Vacation and Family Blog: 2008

Happy Memorial Day 2008!

As Chuck Davis once said ... "I need a vacation." Of course he actually said that more than once, but like Kramer on Seinfeld, his life is a vacation.

So is mine.

After another tough year of professorship (molding the youth of America as the general likes to say), I was ready for another May Getaway.

This time we traveled to the Big Apple.

Along the way, we passed through nine states (GA, TN, VA, WV, MD, PA, NJ, NY, CT), drove around 2200 miles, saw two presidential libraries and estates (FDR and TR), the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, and a Yankees game in the last year before old Yankee Stadium closes.

I meant to update daily during the trip like last year, but brought along the wrong camera card reader.

At any rate ... hope you enjoy the pictures and comments below! Click on any pic to enlarge.

The Happy Traveler ... on the road again

Jackson, Susan, and I love to learn about the US Presidents, so a stop at the birthplace of James Buchanan in PA was of great fun to him and us ... we were driving through Mercersburg when he shouted "there's old Buck!" ... you can tell he likes the statue.

Old Buck's actual birthplace home is now on the campus of Mercersburg Academy (which I'd never heard of but it has a beautiful campus).

A nice swim in Harrisburg, PA, at the end of a long first day's drive. A view of Harrisburg the next morning too.

We always try to get an indoor pool ... they say heated but whew - can be cold! By the way, if you are budget travelers like us, find a credit card that gives points for hotels ... we only paid for one or two nights out of ten on the road.

First pic is from Fishkill NY along the beautiful Hudson River above NYC. The hotel was about 30 miles from Hyde Park, home of FDR. The second is of the pool at our home base of White Plains NY (about 40 miles north of the city).

Before getting to Fishkill, we stopped in Candy Town USA - Hershey, PA. I highly recommend ... great tour, beautiful town, amusement park, arena where Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 (on the court), and of course - free samples!

Milton Hershey was a great man ... he and his wife started the Hershey school for orphans and it is fully endowed and a wonderful place.

See if you can tell which picture I was thinking ... "oh man what kind of caption could Vic and Westbrook put on this picture!"

The street lamps in Hershey are shaped like kisses ... alternating between wrapped and unwrapped. Neat.

Hyde Park and the Hudson River Valley are gorgeous ... it was a cold, rainy day (like the weather most of the time we were up there) but well worth the visit ... we also saw the nearby Vanderbilt Mansion. Not as nice as Jay's place but still pretty good.

Below are pictures from perhaps my favorite day of the trip.

A perfect Saturday on Long Island at Sagamore Hill on Oyster Bay ... home of the great Theodore Roosevelt. The tour guide was a local WWII vet named Adrian Bogart (cousin of Humphrey) whose dad knew TR ... he could mimic what TR must have sounded like and was terrific. I choked up during his tour on more than one occasion when he talked about the US and TR (who stopped work at 4:00 PM every day to play with his kids no matter who was visiting) ... great stuff.

After the tour, we stopped for lunch at a little deli along the harbor where they were having a parade. Gosh ... a perfect day.

Touring NYC by water ... the days leading to Memorial Day weekend are "Fleet Week" so a lot of Navy vessels were in the water. Inspiring and reassuring to see them, especially the small Special Forces boats skimming along the harbor coast.

Touring NYC by foot ... I had never been and really liked it. A great walking city with wide sidewalks, plenty of police ... very safe and clean in most places. You can stop on most any city block and step in for a sandwich or fresh pizza ... good!

You never know who you'll meet on the streets of NYC ... here is a chance encounter with funnyman Robin Williams ... and below ... I try to protect my pocket from getting picked by boxing promoter Don King!

Here are some others you might recognize ... LJ and J-Lo

Hillary tried to use Jackson for a campaign commerical until I intervened ... then the big left-hander got involved too (we saw his office in Harlem by the way).

My son's ambition is to be a dictator ... so he met two compatriots ...

Here's what I think of your Nobel Prize Arafat.

NYC from the air (Empire State Building) ... we had three-day city passes that allowed us to go on a lot of stuff. One of the favorites was the Empire State Building, which we saw during day and at night, sunny and mild, and rainy and cold. Brooklyn and Queens are to the East, Central Park, Uptown and Harlem to North, NJ and the Hudson to the West, and downtown or lower Manhatten and Statue of Liberty to South.

A golf driving range along the Hudson at Midtown Manhatten ... so I could keep sharp for Munson.

Back on the water ... famous Staten Island Ferry is the orange vessel.

Yankees 8 ... Orioles 0 ... A cool and blustery night at Yankee Stadium as the Bronx Bombers broke out of a slump by whipping the O's. A-Rod had two homeruns although only one counted because of a bad call. We visited Monument Park before the game and it was cap night so got some nice headwear too! There is a shot of the facade of the new Yankee Stadium in there also. I liked the historical aspects of the stadium but the surrounding area is not comparable to Wrigley or Fenway of the other two old ballparks I've visited. Smart fans though.