A Visit to GAM and GUM's

Today, my sister brought my great niece for her first visit to our house. She calls us GAM for Great Aunt Marlene and GUM for Great Uncle Martin. This is Ann's first two night stay at grandma's and she has had a busy day, visiting a friend of my sister's as well as dropping by our house. She quickly found toys to play with and while she was here she helped me put together my Halloween Village. She enjoyed the lights, but was not at all impressed with the scary noise that the haunted windmill makes. Luckily there is a switch that controls just the sound, so she was able to enjoy the village with just the lights. The pictures show her modeling the necklaces she found and viewing the haunted Halloween village.
The rest of the morning we have been doing chores and our usual weekend errands. Hard to believe that it is fall and next week October begins. I am still finding all my fall decorations and having a hard time believing that summer is over!

What we ate

I'm not sure what it says about us, but it seems like one of the things we often took pictures of is one of us in front of some huge plate of food or another. I thought I would gather those shots together and put them here in one place...a little review of what we ate on vacation. Top is me in front of a sandwich at Carnegie Deli in NYC. There must have been a pound of bacon on that thing, and it fed Marlene and I just fine. The next two are of Marlene, and a huge plate of spaghetti she had at a great Italian Restaurant in Philly. And then Marlene with a banana split, that we split, and finally me in Philly with a famous cheese steak sandwich. We're back on WW this week.....

Anna,Brandon & Grandma

Anna's birthday was this week, so yesterday we went to her party, in a park near where they live. It was raining when we left the house, but the sky cleared up by the time we got to the park, and it turned out to be very pleasant afternoon. The photos above show Anna opening one of her gifts as Brandon looks on. The other photo of the kids was taken in front of our house the day before the party with their new shirts we got them from Halifax. The top picture is one I took of Marlene and Grandma yesterday at the party....think it was a great one of both of them.

Today's our last day of freedom before returning to work tomorrow. After 3 weeks off it is going to be a big adjustment to return. Got to work on my attitude I think.

More Best Shots

My Daughter, Molly let me know how to put more than 5 pictures at a time on the blog...thanks Molly....so here are the rest of our best shots from our recent trip (in our opinion). We took lots of pictures of the Stature of Liberty as we were coming and going on the ship from NY. The one above is one of the best, taken early morning on our return. The two geese shots were taken at the same time, as a whole flock flew by the bow of the ship at eye level. And then the sunrise over Manhattan was also taken close to the same time. The final picture is in Intercourse PA, and speaks for its self.

Best Shots of the Trip

Between the both of us, Marlene and I took 789 photos on our recent trip. That's not including the videos as well. Now the fun part of going through all of them and fixing, editing, etc. Out of that many pictures we were bound to a have a few real good ones. Here is a selection of some of our best shots during the trip. Some of these may be repeats from earlier blogs, however the photos have been cleaned up a bit now. From top to bottom these shots are: The Margart Todd, Scooner in Bar Harbor, Lighthouse in Halifax Harbor, a street scene near Time Square, Central Park, and an Amish Buggy near Bird In Hand, Pa. I can only put 5 photos at a time on this blog, so more best shots to come tomorrow.

We Are Home

We arrived home at 12:30am exhausted from a 18 hour day of traveling. We crossed into 3 different time zones and managed to be in Bethlehem, PA; Philadelphia, PA, then Denver, before we arrived in Portland at about 11pm. It took us a bit longer to get home because we were the last folks in the van to be dropped off. The day started out with us taking the bus from Bethlehem to Philadelphia, and grabbing a cab to the airport. President Obama was going to be in town, so we wanted to be sure to arrive at the airport before all the freeways were closed for his arrival. When we got to the Frontier Counter at the airport we were greeted by no one. The counter was closed until 2:45pm. Things are set up differently in Philadelphia, we were not able to access any of the restaurants or the rest of the airport from where we were. We had our four large suitcases and no place to store them, so we were stuck. We were told we could page someone from Frontier to see if they could help us. As Martin went to the phone to page, he met Terry and James. They are Portlander's who had just spent a week in Delaware for Terry's big family reunion, we immediately bonded as all four of us were going to Portland and were in the same predicament. Terry is a hairdresser from the Pearl, and to say that he is outgoing is an understatement. He was able to enlist the help of other airport employees, who even were able to purchase lunch for us, since we couldn't leave the area that we were in. We spent a fun 3 hours hanging out with these guys who made what could have been a frustrating situation into an interesting afternoon! Picture is of the guys, please notice the empty Frontier Airline booth to the right!

The dogs were hysterically happy to see us when we arrived home, and haven't let us out of their sight, this is the longest that we have been away from them. Martin left his New York baseball hat on the van that brought us home, but I called this morning and they have it, so Martin will get his souvenir back!

The last day

Today was basically the last day of our vacation....we do have tomorrow, but that will be filled with travel, and we probably won't get to the blog at all. Today was a day of rest here in Bethlehem. We spent some of the afternoon at the new casino that has been built on the property of the old deserted Bethlehem Steel Company. The Sands Casino company has purchased the entire old Steel Mill, which consists of a great number of acres of land and numerous old industrial buildings including the smelters that heated the steel for over a hundred years. It was steel from this foundry that built the sky scrapers in New York City, the rail lines that went across the United States and much of the steel that went into the American auto industry in the twentieth century. The Casino is just the first step in the company's plans for this land, which will eventually include a hotel, markets and shops, and housing. They plan to save many of the old buildings and part of the land and buildings will be turned into an national museum of industry.

We plan to see Kate and Jon one more time tonight and then tomorrow we will take a bus to Philadelphia and our flight will leave from there in the late afternoon and we will be home around midnight Pacific time. We've had a great time, but are very anxious to get home and back to our family and dogs.

Bethlehem PA.

We had our last night on the ship last night. We were up early, most of our packing had been done the night before, so we went up on deck at about6:30 or so, and watched the ship come into New York City. We got some great shots of the sunrise over the city, and also some good ones of the Statue of Liberty. This time I had my telephoto lens on, which I didn't have when we left NY. While we were on deck we heard some honking and looked over toward the Statue of Liberty and saw a flock of geese coming right at the ship. I got a few really good and lucky shots of the geese flying at us at almost eye level.

After the ship docked we got a taxi to the main bus station and caught a bus to Bethlehem where we are staying tonight. It's only about 7 or 8 miles from Easton, and Kate came over and met us this afternoon and and showed us around the town, another amazing old and historic city. At the moment we're taking a little break in our hotel room, before Kate and Jon come back over for dinner.

Newport, Rhode Island

After a rainy night and a foggy morning we tendered into Newport, RI. We took a walking tour of the cliffs, to view the historic homes here. Think Vanderbilt, Astor, and any of the other wealthy folks who made their money during the industrial revolution. The homes are beyond opulent, and the city reminded us of Cannon Beach on steriods. We veered off the beaten path and found Christ Church which is a replica of the old North Church that we saw in Boston. There was a historic cemetary in the church yard and we could hear the organist inside practicing though we weren't able to enter the church. Brick side walks and historic houses, many of which were saved by Doris Duke who left a trust for the city to maintain many of its historic homes. Prices were much higher than even in Boston, which is understandable as it remains a getaway for the rich and not so famous. Our last night on the cruise, back to New York tomorrow, it has been a fabulous experience! By the way we were finally able to add pictures to our blog on Bar Harbor, so you can scroll down and check them out too.

Boston

Well our string of beautiful weather finally broke today in Boston. It has been sunny, warm and clear every day of this trip until today. Today was cloudy, cool and a little drizzly, however in spite of that we had a wonderful day in Boston. We really enjoyed this city, and we both agreed that it would be a place we would like to come back to and spend more time. We started out the day going through the old Quincy town market, where we had wonderful pastry and coffee, and shopped for souvenirs, you just can't have too many T-Shirts. We then walked over to an area called the North End and Little Italy. This is the area where the Old North Church is, where Paul Revere signaled that the British were coming. It is also has an amazing collection of Italian restaurants and bakeries and espresso cafes. We both wanted to sample them all, but this will have to wait for another trip. We went through the Old North Church and a cemetery that had graves from the 1600's! Later in the afternoon we went on an organized tour and saw more of the city, including Cambridge, and a walk through Harvard which was truly amazing. If our Internet connection will cooperate today, I we will load a few pictures from today. They are of the Old North Church, the main gate to Harvard, Marlene, standing on the steps of the Harvard Library, another building with Harvard flags flying on campus, and finally a picture of a display of Marzipan in one of the Italian bakeries we went into today. We are now on our way to our final stop of this cruise tomorrow, Newport, RI.

Bar Harbor, Maine

Today we spent the day in Bar Harbor. Neither Martin or I have ever been to Maine and it is beautiful. This area is very much like the San Juan Islands and Bar Harbor is on an island as well. The town is home to about 4,000, but swells in the summer as people come to their summer homes to escape the heat of the eastern seaboard metropolis'. It was home to the wealthy until 1947 when a fire burned down 64 of the wealthiest and largest homes on the island. We took a walking tour of the city that was rich with gossip and stories of the wealthy folk that live in the area. When you see me, remind me and I will tell you the story about Martha Stewart! Our guide swears it is true. We saw an Episcopal Church where Louis Comfort Tiffany attended church. One of our pictures today is a window in the church; there are about 7 surviving Tiffany windows still there. We ate at a wonderful funky little restaurant right on the waterfront. I had a lobster sandwich, very good. The harbor here wasn't deep enough for the cruise ship to dock so we tendered in on small skiffs that were on the ship. A picture is enclosed as well as a picture of us on the wharf, a picture of the Margaret Todd a beautiful 4 masted sailing ship, and a picture of the place we ate lunch. We sat for a couple of hours and just watched the sailboats on the bay. We also met a lovely couple from Glasglow with whom we shared travel stories. Tomorrow on to historic Boston.

St. John New Brunswick

Another beautiful day. A little cool in the morning, but sunny and warm in the afternoon. Today we arrived in St. John New Brunswick at about 9:00 AM. There were two other cruise ships in the harbor along with ours, so the town was full of cruisers, but the people were very friendly and welcoming. Every woman who got off a ship received a long stem red rose from city greeters, and the men received a little pin that said St. John on it. We started out with a little trolley ride around the town to get our bearings, and then spent the rest of our time wandering around. The trolley took us to one of St. John's well known attractions, the famous reversing falls. St John is located on the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world. At high tide it rises over 15 feet, which is actually enough to reverse the flow of the St. John River which normally runs into the sea like all good rivers, except at high tide it actually flows backwards and an area of rapids and falls reverses direction. Our pictures today are of the flowers in the public square, us posing with a bronze moose, the skyline of the city as the ship was docking, inside a wonderful public market that we spent time in and finally an unusual two story band stand in the public square. Tomorrow it's on to Bar Harbor Maine and back to the USA.