TN8 wrapup

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Sparky

The 8th trip north (TN8) is in the books, so it is time to do the wrapup.

By the numbers:

  • 6 hops, 1,615 route miles (269 miles per hop).
  • 13 nights (9 in hotels), $1,539 in hotel charges ($171 per night).
  • 1,844 total driving miles, 56.4 gallons of gas (32.7 miles per gallon).
  • $227.78 in fuel costs ($4.04 per gallon).

The hotel costs were more than I originally budgeted – I was planning on $130 per night – but both New York City and Charleston were very expensive. I asked Ooma to find the hotels and she found places that were very nice. Much nicer than the rattraps that I might have booked.

The 32.7 mpg wasn’t bad but would have been higher but for the the driving tour of NYC and the horrendous exit from the city on Hop 6. Also, while $4.04 per gallon wasn’t bad at a time when regular gas was averaging about $4.30, I probably could have slipped in under $4 if I had stopped for the last refueling at Costco in Miford CT ($3.99 there), but I skipped that because of the heavy traffic.

Highlights:

  • My first visit with Jett’s boys and their families since her funeral. It was great to see them all again. And their warm welcome of Ooma made me love them all the more.
  • Sharing NYC and Charleston with Ooma, who had never been to either place. She loved both, as I knew she would.
  • St Marys GA, a beautiful little town.

Lowlights:

  • Ooma’s COVID illness (her third!). It changed our NYC plans and resulted in canceling planned visits with 2 old friends. I don’t like to see her sick any more than she likes being sick. Fortunately, I did not catch it. I am sure that my bout with COVID after July 4 was responsible for that. It would have been difficult keeping to our planned itinerary if I had been ill too. So while it spoiled a few things, we were still able to enjoy New York. And we made it to Worcester right on schedule. Strange as it sounds, I am grateful now that I caught COVID before the start of the TN8.
  • Devin’s boat breakdown. A lovely day in the water in VA was tainted by the failure of the boat to start after a lovely lunch. I am sure Devin was more upset than I was and the day was still very nice, but I hate when a brand new boat fails for no good reason.
  • The horrendous traffic leaving New York on Hop 6. I can’t recall having worse traffic in all of my previous travels.

Planned versus actual routes:

TN8 planned
TN8 actual

Pretty close. No major diversions. The stop in New Salem was added.

Now a month in Worcester. It will be busy but we won’t be living out of suitcases. The 8th trip south (TS8) will start just before Labor Day. I will give a preview of that in a couple of weeks.

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TN8 Hop 6: New York NY to Worcester MA

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Sparky
TN8 Hop 6

250 miles via I-278, Hutchinson Parkway/Merritt Parkway, US 7, I-95, I-91, I-291, local streets to US 202 and MA 122 with a refueling stop and a stop in New Salem MA to introduce Ooma to Jett’s brother Ray and his wife Kim. Cumulative TN8 route miles: 1615. Cumulative car miles: 1844. Car miles since the end of Hop 5: 389. The extra car miles were due mostly to the Manhattan driving tour and the trip to the Staten Island ferry terminal.

We left the hotel at 11:15am and really thought we would get to our meet-and-greet stop in New Salem by 3:30pm. After all, we hadn’t encountered any significant traffic delays in our Thursday tour of Manhattan so why would it be any worse on a weekend? Well, I don’t know why it was so bad, but the first 70 miles of this hop were among the worst I have ever experienced, taking over 3 hours (average speed: 22 mph) and we didn’t reach New Salem until 5:15pm, nearly 2 hours later than we expected. Heavy, heavy traffic all through New York and into Connecticut. It didn’t lighten much at all until we got on I-91 heading into Hartford. Miserable.

The visit in New Salem was socially-distanced, so no hugging or kissing. Ooma was still feeling some lingering effects of COVID. When we left we still had a 70-minute journey to our final destination in Worcester – Ray and Kim’s house. We arrived at dusk and did as little as possible when we finally arrived – we will clean out the car and set up for 4 weeks in Worcester on Sunday. Ooma was exhausted and headed straight to bed.

I will do the TN8 wrapup next.

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4 nights, 3 days in Staten Island

Posted on July 30, 2022 by Sparky

Our original plan for our visit to New York City (a place that Ooma has never visited) called for 2 days touring Manhattan via the Big Red Bus hop-on, hop-off routes and one day driving to Wave Hill and Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. But then, as mentioned previously, Ooma came down with COVID-19. For the THIRD time (does Guiness have a category for this?). She had a fever of 102 Tuesday morning and we left VA as quickly as possible. She was quite sick all day Tuesday and we quarantined in our Staten Island hotel room all day Wednesday. She felt a bit better Thursday and we took a driving tour of Manhattan. On Friday she was well on her way to recovery – no fever at all and only a few aches. She relapsed a bit late Friday but I trust that she will be much better Saturday.

First, let me tell you my impression of Staten Island (a place I have traveled through but never stayed in). I like it. It is more suburban than Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx and more laid-back than other places within an hour of Manhattan, such as Jersey City, Westchester County or Greenwich CT. We are really amazed that a place like this exists just a 30-minute ferry ride from lower Manhattan. If I were to live in NYC (not likely) I think this is where I would look.

Inside Pizza D’Oro

We ate in our hotel room all four days. I picked up some Panera chicken noodle soup for Ooma Tuesday night (I had a sub), then we did takeout pizza from Pizza D’Oro on Wednesday. It got great reviews and was obviously a wildly popular place – I had to wait an hour for my pizza and they actually ran out of dough after making mine – but we thought it was only mediocre. Thursday night was 494 Chicken which Ooma really liked, but I thought it was overcooked and overpriced. Friday night was Chinese from Oriental Plaza. Again, good reviews but mediocre (or less) food. I got tempura as an appetizer and it was soggy. Never had soggy tempura before. Never want it again.

So I can’t say that Staten Island is a gourmet paradise.

NYC driving tour

One highlight of our stay was the driving tour of Manhattan. Google estimated the tour would take less than 3 hours but I thought it would be closer to 4. It was actually almost 5. But it was a (mostly) pleasant trip – as pleasant as driving in Manhattan gets. I was able to give Ooma a taste of the city and she liked it very much. It was over 80 miles of city driving, which will kill my overall TN8 mileage, I suppose, and God knows how much I racked up in bridge tolls – possibly as much as $50 – but it was worth it. It was great to get Ooma out of the medical ward for an afternoon and take her to a place she has never been.

The photos from this tour were taken by Ooma, from the car – mostly while in motion – and through the windshield, so they are fairly low-quality. But she got some very nice bridge shots.

George Washington Bridge
Williamsburg Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge

She got a few nice shots of the city, too, but it is impossible to get shots of tall buildings from a car at street level.

Brownstones on 35th St
Washington Square

I had actually bought 2 2-day tickets for the Big Red Bus, at a cost of $160. I tried to get a refund but failed. Ooma, not to be deterred, took up the challenge and got the refund. She is a woman of many talents.

Manhattan from Staten Island
One of the Staten Island ferries

A second highlight was a visit to the Staten Island Ferry. We didn’t actually go aboard, but was saw the ferry and the waiting room and confirmed that the ferry is, indeed, free. If Ooma had been 100% healthy we would have gone to Manhattan, looked around a bit and returned, but in the interest of the public health we passed. We also confirmed that parking at the ferry for a day trip was shockingly inexpensive – $10 for 5 hours. That is like parking in Ft Myers. I really expected that it would cost $30 or more to park at the ferry.

The sad Snug Harbor Botanical Garden

I expected that a third highlight would be the Snug Harbor Botanical Garden. There is a wide variety of attractions at this location, including the Staten Island Museum and the Children’s Museum, but we only wanted to visit the botanical garden. Boy, were we disappointed! It looked like it had been abandoned. Overgrown, unkempt. It looked like it had been a lovely place 10 years ago, but it is a mess now. It reminded me of The Secret Garden before the kids found the key.

On Saturday we planned to stop by for lunch with Alice, my high school civics teacher, on our way to Massachusetts. But Ooma’s COVID test still showed positive (mine still showed negative), so we cancelled that stop.

Not quite the trip to New York City that we had planned.

Our hotel in Staten Island was the Fairfield Inn. Adequate but not spectacular. The breakfast was free, but not as good as at some of the other hotels. And no Keurig, which made getting morning coffee a bit more difficult. Our view was a CubeSmart storage building. The stuff of dreams, right?

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TN8 Hop 5: Dumfries VA to New York NY

Posted on July 27, 2022 by Sparky
TN8 Hop 5

318 miles via VA 294, I-95, I-495 (west of Washington DC), I-270, US 15, I-76, PA 72, PA 343, I-78, I-287 and NY 440. Cumulative TN8 hop miles: 1365. Total car miles: 1455. We drove about 50 miles around northern VA while staying with Devin and Mary.

This was not the hop I had planned. The plan was to depart at 10:30am, have lunch with Carl (my PCL2 buddy) on the way to New York and to take the quickest (and very expensive) route there, to arrive before 5pm. But Ooma woke at 7am with a 102 degree fever and a quick home test revealed that she had COVID. Not good news for anyone. So we decided to depart as quickly as possible, to minimize additional exposure to our hosts, skip lunch with Carl and head straight to New York to quarantine in the hotel. Because we had additional time, I decided to take the longer but cheaper and more leisurely route through PA. I also added a few miles on I-76 because Ooma was in need of a rest area and I thought I could find one there (I did). But after jumping up to I-78 (via PA 72 through Lebanon) we encountered a 15-minute delay where all traffic on I-78 was stopped for construction blasting. So not a great route. But we made it to the hotel on Staten Island and got Ooma quickly to bed.

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4 days, 3 nights in Dumfries VA

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Sparky
On the way to National Harbor
Pier at National Harbor

Ooma and I stayed for 4 nights in Dumfries VA, guests of Jett’s son, Devin, and his family. It was a lovely respite from travel and would have been relaxing had they not arranged so many fun and interesting activities for us. We went out to dinner the night we arrived (Texas Roadhouse), with Devin’s twin brother, Joshua, and his fiancée, Cristina. The next day we went to Josh and Cristina’s house for a relaxing dip in the pool on a 98-degree day, followed by dinner at one of Devin and Mary’s neighbors, Nassar and Angela. They served up a sumptuous feast of Persian dishes. Yesterday we were treated to a boat trip to National Harbor and brunch at Redstone American Grill where I had some delicious appetizers and one of the best Bloody Marys ever. The day would have been better if the boat hadn’t failed (wouldn’t start) when we tried to leave – we had to take an Uber back to the cars and Devin had to retrieve the trailer, load the disabled (brand new) boat and take it back to the dealer. I wasn’t there, but I heard that he had a few choice words for the guy who sold him the boat.

Trying to re-start the boat

Devin and Mary hosted a cookout for 13 people on the second night. Once again, I ate more than I should have. I haven’t weighed myself since I left Florida and am afraid to do so now. If I gain even a pound a day I will be a whale by the time I get back to Florida. We topped off the evening with a rousing game of Scrabble – Zachary and me against Ooma. It was close, but the guys prevailed.

The third day was a “down day” – we washed our clothes, I got my butt whipped by Zachary in a video game and I spent much of the day doing genealogical work. In the evening we all went out to dinner at Firebird which, after we found a table where the roof wasn’t leaking, served up a fine meal. My treat, as partial repayment for the kindness of Jett’s boys and their families. We took some very nice photos after dinner.

Josh, me and Devin
All of us
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TN8 Hop 4: Rocky Mount NC to Dumfries VA

Posted on July 24, 2022 by Sparky
TN8 Hop 4

208 miles via US 64, I-95 and VA 234 with a diversion at the start to get the car washed and a brief lunch break. Cumulative car miles: 1134. There were no extra car miles as this was a simple overnight stop – we parked, we slept, we left. We had dinner in the hotel.

This was a trivial hop in terms of navigation as it was almost entirely on I-95 and I have traveled the route many times before. I did have to use the GPS to locate my destination – my stepson’s house.

The weather was rain-free but very hot, near 100 degrees. But the A/C worked so no problem. We finished the audiobook – The Handmaid’s Tale – before we arrived at our destination.

Easy peasy.

Our hotel for the night was the Holiday Inn in Rocky Mount. It was more than adequate and the dinner was very good.

Categories: Hotels, NC, Places, Routes, TN8, VA | Leave a comment

TN8 Hop 3: Charleston SC to Rocky Mount NC

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Sparky

290 miles via I-526 (north and west of Charleston), I-26, SC 52, some county roads, SC 527, I-95 and US 64. 325 car miles since the end of Hop 2. Cumulative car miles: 926. The extra miles were due to our 2 sightseeing trips into Charleston.

TN8 Hop 3

We stopped at South of the Border to acquire some small gifts and for lunch just north of the North Carolina border.

There were a few sprinkles and, as always, traffic was heavy on I-95. But I avoided quite a few miles on I-95 by taking SC 52 and SC 527. This cut off about 11 miles from the fastest (I-95) route but was about 15 minutes slower. A good tradeoff, I think, as I don’t much like I-95 and traffic on this route was relatively light.

We stayed two nights at the Holiday Inn Express in Charleston. This one was older and not as nice as the one in Kingsland. And no goodie bag! (The clerk said “we aren’t allowed to give them out.” Yeah.) The room was dirtier and the staff was less helpful. On the positive side, the cable channel selection was much better (over 50 channels) and the free breakfast was every bit as good.

Our dinner the second night was at Tbonz, a steak joint only about 5 miles from the hotel. Ooma and I split a ribeye – we find that splitting a meal is a great way to avoid both leftovers and weight gain (a potential problem for me but not for Ooma). The ribeye and the service were both excellent.

Categories: Food, Hotels, NC, Places, Routes, SC | Leave a comment

“Finding My Father’s War” by Walter J. Eldridge

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Sparky

Copyright 2004 by Walter J Eldridge. Published by PageFree Publishing, Inc, Oswego MI.

Disclaimer: the author is a fraternity brother.

I have had this book in my to-be-read pile for over a year and, frankly, was dreading it a bit. I thought it would be a dry recounting of World War II history. Instead it turned out to be the a gripping, humanizing story of a chemical mortar battalion that was instrumental in winning the war.

To be honest, I had no idea that a “chemical warfare battalion” even existed in World War II. I had the mistaken impression that all kinds of chemical warfare had been banned after World War I. While certain kinds of chemicals – mustard gas, nerve gas, etc – had indeed been banned, use of incendiary chemicals like white phosphorus had not. A lot of white phosphorus mortars – useful as anti-personnel weapons and to lay down smoke screens – were used in the second World War. These mortars were highly accurate and became valued support weapons for infantry in Italy, France and Germany.

The technology of the chemical mortars and its successes and failures were fascinating (e.g., some men were killed, late in the war, due to “early detonations” – mortars exploding in the tube – due to cold and dampness). But the human stories – laboriously researched and documented by Eldridge – were even more fascinating. The action photo of the soldier taken a minute before a shell took his life. The two soldiers who reluctantly left their foxhole to move to a place deemed safer by their commanding officer, only to see their foxhole take a direct hit from a shell a few minutes later. The misery of a cold, wet winter in the mountains of Italy. The legendary direct hit – a mortar shell dropped through the open hatch of a German tank.

You can’t make this stuff up. This is the fog, the misery and the triumph of war recounted in a compelling way. More than any other book on war that I have ever read, this one put me there and made me understand the experience of the Greatest Generation.

8 out of 10.

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Charleston SC

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Sparky
Touring Charleston College in the pedicab
Caprese salad with shrimp
The Bookmaker

I have been to Charleston several times, but this was Ooma’s first visit. It was fun being able to share some of my favorite places in one of my favorite cities with my favorite woman. We dined at Tommy Condon’s (fried green tomatoes for an appetizer, heirloom tomato caprese salad with shrimp for Ooma and Bookmaker sandwich for me), walked the Battery, did a driving tour of some of its wonderful neighborhoods and strolled the City Market – all things I have done before. But yesterday we did something I have never done – took a 1-hour guided tour via pedicab. Being on a rickshaw allowed us to visit places that no tour bus can go and we saw some things I have never seen in Charleston. I think we agree that the pedicab was the highlight of the day.

Wedding Cake House
One of the many wonderful gates
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TN8 Hop 2: Kingsland GA to Charleston SC

Posted on July 20, 2022 by Sparky
TN8 Hop 2

199 miles via I-95 and US 17 with a lunch break at the Frampton Plantation Museum near the intersection of I-95 and US 17. 256 car miles. Cumulative miles: 601.

The extra miles were due to our sightseeing trip into St Marys.

This was an easy trip to navigate – didn’t even use the GPS. The traffic on I-95 was heavy in spots and there were a few sprinkles, but it was an easy hop overall.

We got a small lunch at McDonald’s when we got onto US 17 and ate it in the parking lot of the nearby Frampton Plantation House and Museum, which was also billed as a “visitor’s center”. We enjoyed the lovely grounds and the clean bathrooms.

Frampton Plantation grounds

Our home for two nights in Kingsland was the Holiday Inn Express. We like this brand. Clean rooms, free breakfast (very good) and a mini fridge and a Keurig coffee maker in every room. Lots of electrical outlets and USB ports, too. All at a reasonable price. Ooma is a Holiday Inn Rewards member so we got a little bag of goodies – 2 candy bars and a bag of Chex Mix – at checkin. Somewhere on this journey we will probably get a free night, too.

Categories: GA, Hotels, Places, Routes, SC, TN8 | Leave a comment