the harbor and the water was really rough which made it hairy walking up the ramp.  We walked around to the face of the Statue for a few pictures.  The tour guide told us about the rivalry between New York and New Jersey and a feud over who owned the Island and the Status; it ended up with the judge declaring the land being in New Jersey, so New Jersey took possession of the Island and the Statue but New York got the last laugh because she stands facing New York with her back to New Jersey.  The Statue was built by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi in 1886; has 354 steps, 22 stories and stands 150.9 feet tall.  She weighs over 265 tons and is totally made out of cooper.  We couldn’t go inside the Statue because it was still closed since September 11th last year.  She was impressive and there’s a really nice view of the Manhattan skyline.

 

We boarded the ferry again and docked at Ellis Island, also known as Gull/Gibbet Island, for about 10 minutes.  Ellis Island opened in 1892 as the first site strictly for immigration.  Between 1892 and 1920, 12 million immigrants passed through this Island.  The only thing on the Island now is a museum but we didn’t see this, in fact we didn’t even get off the ferry, because, with three floors of information in the museum, it would just take too long.

 

Back to Battery Park in Manhattan.  We walked back to the bus and headed through the streets of New York City to South Street Seaport.  Battery Park was named for the battery of cannons that were kept there.  Manhattan is 12.5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, making up a total of 22 square miles.  We passed blocks and blocks known as China Town; and large sectors of the City like the Jewelry Sector; Restaurant Sector; the Fashion Sector and the Financial Sector.  For an island 22 square miles, we have never seen so many buses, trucks, cars and people everywhere all in one place.  Buildings, sidewalks and streets take up every inch of this place.  The tour guide told us the residents can’t bring their car into the city, I sure am glad because I can’t imagine the amount of traffic is they did.  We passed Ground Zero; of course we really didn’t see much of anything except the green fence around the 16-acre 7-story deep hole.  We passed Wall Street; the United Nations building; Fifth Avenue; Macy Department Store, EFO’ Swartz; Trump Plaza, NBC, CBS, Radio City Music Hall and all the other famous New York landmarks. 

 

At one corner sirens and flashing lights of two limos stopped us for a few minutes.  Today members of Congress are meeting a few blocks from here for the first time since 1842.  They visited Ground Zero and I guess this was a couple of the delegates.  We stopped at the South Street Seaport for lunch and had an hour of “free time”.  Jack and I walked down to the docks, found the mall and ate lunch at the food court.  The mall is very large with two floors of all kinds of stores and the food court on the third.  The one big difference was that they had TV’s, placed around the food court, that were all tuned to the Financial channel.  Even the McDonalds they say gives you the latest ticker tape with your meal so you don’t miss anything while waiting for your lunch.  Some people walked back to Ground Zero, others walked along the docks at Pier 17, some found an authentic NYC deli and got a sandwich but Jack and I hung around the South Street Seaport until we had to board the bus again.  There were lots of places to eat, coffee shops and stores. 

 

Our next stop was the Empire State Building.  Once again we had to have our things checked by Security.  The tour guide managed to get our entire group up to the front of the line and we took the elevator to the 80th floor where we got off, walked along a roped off pathway to another elevator that took us to the 86th floor; the Observation deck.  There we had 20 minutes to walk around on our own before going back to the bus.  The Empire State Building was built on the original site of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and completed in 1931.  It has 102 stories and was the tallest building in the world for 42 years.  I think it is again since September 11th.  What a view!  You can see all five Boroughs from here.  Really awesome.

 

We continued passed Rockefeller Center and stopped to get a hot dog at Times Square.  They can keep their hot dogs!  The amount of people in and around Times Square was incredible.  They sell show tickets right there in the middle of Times Square and there were lines running around all four sides waiting to get tickets.  All the things you see on TV, with the billboards, ads, etc. along the streets is really there.  There was even one cowboy standing in the middle of the street on the medium, dressed in nothing but his BVDs playing a guitar.  They call him the naked cowboy.  Jack visited the Marriott to use the john and came back with hands up in the air and the words, Let’s get on the bus and get out of this place”.  The hotel was so crowded with people coming and going that he couldn’t use the one on the 4th and had to wait for and jam himself into the elevator to the 8th floor; twice!  

 

Safely back on the bus, we drove through the tunnel and back to the campground.  The bus driver ran several red lights, cut off a few cars and double parked the bus, but never hit anything; a wonderful job.  Our tour guide was really good and was fun.  It was a little passed 6:00 PM when we got back to the campground.  Jack and I were so tired that we had soup for dinner.  Think we’ll call it an early night tonight.

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Spartanburg, South Carolina - October, 2002

BMW Museum Tour  - Pictures  

Spartanburg, SC - October 10, 2002

We wanted to visit the BMW Museum and called this morning to find out what the tour times were.  All tours were full, but when I told them we were only two, they had two openings at the 1:00 PM tour.  The Museum is off Rt-101 off Exit 60 of I-85.  We pulled into the parking lot of the museum and saw a Z4 BMW sports car in the lot that was quite impressive.  The Zentrum (center in German) is a museum that is free to go through.  This museum housing BMW’s from the first ones built in 1917 to ones of today.  007’s light blue Z8 BMW is displayed as will as BMW’s race cars, engines, BMW motor cycles and of course the story of BMW.  We ate our packed lunch in the car before taking the manufacturing plant tour.  We found out the Z3 has been discontinued and the new Z4 is the newest model on the market next year.  They are making 80 cars a day to ship out to the dealers now and the price tag will be around $35,000 to $37,000.  We saw three of the Z4’s in the parking lot.  I thought maybe they wouldn’t allow cameras in the plant so I asked; I was right, the girl told me they would confiscate all cameras until after the tour.  I took mine back to the car and locked it up there.  We viewed a short film on the BMW that took us through the assembly process as if you were a car; very interesting.  At 1:00 PM we started our tour with headsets and safety glasses in hand.  We walked through the plant and saw BMW’s in all stages of assembly.  Workers do most of the assembly but robots do the main welding of the body; they were neat to watch.  At one spot, sparks from one of them actually hit a few people.  They assemble 800 hundred cars a day.  All throughout the assembly process, the car body is transport from station to station by lifts that adjust to the height of the workers.  We watched as a car was put through a driving test getting up to 131 mph.  I’d hate to see what would happen if it got loose.  The tour lasted one hour & 15 minutes.

 

Hollywild Zoo    - Pictures

Spartanburg, SC - October 12, 2002

Hollywild Zoo takes animals that have been in the movies or used in commercials and cares for them.  They had several lions, tigers, horses, zebras and donkeys that had starred in various movies.  They also had several other species of birds, goats, deer, buffalo, etc.  There is a train ride that takes you around the back of the property, which we thought was a longer ride than it actually was that we went on, that lasted only 15 minutes.  After that we rode on the safari bus through the 70 acres of property.  The tour guide stopped at a shed to get a large container of bread to feed the animals as we drove along.  Any boy they all know it when they see the bus coming; they all ran toward the bus expecting to be fed.  At one stop a long horn cattle came toward the bus and was beaten by the largest cow I have ever seen; I mean this guy was huge.  This ride was fun. 

 

Our Campground - Pictures

Toxaway, NC - October 12, 2002

Our Campground in South Carolina was up in the mountains.  It was very impressive.  

 

We spent the rest of our trip in New Jersey visiting family and friends.  Then it was back to our Florida lifestyle.

We had a great time.

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