Here we are, on the road: We’re in Port Republic, NJ.

Sunday, June 20, 2010 Lorraine’s report

We left Washington DC last Tuesday and came out of that rat race to peace and quiet and some down time. We are at Chestnut Lake RV Park in Port Republic, NJ. Chestnut Lake is a Naco West RV park and while it’s not as nice as some we have been in, we have 30 amp, water and sewer.. The sites are hard to get into, they don’t cut the grass as much, but it sure is nice and peaceful here, and we have a beautiful lake right out the front window.

While we loved the DC area, we were both totally worn out from the constant touring for the entire time we were there. The high temperatures, daytime was in the mid 90’s with about 95% humidity, cooling off only into the low 80’s to mid 70’s at night. We had thunder, lightning, wind and rain several times. With school being out here on the East coast. or the kids getting out shortly, the Capital was full of tour buses of people and school children. Just getting anywhere took several hours to get there on public transportation. Then all the walking, the crowds, etc just wore you out. It was fun and exciting, but we left a whole lot of things to do the next time we decide to tackle DC.

Last Sunday we headed out to tour the different Memorials. We were able to find the bus line that went to the area we wanted to go and this time they were running. We walked 2-3 blocks to get to the bus stop, rode the bus, and then walked 2 to 3 more blocks to get to the first memorial.

First on the list was the World War II Memorial. This is one of the newest memorials, dedicated to those men and women of the “Greatest Generation” who fought so bravely, unselfishly and to those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. This memorial is huge; and it sits on a reflecting pool and is in line with the Lincoln Memorial. There are pillars for each of the 50 states plus the U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. There are two circular pavilions that sit across from each other and stand for the war fought across two oceans; the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Freedom Wall on one side has 4000 gold stars that stand for the more than 400,000 Americans who gave their lives in the “Big One-WW II”.

From there we hiked the mile to mile and a half to the Korean War Memorial, (it was so hot I didn’t know if I could make it). But we did.

We were told by someone in the RV Park that this memorial made you feel like you were in the rice paddies with the soldiers in the memorial. When you come to the memorial, you see the triangular Field of Service. Here, a group of 19 stainless steel statues, that depicts a squad on patrol; this represents the experience of US ground troops in Korea. The soldiers are wearing wind blown ponchos, reminders of the harsh weather conditions.

On the north side in granite are listed the 22 countries of the UN that gave medical support, or sent troops to Korea. On the south side is a black granite wall. Its polished surface mirrors the statues of the soldiers, and in between are faces etched into the granite. These etchings are of actual, unidentified soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, who provided support for the ground soldiers.

Up above is the Pool of Remembrance which is encircled by a grove of trees. This is where there etched in stone are the number of killed, missing in action and POW. Across from this is another granite wall which bears the message, (Freedom is Not Free). I found this memorial to be extremely stirring and so sad.

From there we headed to the Lincoln Memorial. Chuck walked up the stairs and took the picture looking back to the Reflection Pool, to the WWII Memorial, to the Washington Memorial and to the Capital. The Vietnam Memorial is on the left of this and the Korean War Memorial is on the right.

The Lincoln Memorial is built primarily of Colorado Yule marble and Indiana limestone. There are 36 columns around the memorial, representing the states in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death. There are 48 states names carved in the exterior attic walls. In front of the memorial is a plaque that commemorates the admission of Alaska and Hawaii.

President Lincoln is sitting on a chair in the center; he is 19 feet tall and 19 feet wide and made from 28 marble blocks. On the North wall is the Gettysburg address; on the South wall is his Second Inaugural Address.

Following Lincoln, we went to the Vietnam Memorial and found Chuck’s brother, Dale E. North on the wall. He was listed in the first third of the memorial. In other words, he died early on in the war. We took an etching of his name. I was already feeling sad from the other memorials, then to see Chuck’s brother’s name; and June 13 was my handicapped brother, Colin’s birthday. He passed 3 years ago. I was totally saddened by our losses, one for family, and one for the country.

We started our long walk back. We stopped by the Three Soldiers Statue,from the Vietnam War, but it was now enclosed in a shed for renovation.

Right after was the Memorial to all the Women who served in Vietnam. I sat and rested there, contemplating women’s role in all the wars.

We headed home after this, it was terribly hot/humid/crowded, and we were both wiped out. I fell asleep on the metro on the trip home.

Once home, Chuck was walking Misty and the neighbor (one over) asked us to go to dinner with them. We said yes, and had a wonderful time with new friends, Sue and Bob from Southern California. Thank you both for asking us to go with you.

Monday we decided to hit the Zoo. We left home well before 10 am and didn’t get to the zoo until after 12. We went past it on the Metro, so we could walk down the 5 blocks instead of walking the 5 blocks uphill to the zoo. Again, it was hot/humid by noon. The animals were not out in the heat, we saw one of the pandas, the elephants were in a corner because their house was closed; the great apes and the monkeys in the monkey house were quiet. The animal displays looked old, the animals were hot, sleepy and looked uncomfortable. All in all we were pretty disappointed with the National Zoo.

We had made up our minds to leave on Tuesday morning, which we did. We drove 3 ½ hours north and came to this RV park. Since we have been here we have rested and taken it very easy. One day we went into Atlantic City, which is about 25 miles from here. Of course, I had to walk in the ocean, and of course, we stopped by a casino. All in all, we have enjoyed our quiet time, probably just as much as we enjoyed the big city. We are certainly grateful we didn’t have to take all those forms of transportation to get to our jobs everyday.

And yesterday we ate dinner at a New Jersey diner, the Harbor Diner. It has a whole bunch of chrome on it, and from what we learned the last time we were here in NY/NJ about 10 years ago for Chuck’s work, the more chrome, the better the food. I could not eat all my food, I brought half of it home for a meal for both of us; it was delicious.

Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there, hope you have a great day. I want to wish our niece, Samantha, a very happy birthday this week. June 27^th is our son’s birthday. Happy Birthday Rick! The 27^th is also our friends, Richard and Sandy’s first anniversary. We flew down from Anchorage last summer to stand up for them at their wedding in Bellingham. We hope you both have a very Happy Anniversary! Congrats! Wow! Where has the time gone?

Until next time………Lorraine

6/20/10 Chuck’s Report

Lets see if I get this out in the right week. Happy Father’s Day to one and all. Its a pretty good job if you can get it and being a Grandfather is really fun.

As our last report on Sunday evening stated, we spent most of Sunday touring some of the Memorials and Monuments in Washington DC. I’ll include some pictures from our time there. We visited the WWII, Korean, Lincoln, Viet Nam, and the Viet Nam Women’s Memorials. Even though they are all fairly close to one another, it was another hot day and we were tired after this.

I guess I had not heard much about the Korean War Memorial before, it was really nice. They have a marble wall with etching of pictures of servicemen and women. There were also about 19 statues of servicemen, spaced out like they were walking though a rice paddy. These statues also reflect on the marble wall and look to be part of the etchings from certain angles.

The other Monuments and Memorials we visited are better known and I won’t go into any description on them here, Lorraine might on her report, however.

Monday we decided to visit the National Zoo in Washington DC. Once again we took the bus to the Metro. We were told to go one stop past the Zoo and walk back as it would be downhill. And when were were ready to leave we could walk downhill to catch the Metro at the stop for the Zoo. Good advice if we ever return but I’m not sure we would want to visit this Zoo again. We have been to the Zoo in St. Louis and San Diego, both of which put this one to shame.

The animal exhibits weren’t very nice, didn’t look at all natural. The two panda bears stayed mostly in their house which the public couldn’t enter, we did get a brief glimpse of them for a very short while. The elephant exhibit was being redone, the elephants were outside in a dirt covered area, no grass to be found anywhere. The gorillas were all in a fairly small, glass enclosed cage and the public was able to get very close. The gorillas didn’t face the public much but kept their backs to us most of time. The other large mammals were kept in small cages and most of them stayed back in the corners, getting as far away as possible.

The Zoo itself is laid out on a hillside, we entered on the top of the hill and walked downhill to all the exhibits and displays. It was another hot, muggy day and we were tired when we got to the end, then we had to walk back up the hill to exit. It would make a lot of sense if they had an exit on the bottom portion, it would have saved us from walking back up the hill, out of the zoo and then hike back down to get to the next Metro stop. Oh well, at least we got a glimpse of both of the panda bears.

We were originally scheduled to leave there on Wednesday but we decided to leave a day early, we were tired and knew if we stayed another day we would go back to Washington DC and tour something. We just weren’t up to that plus the forecast was for the possibility of rain on Wednesday. So we pulled out and headed North to our current campground.

We are at Chestnut Lake Resort, a 1000 Trails/Naco Park, in Port Republic, NJ. Although we have a spot on the front row, overlooking the lake, I have to say this is not the nicest 1000 Trails park we have stayed. When we checked in, the gal at the front desk gave us the impression we we causing her too much trouble to check us in and she had a surly attitude. She informed us that all the sites have water and 30 amp power only, the first three rows have sewer, the back five rows aren’t tied into the sewer system.

Well, the first site we pulled into had 50 amp service, yea. Our coach has a built in electrical power surge protector that will not allow any power to the coach unless all connections and wiring are good. The surge protector said the plug wasn’t wired correctly (reverse polarity) and wouldn’t let the power through. I walked back to the check in building and told the gal, she didn’t care but said, “See, I told you there was no 50 amp sites” and laughed. They also don’t have any maintenance people to check it out. We moved to a different site and are now managing our power usage on the 30 amp service.

The sites here are very close together, they are about 15’ in width. Our slide outs are just about on the neighbor’s picnic table and we have to walk though their site to get to our utilities. The sites are mostly all pull through but the roads are so narrow that even the shorter rigs can’t just pull through, even they have to jockey back and forth to get settled. And of course, the bigger rigs have even more trouble getting in, I’m glad the park wasn’t very full when we checked in as it was easier to pull into our site.

We got here on Tuesday and didn’t do much of anything for two days, just rested a bit after all the walking we did in Washington DC. We did go to a Wal-Mart and a grocery store to stock up. We are close to the Lobster fishing here on the East coast and the grocery store had live ones for sale. Lorraine really likes lobster so we got one, boiled it up, BBQed a steak and had a very good dinner on our third night here.

Friday we decided to drive to Atlantic City. We have been there before but only for part of one day and we both were fighting colds then. Plus we were here in March a few years ago and it was cold so we couldn’t spend much time outside on the boardwalk. This time the weather was much better, in the high 80s with a bit of breeze. We walked the boardwalk, Lorraine got to check out the water and the beach and we went to a couple of the casinos too.

Yesterday morning we went to the breakfast at the lodge here at the park. Afterwards, we went over to watch the attraction they have going on this weekend. Now we have been to lots of different exhibits and displays since we’ve been on the road but this was a first for us, anywhere. They are holding the “Annual International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame Championship Tournament” this weekend at the park.

There are about 25 competitors here in the knife throwing competition. They throw knives at three wooden targets from distances ranging from 5 to 30 feet, move stations and do the same with three more targets. They also throw hatchets and spikes but most of that will happen tomorrow. We did get to see one guy who has been the world champion 17 times. These gals and guys are good.

Back when I had a J-O-B and had to work for a living, I was able to come to New Jersey for three weeks on a project I was working on. We saw lots of diners around the area and were told they were a good place to eat, at least in NJ. The diners look something like a railroad car and we were told the more chrome on the outside, the better the food on the inside. We found that to be true then and also found the portions to be HUGE compared to other places.

After watching the knife throwing contest for awhile, we headed out for town for some shopping. While we were out, we ran across a diner with lots of chrome on the outside. We just had to try it. Once again we found the above statement to be true. The food was good and portions more than we could eat. I think we will be on the lookout for more of these diners while we are here!

Our plans have us staying here until next Sunday when we will start heading West, our first stop will be at Lebanon, Pa. to another 1000 Trails park. We will be there over the 4th, we don’t want to try to find a spot then as most of the campgrounds are full with weekenders camping with their families.

I got a call from Wayne the other day and couldn’t talk long. Wayne, I lost your number and couldn’t call you back, please give me a call again. I’ll keep your number this time, I hope!

So enough of the writing stuff, I’ll add some pictures and get this posted.

WWII monument.

Korean Monument, the first one shows the etchings on the marble wall.

The three soldiers of Viet Nam memorial was being redone so we couldn’t see much of it.

Lincoln Memorial from the WWII monument and down the Reflecting Pool. I could almost see Forest Gump wading though here when we first saw the pool.

The second picture is the Gettysburg Address carved in the Wall.

The Viet Nam memorial, we’ve seen the traveling wall a few times, this is the first time at the real one. The second pictures shows my brother’s name on the wall. Too many young men gave their lives for their country during this war!! And too many families were adversely affected by those losses.

A statue honoring the Women of Viet Nam War.

Bob and Sue, folks we met and went to dinner with while at Cherry Hill. They also are fulltimers and we hope to meet up with them on the road again sometime. Hope your awning change went good, sorry I wasn’t there to help.