Road-trippin'! Part II - 4th (and 5th) of July

4th of July = fireworks :)
We made a big mistake of turning on the tele the morning of the 4th, because it was a marathon of the BBC hit car show, Top Gear.  We're both fans, and well, it was mid-afternoon before either of us got off the couch. Oops... Oh well, we still got in our barbecue, then, because I've lived in DC and seen the fireworks there before, I talked Tom into taking us up to Baltimore to see them at the harbor.  We didn't get the greatest spot, and it was then that I realized I forgot my camera tripod, so I free-handed these shots :/

Pointing to Bloody Cornfield

 The next day, we headed up through Pennsylvania, stopping at solemn Antietam battlefield first.

Cool monument

Well, learning about the devastation that happened here, we didn't have the heart to go to Gettysburg (we've both been, so it's okay.)
So we drove on up to Hershey!  Mmm chocolate :)

The tour was cool, the chocolate was yummy, but what I really wanted to do was go on the rides, but the attendants wouldn't believe me, even though I fit the height requirement...

Of course, other tall 'kids' saw me and wanted to follow my lead, so we left.  Drove down the road into Amish country.  There wasn't much going on, as expected, so we just bought some root beer - bitter home-made stuff - then drove back home for the night.

Part II - check

Road-trippin'! Part I - New York

Summertime = trips :)

This year my first two trip ideas didn't come to fruition, but my third did.  Thanks to Tom Reese, who decided his new car needed a healthy cross-country road trip, we traveled 5213.6 miles across 23 states and one Canadian province.  

My trip started with a midnight flight out to, what some call the happiest place on Earth, New York.  When the plane I was supposed to be on wouldn't be allowed in the air, I was praying that this wasn't going to be the norm this trip.  After a lengthy delay, I was on my way!  Arriving at JFK 1.5 hours late, I had to amend my plans, but I still owned the city that day.  Taking the train into Penn Station got me into the middle of Manhattan, where I checked my bag and started off! 

First things first: breakfast.  Found the Hardrock Cafe just off Times Square for a nice buffet, then went up to the Rockefeller Center to see what view the roof offered.  They informed me I was wasting my pass (City Pass) because you couldn't see a thing up there.  I went up anyway.  Well, they were right :/  I decided right then that New York wasn't such a happy place.  Next on my agenda was a taxi-ride so I could catch a cruise around the island and past the Statue of Liberty, and by now I was really hoping it would clear up.  

As you can tell, it didn't really clear up.  

Lady Liberty was still beautiful, though.

Then I was feeling artsy, so I took a bus up towards the Museum of Modern Art where I saw many wonderful works of art such as this by the great Van Gogh:

.

I had to stroll through Central Park, so I took the park way up to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

I never thought my favorite thing would be modern art, but New York surprised me.

Well, I've been told that no trip to New York City could be complete without going up to the 600th floor  (well, 86th, but close enough :)) of this building:

Here are a couple views from up top on the still-foggy day...

I was lucky to be able to run up from the 80th floor and also back down from the top to miss all the lines for the elevator.  If I didn't get to do that, I would've missed my train to Baltimore. So I guess New York was alright.  Next time I'm taking a few days to run around the town.
Met my friend Tom who took me back to his place in Laurel, MD.  Turns out he lives just a few blocks from where I used to live.  We were coming off the 295 onto the 198 when I said I used to live here, on Russet Green.  He asked which RG; I didn't think it mattered much, but I told him West. He then turned down RG East, and we were home.

Day 1 - check.