Okay more on the road trip & stuff we did

Whew its really hard to get on the computer to do this!!!

Jersey Shore Pictures Woooo!

We spent most of our weekends in September at the beach, either staying at Ron's parents beach house (which is so very kind of them). Or just taking a drive there. I have always been okay with the beach but in love with the boardwalk, the smells, the sounds, and the sights. Althoughy lately some have the sights have been a little bit raunchy for my tastes. (Come on people put some clothes on!)

Here are some pictures from the boardwalk and the beach. They have this new "ski-lift" thing. It broke down at LEAST once a day but Ron and I still rode it. Fun fun fun and peaceful.
















We went to Allaire Village which was fun and a simple day of quiet New Jersey history.

Allaire Village was founded by the very industrious James P. Allaire. He founded the small town around iron bogs in Farmingdale, NJ. For a time, Allaire was home to all of the workers who worked in the bogs. It was really fascinating as a commune too in which there was universal education and health care (such as it was) there was also 100% employment with children (age 3 and up) working. The young children of course didn't do anything to dangerous...they just worked in the NAIL FACTORY!!!!

Allaire Village

Here is a video I took with my camera. This is called a Wulitzer, a military band organ.

The highlight up the trip for both Ron and myself was a tour of Allaire's former home. Really what made it interesting was this lovely woman who gave the tour who was really interested in the subject and incredibly knowledgeable and friendly. Truly some of the best tours we have ever had have been nearly empty with just us and the tour guide. I think at some time we would have been shy about such an intimate tour but experience has taught us otherwise.

So lets see where did I leave off with our trip? Happily, I have just finished working on the photo album for it. So I'll have that to go through.

After we went to Massachusetts we drove up and over to southern Vermont. Which is simply lovely. Everything about Vermont is majestic and beautiful. The people are kind and we appreciated the different pace of life. It did take some getting used to of course, how strange that people wanted to talk to us pretty much anywhere we went.

We did some "down home" type of things here. We went to the small but chock-full Norman Rockwell Museum, which is staffed by people who modeled for the artist. For several years Rockwell lived in Arlington Vermont. He moved there after deciding that New Yorkers were becoming a little too wealthy for their own good! He enjoyed the life and found what he considered to be the Americana worth capturing. His portraits of Arlington natives are some of his most compelling and famous works. (such as The Four Wants).

Our food situation was a bit limited in this respect but we went to a sweet little place where I had homemade chili and the prices were fantastic! (good for cheap Ron and Nikki)

We did cheese shopping and saw Harry Potter, and drove around looking for covered bridges. We also went to something that has really disappeared in New Jersey. A book store where the employees both love and know books. It is so annoying to go into Borders or Barnes and Nobel (my only options) and ask idiot clerks where my literary selection is located. Not only do they not know, they don't care and they would rather I help my self at the kiosk. Not at this place, here they not only had heard of Nathanial Hawthorne (not exactly an unknown, I know) but they had READ all of his works. They could recommend a selection that would be best for me. Amazing!

We also had an okay dinner at a Colonial Restaurant. The building was really cool, but truthfully it the food was just average. I had Tom Turkey (big in Vermont) with stuffing and vegetables. The weirdest thing, I had like 1.5 lbs of turkey and only 3 carrots....their method serving the vegetables was to first bring your your entree and then the waitress brought out something the size of a small dessert plate with a few baby corn spears and carrots on it, then she asked Ron and I if we would like some and then she divided it between the two of us, and took the rest (yes there were leftover veggies on the plate). I thought that was so weird why not just give us everything. Plus its Vermont in the middle of summer is there nothing green to be had? It was pretty pricey too so we expected more.

We stayed in a cute little cottage in Vermont. It overlooked a mountain and we had our own bathroom and bed and air conditioning. It was heaven and perfect timing since it rained everyday we were in Vermont.

Next we drove to the border of VT and NY. We crossed Lake Champlain in our car on a barge. Peaceful, slow, and very very wet since it was pouring at this point. We spent the day in Fort Ticonderoga, which has a gruesome history that really fascinated Ron. Our macabre is so different. I find death by disease really interesting (as in black plague, influenza) an he favors learning about death by man. Either way its a little dark. (I found the small pox outbreaks really terrifying.)

Unfortunately due to the terrible weather several of the walking tours were cancelled and we couldn't or I should say didn't want to go and see the gardens.

Moving on we drove down to Lake George, NY but we decided to rent a hotel room for an extra night mainly because of the weather and because we like air conditioning. Since I didn't know we would be looking for a room I didn't have time to price hunt and it was the more expensive then our two nights in Vermont! Still, watching TV in a/c was totally worth it as it was pouring outside. It certainly beat tent camping :).

The next night we went to our reserved campground which was truly disgusting. I didn't even bother to go into the bathroom because it was so gross in the campgrounds. Ron did however, and he told me I made the right decision. So, stinky and gross ugh...moving on.... we started to do some activities. We were lucky enough to see some free Shakespeare in the Park. "the Comedy of Errors". It was pretty good actually.

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Next day we drove up to the top of a mountain to take in the view.

Went to Fort William Henry (French Indian War Era Fort that had Civil War souvenirs for some reason?)

Went on a GREAT dinner cruise on Lake George. It was nearly empty while the Minne-ha-ha(another cruise boat on Lake George) was sold out. Dinner was good but the view was better. Lots of lovely little islands, huge homes, and great views of the mountains.

Then we went home but not before we stopped at Saratoga National Historic Site, but I was hungry and don't remember what we did. :)

Hurray for the Road Trip!! One day I will try and add some more detail where I skimped :)

Update Part One (point) Five

Here is an update on our vacation. We decided to cut our trip a little bit. Please see the little map above.

We are now going to

Mystic, CT

Cape Cod, MA

Concord and Lexington, MA

Salem, MA

Bennington and Rutland, VT

Fort Ticonderoga, NY

Saratoga, NY

We cut out Maine even though we have never been there and would be really excited to see what the Northern State has to offer we decided it would jsut put too much stress in our relaxation vacation!

We also are staying in a cabin in Vermont, nice and remote and pretty!

Update Part One!

Well I really haven't done an update in quite a while so i'm going to do a few right now. It all starts a few weeks ago when Ron and I took part in our first Rev. War Re-enactment. We were very nervous about how we would do, meeting new people and scariest of all: sleeping out of doors (in a canvas tent to be precise)!

Our First Event: Battle of Bordentown.

The battle reenactment took place over the the weekend of June 9 - 10th. It was a large event celebrating the 325th Anniversary of Bordentown, NJ. We were joined by our unit (2nd New Jersey Helm's Coy) and about 1,000 other participants for a hot, humid, couple of days.

Our Tent

Ron and I got there late Friday night and were given a bale of hay and our tent. So we set up, chatted for a bit and then got settled for the night. Now I have a big bug issue but I did my best not to look too hard for critters in our tent. The night air was soo humid that we could barely get to sleep, we slept in our underpants on top of a sheet we laid down. At 6 AM the sun flooded through the canvas tent waking us far earlier than either one of us like. We through pillows over our faces and tried to sleep again only to be interrupted by revile which blasted us into the world of the living at 7:00!

This is what Ron looks like when he's cranky in the morning and has a camera shoved in his face.
Some of the people in our group were kind enough to loan us some clothes and we were fortunate enough to buy alot of our gear on the cheap from people giving up the hobby. In the end, we were able to put together our "Impressions" or costumes.

And so there were Ron and Nikki in the 1770s. My role is that of camp follower, which means cook, although (full disclosure) in reality the male soldiers would have done their own meal preparations (meager as their rations were) and camp followers would have done laundry or possible made some extra money by sewing or reparing uniforms and other accessories.

I spent most of my time around this table

and this fire!

The Food

The menu for the day consisted of Eggs, Ham, Cheese and Bread for lunch and for dinner Beef Stew and Three Bean Salad with more bread. Tres magnifique, it was interesting learning how to cook over an open fire and how to stoke and keep the fire roaring. I could never do this by myself of course.

The Battle

Ron may have more to say on this than me, but here are the facts the battle took place on a large open field, with several hundred Brittish, German Hessians, Americans, Dragoons etc. There were eight cannons that alerted the entire town to their presence with loud bursts of fire!

The show was just ok from the perspective of the spectator. It was a bit confusing to see what was going on, and at one point half the army marched to an area that was completely obscured by trees and fought there for about 30 minutes. The tourists were less than impressed unfortunately!

Side Notes

• Turns out ol' Ronald and I aren't too fond of tent camping (on the ground at least, bring on the airobed thank you!)


• I refused to use the port-a-john and held my bladder all day until we could get to a modern bathroom (thanks Bordentown McDonalds)


• Ron had heat exhaustion and he got quite sick. We had to flee in the middle of the night even though I thought that was crazy (ha ha)


• A spider was hanging from the top of the tent nearly in my face!

Even with the side notes Ron and I still had a good enough time to go back in two weeks to the battle of monmouth, although this time we planned a little bit more.....but that is a story for Update Part Deux.

Memorial Day Weekend 2007

Here are some pictures from the beach house.

Sweet Wesley!

Wesley again!

Island Beach State Park for some surf fishing!
Here is spunky Devin the Dude, he has so much energy that he is very hard to capture on film! But its well worth it when you do .

Here is Ron preping his pole for some surf fishing, he caught an amazing zero fish but his face shows you the effort he put into the endevour.
And finally...



This is what happens when I get bored on a long car ride to the beach in some traffic...

First lets see what it would look like if there was someone looking at me who was about 1 foot taller than me.



Then.... lets pretend its a grand day at the races.
There are very many more but I will spare the blog.

Road Trip Update

Well summer is right around the corner, and we've been planning a road trip/ camping vacation. We've entitled it "Our New England Historical Road Trip" and we have come up with the itinerary for it.

Here it is....

Day 1 - Home >>> Mystic Seaport, CT >>> Boston, MA
Day 2 - Boston, MA >>> Boston, MA
Day 3 - Boston, MA >>> Minute Man Nat'l Park, MA >>> Portland, ME
Day 4 - Portland, ME >>> Someplace on the Eastern Border of VT
Day 5 - VT >>> Ticonderoga, NY
Day 6 - Ticonderoga, NY >>> Ticonderoga, NY
Day 7 - NY >>> Home

It should be a lot of driving and a chance for us to see the sights and sounds of New England, since we've never been to Maine or Boston before nor have we ever gone camping. We're looking forward to it big time!