NEW YORK, CATSKILLS MOUNTAINS

WEST POINT, NEW YORK

A day trip to West Point, New York. The drive was on a two lane road that ranged from 5 miles to 45 miles. Curves, zigzag and even a 5 mile u turn. The drive was awesome. You can see the Catskill Mountains across the Rondout Valley.

Arriving at West Point an hour later was well worth it. To get inside you had to go through a gate with gold statues on either side of the guard. It was established in 1803 and had a total the first year of four students with five teachers employed.

You went around the sport center where they play football, soccer. Big signs GO ARMY.... Their record is not the best. (Something like the Cowboys).

As you go around the bend you see this beautiful Gothic architecture of
the Twentieth Century. It sits as a silent sentinel watching over the Corps of Cadets. The chapel was completed in 1910 using granite quarried at West Point.
The stain glass windows were gifts from the Graduates. There are 192
windows along each side of the chapel. The first window cost $300.00. The Willet Stained Glass Co of Philadelphia charges the same price for each class window from 1910 to 1976.

The Flags are Battle Flags. They represent Nation colors. The battle-honored Army regiments from 1812. Mexican, Civil, and Spanish-American wars of the 19 th Century.

The grounds show the barracks of the Cadets. There are 7 and the center one is the George Washington barracks. All are named after famous Generals.

The view of the Hudson River is just a couple blocks away.

We only had 15 minuets to go to the museum so all we could do was just walk in an look around the bottom floor. They closed early as they are still doing renovations.

I took this picture as the guide was saying no pictures can be taken in this area. This is the Hotel where the American hostages that were held in Iran in 1981 for over 400 days, were released from Iran and were sent to The Thoer for debriefing.

In front of the Hudson River is a statue of a guardian Angel watching over the area protecting the cadets from harm.

Tomorrow we are going to see FDR 's home and then Federick Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York.

STROUDSBURG, PA

This was such a beautiful RV park with lots of shade trees which we need as we do not have our awning fixed yet. That will be when we get to Cap Cod for 12 days. We shortened our stay here as we wanted to have one more day in the next RV camp site in NY. We went to Bushkill Falls the Niagara Falls of PA. This is our camp site.
This park has 8 water falls throughout the trails. The first water fall was the highest and was beautiful. After the second water fall John decided to do the red trail. It was a beautiful day in the 70's and most of the trails were shaded.

About 45 mins into our hike we come to a sign that told us it was not what we wanted but we were already into the hike so we said " what the heck".


This was just the beginning of our 1 mile climb over rocks with no trail to follow. We were climbing up and just stepped on a rock when a little snake came out and slithered away. We didn't get any pictures of our butts in the air trying to climb the steep rock hill but we kept going. (what else could you do). We followed the river and stopped at benches when we saw one.

Our little 45 min hike was now into 2 hrs and at one point we went up 108 steps to get to a level then another 90 steps to get to another level. We kept saying what goes up must come down but we kept going up. We lost count of the steps until we went into the gift shop and saw this sign.


We say a sign at a little restaurant on our way to the falls that said Steamed claims . We thought claims and a cold beer sounded great . We drove maybe 1 mile and pulled off the road and was sitting there ready to pull into a parking spot when John yelled "STOP". Bam!!!

A man in a convertible jumped into his car without looking and was in a hurry to pick up his son for work and didn't even look behind and rammed into the rear passenger door. We have a boo boo on our RV and now our car. We still give thanks to God for his protection each and every day. It looks like He is working overtime with us.

After 2 doz clams and 2 beers, we went home feeling life is good.....

WASHINGTON DC WHILE AT FT. MEADE

TRIP TO DC AREA

We arrived at Ft Meade Thursday to find the base is very small. While driving to our site we saw these two ground hogs or what every they were just sitting next to the road. Not afraid of people or cars.

John worked back in 1973-1978 downtown DC with the Department of the Army as a Club Management Specialist, responsible for making unprofitable clubs profitable. This was his building on Independence Rd. right across the street from the Air and Space Building. /a>
My father and mother are both buried in Arlington National Cemetery so we were given passes to go into the Cemetery. Only buses and family members are allowed to drive inside. While there at the Cemetery we went to see some of the different memorials. This is the USS Maine. Click on the first picture and it tells you what the other pictures represent.

The Memorial for the Space programs are below



Walked across the street and saw the Tomb of the Unknown Solider and the changing of the guards - a very memorable experience.



Driving back we were able to get some shots of famous memorials. The one with the spires is the Air Force Memorial.


We left DC and spent the next 45 Min's in bottle neck traffic and only went 1 1/2 miles. We were planning to go to Annapolis but forget it. It was going to take us an hour to get there and we had already spent 1 1/2 hr in traffic so we scrapped that trip. We leave here Sunday so we are just lazying away the day today.

Virginia Beach, Virginia

Virginia Beach is where I came to live from the age of 5 until age 61. My teenage years, marriage, employment, Birthing babies, graduations, children leaving home then husband dying after 41 years of marriage. There is a lot of history in this ole town and many Church,dancing, neighbor and childhood friends. It was a hard decision to pack up and move to Texas where I knew only 4 people in the whole state.

We first camped at Ft Story Military base in the woods. The first night we went outside to have a glass of wine, I was bitten by a yellow Fly. If anyone knows about a yellow fly they have a poison in their bite and will leave whelps or blisters and itch like crazy for over 1 week. That night I was up scratching from 3:30 until 8:00 when John got up. I was miserable. That night I wouldn't even go outside so John went out to put a grill together and he came in and said the yellow fly's were all over him. (This is the same man who says nothing bites him). The next day he had about 40 bite places and we ended up at a pharmacy where we got advice from the Pharmacist on what to do. It has been 8 days and we are still ithing from the bites.

Ft Story has two lighthouses The Old Cape Henry Lighthouse and the New Cape Henry Lighthouse. On March 31, 1791 Alexander Hamilton contracted with John McComb in New York to build an Octagonal Lighthouse. (There are only 9 otagonal lighthouses that survive today). It was Commissioned by George Washington in 1792 and has silently stood watch at the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay for over two centuries. During the Civil War, Confederate Troops damaged the light to render the lighthouse useless. In 1863 Union Troops repaired the equipment and used it to navigate the ships again. Over the years many cracks and structure decay cause the building of a new lighthouse across the street. This one was made from Cast Iron and looks like it was cut in half and put back together wrong. This lighthouse, black and white, was lit on December 15, 1881.


We left Ft Story and moved to Oceana Naval Air Station. The sound of Freedom is music to many people, but when you hear it at 6:30 AM to 10:30 PM its not the sound I love. The park was great but the Jets are a little bit to much. I forgot to tell you we were in the Jet landing pattern.
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I really enjoyed seeing old neighbors Jim and Elaine of 25 yrs, golf & RV friends Edna and Ronnie, Generic sisters, Marsha and Triva, Dr. Etheridge and staff, my old employer where John and I got our teeth cleaned, visited gravesites of my husband and sister and all the places that we saw of years gone by.

Well we are on the road again tomorrow. We will be in Ft Meade MD for 4 days.