Sharp's Travels

Hard to believe that it is the first of October already, don’t know where the last two month have gone. We were on the road by 9:00 am as we had 300 miles to go today. It was a day that I hadn’t been looking forward to due to all the traffic from New York to Washington DC. Things started out ok and then at the first toll booth we almost got into an accident with a van. They are rebuilding the toll booth and not a lot of room to get out of the booth and back on the highway. I guess this van didn’t want to be in back of us so up the left side of us with no room for him to get by, anyway that’s what I thought, but was wrong. I had to make a quick evasive move to keep him from side wiping the truck. Well we are both wide awake after that happened. We had our trip will planed and mapped out so no problems right. Well we planned on going on the New York throughway, well when we got there a sign said no trucks. So now we have to find a place to pull off and check the map for a new route. Of course with all the traffic finding a place to pull off and get back on was a major task. Before we left we knew we couldn’t go through any tunnels because we are carrying LP. So motor homes and travel trailer can’t use the tunnels. Finally we get on I 95 south and things are going good. Cheri is concerned because we don’t see any RV’s. I told her that they didn’t want to use the short cut and she said that they were the smart ones. We did have one tunnel that we had to bypass near Baltimore which we knew about ahead of time and had our route around it without any problems. Will except for getting back on I 95, three times the GPS said for us to exit left on to I 95 so I work my way across three lanes of traffic and everything is good. Well now the GPS says exit right so now we have to cross the three lanes of traffic back to the right, didn’t make it and missed the exit. As it turned out we only had to go a mile to get turned around and headed in the right direction. We finally arrived at Cherry Hill campground in College Park at 4:00 pm. While we were checking in two guys came in and wanted to know who owned the Excel 5th wheel. After a long stressful day I thought this can’t be good. It turned out that there is an Excel caravan of 26 Excels staying in the park and they wanted to welcome us in and invited us to come to meet their group. All said and done it was an interesting day and with the good Lords help we had a safe trip. It did cost us over $60.00 in tolls today and $16.00 to cross one bridge and only $2.00 for cars.

We booked a tour into New York City for today. We left by bus from the nearby KOA Kampground at 7:30 am. We had a big, comfortable bus with 29 people aboard plus our guide, Woody. It was about a 2 hour ride. From 25 miles away you could see the Empire State Building come into view.
We passed by the Giants and Jets Football Stadium and headed for the special lane just for buses as we headed into the Lincoln Tunnel. The tunnel is 1 ½ miles long and 75 feet under the water. There are 3 tubes going into the tunnel, 2 lanes each. It is monitored for quality of air and has TV cameras to watch everything going on down there. The tunnel cost $190 million to build and handles about 30.5 million vehicles per year.
We entered lower Manhattan and then passed by Ground Zero. There wasn’t much to see. They had it all fenced off and had lots of machinery in there digging. There hasn’t been any building started as yet. They do have a sphere that used to be by the Twin Towers set up in a park as a temporary memoriam. It shows the damage done to it during the attack. It is set up with an eternal flame.
We were dropped off to take the ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. It was a gift from France in 1886. The Lady is 150.9 feet tall. She weights over 265 tons and is totally made out of copper. We walked all the way around the base. She is an awesome site. In order to go inside you need to get tickets about 2 months in advance. However, if we’d had more time, we could have gone inside. The Park Ranger notice I was wearing a Packer jacket and asked where we were from in Wisconsin. He was also from there. He asked if we were going inside, we said no, and he offered to mark our tickets so we could go in. Darn, our tour was leaving the island in 20 minutes and that would not give us time to take advantage of his offer!
We re-boarded the ferry and they took us to Ellis Island, gateway for immigrants between 1892-1924. 12 million immigrants passed through. 40% of all Americans can trace their ancestry to Ellis Island. Our guide Woody’s father passed through here coming from France at the age of 18 yrs.
We walked through Battery Park after we got off the ferry then boarded the bus and headed to South Street Seaport where we were dropped off again for lunch. Gay and & headed for a New York Deli to get a sandwich and then back to the port to capture a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge and the tall sailing ships docked there.
Back on board the bus we headed to the lower east side and on through China town. We didn’t realize China town was so huge in New York.
We passed by the Manhattan Bridge, it has a different more elegant stone archway for an entrance. Also went by Madison Square Garden, this is where they have the ice skating rink in the winter.
We stopped at the Empire State Building. It was built in 14 months and opened to the public. 4,000000 go through it each year. We worked our way through the line and took an elevator up to the 80th floor. They shuffle people off this elevator and onto another to go up the remaining 6 floors. The views from up there were awesome. We picked the perfect day to be up there, you could see for miles.
We jumped back on the bus and were taken by Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. We saw SAX 5th AVENUE and Macy’s Department store, which takes up an entire block.
We were dropped off at Times Square and saw the ball they drop on New Year’s Eve, the ABC studio where Good Moring America is filmed. Gay took lots of pictures and even had time to have New York’s best cheese cake at Junior’s.
At 5pm we were headed back out of the city. It was a great day and we were back to the campground before dark. We are so glad we decided to go.
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: New York City

This morning we headed into Newburgh to Orange County Choppers (OCC). For you people that don’t know about them, they build motorcycle choppers and have a TV show on the different chopper builds. We did get to see Paul senior who is the owner of OCC. It was neat to see all the different choppers. Of course I am very happy with my Road King. The choppers are nice to look at, but I wouldn’t want one. From there we stopped at an Applebee’s for lunch, then to the gas station for 100 gallons of diesel. Our last stop was at Wal-Mart for groceries. On the way into town we stopped at the KOA campground and got tickets for a tour into New York City for the day. We leave at 7:30 am and get back at 7:00 PM.
For pictures of the day see album: OCC

It was a beautiful morning with sunshine and a temp of 58 degrees. Today was move day and not in any hurry as we only have 158 miles to go. On the way out of the campground we stopped by another Excel 5thwheel and talked to Peter Richards. We wanted to know how they liked their 5th wheel. They are very happy with it and have just sold their house and are starting to be full timers. I wish we would have had more time to exchange rving tips. The trip to this campground was pretty uneventful except when we stopped for lunch at a rest area, when we opened the 5th wheel door we found the refrigerator door open and much of the contents on the floor. I found that I had to lift the door to make it latch. We just got set up in our campground here in Gardiner NY at the Lazy River campground and it started to rain. I adjusted the refrigerator door hinge higher and now it latches correctly. I don’t think it was ever right because now you can hear it latch. My work for the day is done.

It rained all night and we thought it might stop by noon, but it continued to rain all day.
After we had a bite of lunch, we decided to try and forget about the nasty weather and head for East Haddam and check out Gillette Castle State Park.
We had quite a time getting there. We ran into a big traffic jam on I-95 for about 8 miles.
Gillette Castle is a site to see. William Gillette, noted actor, director and playwright, built a 24 room mansion reminiscent of a medieval castle on his 124 acre estate. It is built of local fieldstone supported by a steel framework. It took 5 years to build. It was completed in 1919 at a cost of $1,000,000.
The woodwork within the castle is hand-hewn southern oak. Of the 47 doors within the structure, there are no 2 exactly alike.
We could tour all 3 floors of the castle. The tiffany lights were beautiful. The stone fireplaces were beautiful. The furnishings were original to the house. Even light switches were made of wood. He had mirrors strategically placed so he could be upstairs and see who entered the house or who may be abusing the liquor at the bar.
He also had a narrow gage railroad around the 123 acres. He had two locomotives, one electric and one steam powered.
After his death the property went to his family, but they could not afford to keep it so in 1943 the State of Connecticut bought the property for $30,000 and opened it for the enjoyment of present and future generations.
We took the ferry on the way home, one way trip for $3.00.
We enjoyed checking it all out.
We stopped for pizza on our way home.
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: Gillette Castle