Port Republic, N.J.

Friday finds us waiting for the DirecTV man. He shows up this morning about 9:30 and has us all hooked up by 11:30. We wanted only our main television hooked up but, he could not do that because of the way our motor home stereo system is wired. We now have all three televisions set up to receive DirecTV. GREAT!!

After lunch we drove back to Atlantic City to find the Harley shop. They did not have any tee shirts that were light colored and in Tom's size....so we found the Atlantic County Harley shop. Yes, they did have a couple of tee shirts. When we left the shop we got back on the Garden State tollway, and we then went to Manahawkin, then onto Long Beach Island.

We found Barnegat Lighthouse. It was very interesting and with our history with sailboats we find the different lighthouses really interesting. Barnegat light was officially extinguished in 1944, turned over to the State of New Jersey and is now on the National Historical Landmarks List.

We arrived home in time to cook a wonderful meal....then Nancy wanted to go to Smithville. It looked like they had a really neat shopping area. Imagine her surprise upon arriving that all the stores were closed on a Friday night at 7:00!!! Now we will need to make that trip tomorrow.

But we headed off the beaten path and found the end of the road not far from where we are camping.

Really a neat area, who ever thought that the low lands were in the Carolinas? Well, they have them in New Jersey, too.

Port Rep

WELL WE ARE TAKING A FEW DAYS OFF AND JUST RESTING. Hard to think we have been gone for over three weeks. Wednesday was a rainy day so we went in the car to find a TV Tripod. We are getting DirecTV Installed on Friday morning. It took us three hours to find someone who still carried TV Tripods!!!!! We went first to Walmart, NO GOT. Then we found a Home Depot, from there we found a Lowe's and then a Best Buy and then a Radio Shack. No luck anyplace, we finally let our fingers do the driving and called a different Radio Shack and they have one. Lucky us!!!! So a job we thought would take us a short amount of time took us a lot longer and a lot of miles in this stupid New Jersey traffic. We thought other places had bad drivers. I think a lot of them are here in Jersey! You can't go from point A to point B here. You're required to go thru X, Y and Z in between.

Thursday found us playing in traffic once again. We needed to return a stapler.....it would not work. Then we still needed a mast for the satellite dish tripod, again to Lowe's and then lunch out before returning home. When we arrive home we find the TV Mast is the wrong size. Sure hope the DirecTV guy has a mast for us. Tomorrow we sit and wait all morning for the TV hook up. Wish us well. No photos this posting as we have not taken any.

Ocean Grove, N.J.

Tuesdays are always lots of fun. We had made plans to visit with Tony and Mary Colletto who live in Edison, N.J. but, We met them in Ocean Grove . Mary and Tony knew their way around the area and were gracious hostess and host. We toured in their auto and had a really nice tour. They were familiar with the area so that was really great. We were shown where friends Barb and Skip lived in nearby Bradley Beach, where Barb had her tea room and where Barb and Skip's son Chris lives.

It seems like every city in New Jersey on the shore has a boardwalk in it. But, not all do. The beaches are all lovely and even though the temperature wasn't hot, there were many people walking the boardwalk and laying in the sun, tanning. We did neither, but it is still fun to note for all of you reading our blog.

Ocean Grove is a city where old and new all look old. The homes are all Victorian and lovely. We visited the Lillagaard where Barb's tea room was and Dick and Jane (yes that is their real names) let us tour the home. It is a lovely place and has four floors of living in it, plus the basement where the tea room is located. Every single room is decorated in a particular style, each has it's own theme. Lovely!!!

I took photos in the tea room. You must make reservations and they serve tea on the week-ends. It is quaint, pretty as a picture and as you can see it's theme is early victorian. The decorations are lovely. I'm not sure how much has here when Barbara had the tea room, but I'm sure some of it was.

We found places to shop for Mary and Nancy while Tony and Tom sat and girl watched while drinking coffee and enjoying some tidbit from the local bakery.

We then headed north to Asbury Park. What a difference in one town, it is really beat up and not very lovely at all. Most of you know that this is the city that Bruce Springstein got his start in.

Tony then continued our tour north we went through the "Jewish Mafia" area, where homes are big and lawns well manicured. Following up the coast until we landed in Long Branch. We found a greek restaurant in which to eat and had a great lunch. Then Mary and Nancy again went shopping on the boardwalk while Tony and Tom sat on the boardwalk enjoying the scenery. (I'm sure it was girl watching, again!!)

We found a Costco and did a little shopping before parting ways. The day was so very enjoyable and we all had a great time.

Port Republic, N.J.

Ahhhh, life is great when you live 365 days on vacation. We head south to Cape May. We find the ferry boat and see what transpires. We have never taken our motor home on a ferry. We should have done the ferry boat thing instead of up I95, but we didn't, so that is something that goes on our to-do list. Maybe next time. During our little stop here we walk out to the beach. New Jersey seems to have beaches all over the place.

Then we head into the town of Cape May. We find row upon row of beautifully maintained Victorian homes. They are something to see, the whole town is beautiful.

They don't have a boardwalk in Cape May, but Nancy did manage to find about a five block pedestrian mall in which to shop.

We lunched at a fresh fish house and it was good. After finishing shopping we found the waterfront and watched a shrimp boat, the Capt Jeff, come in to port.

We thought, on our way home, we should stop at Ocean City as they have a boardwalk and Tom hasn't been on an east coast boardwalk before. We luck out and find a parking spot and off we go, walking till our metered time is almost up. Back in the car Tom says he wants to head into Atlantic City and see the casinos.

Nancy navigates us up the coast and, poof, we are in A.C. We drive into the Tropicana parking garage and find our waythru the shops and then the casino and then out to the boardwalk, This takes some skill as the hotel is so huge and overwhelming. Wow, not one but two boardwalks in one day, exhausting!!!!! We walk some and yes we even walk down on the beach once again. Nancy's hip starts bothering her so off we go to find the car, take a pain pill and head for home.

Back home, Nancy looks at The pedometer and she has over 10,000 steps......so off come the shoes and it's time to relax, maybe even have a drink tonight!

Port Republic, N.J.

Sunday is a day of rest, and that's what we are doing. We left Chesapeake Bay on Saturday morning and drove to the New Jersey "shore". Nancy talked with people all day Saturday using up NO cell phone minutes while Tom piled up HOURS behind the wheel. That is good as she had used a lot of minutes talking with the insurance adjustor's from our insurance company and also Christy's company.

We had to travel through some fairly heavily traveled areas, Richmond, VA, Washington, DC, Annapolis,MD, Baltimore, MD and Wilmington DE. Anyhow it was a little exciting as we experienced more traffic than we thought we would on a Saturday. One close call on a narrow two lane road in New Jersey, a car full of teenagers pulled out in front of us and we had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting them. Oh, the joys of youth! They truly are indestructible aren't they! 29,000 lb motorhomes don't even slow down very fast...... missed them by a whole 2'!!

Today finds us relaxing by the campsite, oh wait, Tom finds another site that he likes better, so in less than two shakes of a lambs tail we up and move.

We are set up and the front window looks out on Chestnut Lake.

Pretty neat, huh?

Cheaspeake Bay, Virginia

We arrived here on Tuesday the first of June. I posted that eventful day and have taken a few days off. Wednesday found us waiting around for calls from insurance adjustor's. What a waste. At least Christy's insurance company admitted she was at fault and they will bear all the costs for repairing our motor home. We told them we would not be back in south Florida until sometime in September and at that time we would get it fixed. We will not spoil another summer trip because we are still able to use the motor home.

Thursday finds us thinking we will go to Williamsburg, Va. We head out and know that we are going to visit the city and see Colonial America. You can purchase tickets for a tour but, we know we can't walk far, and they are really pricey, like $49.00 per person! So, we go, find a parking place and walk the streets of colonial Williamsburg.

Tom finds a bench to sit and wait for Nancy to tour where she wants, and eventually Nancy shows up and they continue their visit. We then ride around the city on the same streets that the tour buses use. We then head for home and find the roads under construction, and after many delays we arrive back home.

Friday, we head into Richmond to tour the Capitol and then onto the Confederate White House

and finally the Museum of the Confederacy. Wow, talk about history coming alive......this really gives some thought to our early beginnings as a nation. The Confederate White House is really neat, too.

It has lots of period furniture in it and also some furniture that the Davis family actually owned. It was gutted by Union forces after Appomattox, then used as a school for 500 grade-schoolers for years. Then it was sold to the DCSA (Daughters of the Confederate States of America) and brought back to "life". The museum has lots of clothing, flags of states in the confederacy, guns from that era.

Nancy at the lower entrance to the old State Capitol in Richmond, VA.

The Capitol building is not as lovely as the Pennsylvania Capitol, but the history, knowing where we walked some of the great early statesmen (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc) also walked is something else

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This is the only statue Washington actually posed for.

Chesapeake Bay Preserve, Tuesday

Do you ever have the feeling that today is not your day? We start out early 8:00 a.m. because we are heading to Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, and we get two miles down the road and BAM, CRASH, BOOM.....we had pulled off the side of the road and were having a discussion about just what route we wanted to take to Virginia and someone hits us.

We hurry out the door and what????the dickens no damage to the car, but look at the motorhome!!!!! Some younger person has hit the motorhome and done damage to the drivers side rear. She said she was doing about 60mph when she hit the RV. As you can see, it was a glancing blow. The missing mirror on the truck flew into the cab and hit the girl on her neck and shoulder.

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How did she manage to not hit the car?, well she said she was reaching for a paper so it would not blow out the window and you know what happens, when you reach you also have a tendency to pull that way with the steering wheel. So we waited for the sheriff to come and when he came he told us the state police would be showing up. To make the long story short....we waited and after two hours he let us go, but the younger lady was given a ticket. He told her how lucky she was to be alive, if she had been even 1/2 of an inch closer to the motorhome she would have probably died. The pictures don't show all the damage. Our Left rear lighting is out of commision and the locker door just barely opens. The whole rear panel is pushed forward a half inch. We don't know if there is any unseen damage. First thing is to get the lights operating on both the coach and now the car as well.

So now we are two hours later and finally on our way. We think we need to get to I-95 so we travel and get on it. We stop about noontime to put diesel in the motorhome and think that we should also run the car as they say every time you stop for gas you should run the auto for 15 minutes. We run the car for 20 minutes and get back on the road to the next rest area about 1/2 mile up the road where we pull off for lunch. We walk Charley and let her run around a little before getting back on the road.

We arrive at Thousand Trails Chesapeake Bay Preserve about 3:30, check in and go to unhook the car......and you guessed it the car battery was dead! We call Cadillac and after about an hour a wrecker shows up and gives us a jump and we can move the auto to where our campsite is. Needless to say we needed to let the car charge for awhile, so we thought what the heck why not go into Gloucester and see if we can find a Walmart and buy a jumper cable box. We arrive at Walmart and Tom does not like what they have so we find an Applebee's and eat dinner before heading back to the campsite.

On the way back to our campsite Nancy told Tom to just keep on route 17 then turn in Glenns on route 198. Tom said to trust the GPS cause he programed it into our campsite before leaving and it told us to take another route to get back. You guessed it the GPS had the wrong information and it took us about 11.3 miles out of the way. I guess Tom should listen to Nancy when she says the GPS does not have the right setting for us.

Anyhow we are here, the thunderstorm is past and we are dry and we get absolutely no TV. So, I guess this is the night we pull out the CD's and watch some of them.

Hope you all had an enjoyable holiday, and continue reading our blog.