We drove most of the day across Pennsylvania in the rain. Sometimes very hard, occasionally no rain, but mostly rain and more rain. This rain is falling too far east! It needs to be in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. It’s actually rather tiring driving in the rain. We are both quite tired this evening. We’re parked in Dawnmarie and Kirk’s driveway. Nina is doing wash (at 11:30 at night). I’m chasing down mosquitoes and I think I’ve found them all. The camper door spent too long open. We’ll leave bright and early tomorrow morning for our drive to Columbus (Pickerington, actually) for the next visit. Hopefully it won’t rain so much tomorrow?

We’re on I-84 west just going through Fishkill, New York. It has already been a small adventure this morning. The plan was to leave about 8 a.m. We actually pulled out of the campground at 8:30 a.m. Nina’s sister Pam was headed one direction and we in another … into New Haven to the Connecticut Limo terminal on Long Wharf. We got to where we could see the place but could go no further. Fire engines and police had the road blocked. We maneuvered around downtown New Haven trying to come at Long Wharf a different direction and were almost successful. This time the policeman gave us some directions on how to get there. A transformer had “blown up” and that was what had the street blocked. A few minutes later Marsha was at her limo stop. Originally she was going to have a lot of time to wait but now she was cutting it pretty close. Since the street going south was closed, we made our way back through New Haven onto the route out of town.

We’re now making our way back home … we’ve reached the furthest east point on our trip. West is a good direction for now.

The visit in Connecticut was nice. The weather was cool … a nice respite from the heat. Everything needful was accomplished. Aunt Jean and Uncle Bob were fun to visit. We saw Chris all three days as she also came out to the beach on Saturday. It is a place we could spend a lot of time and hopefuy will do that some day. Tonight we’ll be in Dawnmarie’s driveway which will give us enough time to do laundry. Life is good!

We’re gathered around a small firepit and the women are trying to make fire. The wood that we purchased from the campground store is definitely not dry wood and is being very recalcitrant about starting. However, Marsha is determined and this wood will definitely burn eventually. Nina and Pam have put their marshmallow sticks into the meager flame bound and determined to burn at least one marshmallow.

We’ve spent the last two days at the beach. Yesterday it was cloudy and cool with occasional rain showers. The water was cold and not many people were at the beach. Later in the evening we had a very nice visit with Aunt Jean and Uncle Bob.

Today it was bright and clear … and cool with a strong breeze. It was even windier at the beach. However, Nina and Pam had “a great day” at the beach. So, this part of the trip has been a success … even though the fire is definitely not cooperating.

Tomorrow we’ll do church at 9:30 a.m., a little more sightseeing in the area, and another visit with Aunt Jean and Uncle Bob. I also understand that “lobster rolls” at a restaurant at the beach where they went in their youth is the menu for Sunday evening. That will conclude our visit to Connecticut and we’ll start our way back west on Monday.

After waiting another twenty minutes at the “head of the line” to find that there were other people who were really at the head of the line (they knew the secret reservation number that only friends and family know) we then learned that even when we got seated, it would be another forty-five minutes or so before the pizza would be served. That did it. We bailed out and headed out of town back to the campground.

Nina’s sister Pam and her daughter Ashlyn had tents that needed to be set up. So, we found a pizza place along the road to the campground (it wasn’t very good), had some dinner, and arrived back at the campground well after dark and well after 10 p.m. The tents are set up and now all the women are over there talking and talking. I’m checking email, updating the blog, and then I’m headed for bed. It’s dang tired out there!

Nina’s sister Marsha did arrive. She took the limo from La Guardia Airport to New Haven and we were to pick her up about 5 p.m. That time came and went and she was still on the highway. She arrived almost an hour late due to traffic and, get this, one of the hotels they stopped at to drop passengers off was on fire…!

It was a good day. Most of the time was spent at the Godfrey Library and then at cemeteries. Finding the Fairview Cemetery in New Britain was an adventure. Three times we had to stop and ask for directions … each time getting us a bit closer. We finally found the place (in West Hartford) and the Sexton’s office was closed until tomorrow morning. We did finally find the grave sites after traversing most of the cemetery. We stopped at two more cemeteries in New Haven, again taking pictures of headstones. Pam joined us at the last cemetery, Evergreen, with a roll of paper and some Crayons to make tombstone rubbings. That was a great idea and a lot of fun. We ran out of paper rather quickly … and had to quit!

We spent a good part of Tuesday at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia visiting the Egyptian antiquities exhibit featuring King Tut. He had a much bigger name than that, but I’d have to go get one of the brochures to be sure of spelling the name correctly … or go look it up, but the internet connection while we’re driving is plenty slow. Nevertheless, the exhibit was well worth the time and the price. Afterwards we wandered a bit around downtown Philly taking the “Phlash” bus (and taking our lives in our hands). We visited the Liberty Bell and a couple of other sights and went back to the RV. Daryl and Laura came over about 6:30 p.m. for dinner, games, and making S’Mores. They’re pretty good at Trivial Pursuit….

So now we’re driving northwards on I-287 on the west side of New York City headed to Connecticut. We’ll arrive in a couple of hours so long as the traffic cooperates.

We started the day meeting Daryl at his apartment at about 9:15 a.m. with about three day’s worth of sightseeing to somehow cram into the next ten hours.  The activities included going to the Mercer Museum and Castle in Doylestown, taking a covered bridge tour in the area around Doylestown, and driving over to Nina’s childhood home in Long Valley, New Jersey.

The Mercer Museum was stunning. Henry Chapman Mercer collected more than 22,000 tools used in the 17th and 18th century in America in farming, blacksmithing, pharmacy, tanning, fabric making, and on and on and on. Probably every profession in existence during that time is represented in the museum. He invented his own system of classification and built a huge building in downtown Doylestown to display the collection. The picture above was taken from the fourth floor of the building looking out into the common area. There is stuff everywhere! Along each floor are small rooms devoted to a particular craft along with all of the tools associated with the craft. In the middle common area are all the larger tools, such as the blue whaling boat in the left of the picture. The hour and a half we spent at the museum barely scratched the surface.

From there we went to the Mercer Castle … a rather unique building he constructed out of concrete to be his own personal castle. Pictures were not allowed in the building, but eventually some pictures will show up in the picture album. We left that place shaking our heads about his eccentricity. Follow the link above to read a bit about him.

By now it was 2 p.m. and time for a very quick lunch (McDonalds in New Hope, PA filled the bill). We drove along a canal by the Delaware River and started the search for covered bridges. Nina had downloaded a tour guide to the covered bridges in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and we started in about the middle of the tour. We visited seven covered bridges and again took many pictures. A couple of them were hard to find as roads were either closed or routes had changed since the tour was originally put on the Internet. However, due to Daryl’s diligence and tenacious driving, we were successful. It was not 6:30 p.m. No time to drive over to Long Valley!

We had dinner at Bonefish, a nice seafood restaurant near Daryl’s apartment and we got back to the RV at about 9:30 p.m. It was a full day and a lot of fun.

Over the last two days my weblog has gotten about 1,200 spam comments. So, I’ve turned off comments for a while. These “comments” are the type intended to raise page rankings in Google. Sure is a waste of my time.

We have arrived in the campground in West Chester, Pennsylvania. We would have arrived at Daryl’s at about 7 p.m., but as we were driving through Gap, Pennsylvania, the US-30 was blocked by some fire officials. We were being directed off on a small country road. “We’ll direct you out,” said the fireman that was directing us onto the country road. Sure they would. We saw one “direction giving person” along the route but no others. Fortunately we had a reasonably good map and were able to figure out how to get back on the road we needed. A thirty-minute delay later and we arrived in the town where Daryl lives. It took a couple of phone calls, however, to get directed to his apartment. We unloaded the big picture, drove to the campground and parked the RV, then went looking for a place to eat dinner. Most restaurants had their kitchens closed by 9:30 on a Sunday evening! Applebee’s, however, was still in full function and we had a nice dinner.

Now it’s Monday morning. We’re going on a Covered Bridge Driving Tour (but Nina has found a dozen more things that we just have to do) and I have to be ready to leave in about a half an hour. Time to close down the computer!

It seems we just got here and already we’re packing up to move again. Nina’s in the shower. When she’s finished, I’ll dump the holding tanks, we’ll pull in the slide-in, hook up the car, and drive away. This is a very nice campground and this morning is the most we’ve seen of it in the daytime! Someday it’d be fun to come back here for a few weeks as there is so much to see and do in this area. For instance, when we drive from here the ten miles to Kirk and Dawnmarie’s place, we drive past Skydive Park and through the village of Volander which looks to be a very artsy-crafty little place with many delightful camera angles.

Today we’ll go to Church with Kirk and Dawnmarie and then we’ll continue our drive eastward to Exton, Pennsylvania where Daryl has taken a couple of days off from work to go playing with us.

We’ve had a good visit here. Friday Kirk took the three older kids and me to Geauga Lake, an amusement park about an hour west of here. I had not been to Geauga Lake since the late 1980’s. It has changed into quite a different park. Back then the amusement park had the western side of the lake and Sea World had the eastern side of the lake. Sea World was sold and then sold again, and is now a water park and part of the Geauga Lake complex. We arrived as the park opened at 10 a.m. and left to get some dinner and drive home at 9 p.m. We all had a very good time. Kirk got a couple of hours of sleep before he had to get up at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning to drive to Palmyra to take a number of youth to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. When he got home Saturday evening, he was pretty tired!

Saturday was a stay-at-home day for me. I did some “babysitting” (Olivia was down for her nap and hardly stirred) while Nina and Dawnmarie took the kids swimming at the local pool.

Well, Nina is out of the shower, dressed, and cleaning the last stuff up in the motorhome. Time for me to get movin’ along!