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!

The next major stop on the trip has finally arrived. After three days of driving from Wyoming, we’ve arrived at Dawnmarie and Kirk’s place in Pennsylvania. Today’s drive was all rain … sometimes very heavy rain. I think this same storm from Nebraska is following! This morning before leaving the campground in Elkhart, I opened the blinds in the motorhome just as a huge flash of lightning came down with instantaneous huge thunder. Both Nina and I jumped about four feet in the air! However, the weather is expected to clear out tonight and the weekend is supposed to be beautiful.

We’ve put the motorhome into a KOA campground near here for the next few days. Tonight I need to fix the bathroom door (Kirk has loaned me the necessary tools). Tomorrow we’re splitting up. Kirk and I are taking the three older kids to Geauga Lake Park (an amusement park) while Nina and Dawnmarie are taking the three younger kids somewhere else. They’ve also arranged for a babysitter so Nina and Dawnmarie can go see a movie while Kirk and the older kids and I come back from the park.

It’s nice being back in this part of the country. Every time we come here, it feels like home (probably because we lived for so many years in Chardon, Ohio). The countryside is lush and green. There are trees everywhere (but no hills or mountains). Along with that comes swealtery weather and soggy cookies … there’s downsides to everything! We’re glad to be here and happy to not be driving somewhere in the motorhome tomorrow.

The skies have really opened up this morning! I don’t think we’ve seen this much rain in the entire three years we’ve lived in Pocatello as came down this morning. The campground is awash in water and getting unhooked from water and electricity will definitely mean getting feet wet. Nina asked how we would know if there was a tornado in the area. I don’t know … maybe there is a siren that goes off?? Anyway, tornados always go through trailer parks. Does an RV campground count as a trailer park? This one has space for about 390 outfits, but only about a third are occupied. Maybe that’s not enough density to be a tornado magnet….

We were supposed to stop in Tinley Park, Illinois last night but it was going to be close to 5 p.m. when we got there and sitting at the table in the motorhome in the campground with not much to do for another five hours seemed a bit much, so we kept on driving another three hours to Elkhart, Indiana. Just before we got here we crossed into the Eastern time zone and it suddenly got another hour later. So even though right now this morning the clock says 7:30 a.m., in my brain it is actually 5:30 a.m. and I should still be asleep. Nina’s been up for a couple of hours, so she’ll get to drive while I snooze. We’ve got about six hours of driving left to the campground in Grove City, Pennsylvania. The rain has almost stopped although there’s still a lot of thunder outside. It’s about time to button the motorhome up and get this wagon moving eastward once again.