Head Out Program (HOP) to NYC

Our plans for the early part of summer sure did not go the way we planned. The change in plans started with our sad trip back to WashPA for Tom's memorial service and continued with our ongoing issues with Opus. Because of the RV problems, we did not make it to New England. We ended up spending almost three weeks in Pennsylvania because we were uncomfortable driving to Connecticut and Massachusetts. The one thing we did not want to miss was the Escapees Head Out Program (HOP) to New York City and the Hudson River Valley. We did  make it to that and it was fantastic. The Hop included two days going into NYC and two days in the Hudson River Valley. We did way too much for one post so this one is about our time in the city.

It was close to a two hour ride from the RV park to Manhattan during the morning rush hour. This was our first view of the skyscrapers, including the new World Trade Center, near the Battery. 

The city sure is booming with many new buildings going up. This is the view from New Jersey showing  the new development on the Westside of Manhattan. There are four or five new residential tower going up in an area that used to be industrial. 

The first day in the city we went to Liberty Island and the 9/11 museum and memorial. Our first stop was Battery Park where we were greeted by Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian who in 1524 explored the North American east coast including New York Bay for the French.   

The Staten Island Ferry sailing passed Governors Island and Castle Williams. The Verrazzano Narrows Bridge is in the background. When the double deck bridge opened in 1964 it was the longest suspension bridge in the world at 4,260 feet long.

We took the boat from the Battery to Liberty Island for an up close look of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. The statue was a gift of friendship from the people of France in recognition of the United States as a symbol of freedom and democracy.    

We did not get to climb up the pedestal or the crown because tickets to do that are very limited and reservations must be made far in advance. It was strange being at this symbol of welcoming to immigrants from around the world considering the times we are living in today. 

My Lady Liberty holding the torch welcoming all to the United States.

We only stopped at Ellis Island to drop off and pick up people on the way back to Battery Park. Thousands of Eastern European immigrants passed through here from 1900 to 1954.

The new One World Trade Center rises high above lower Manhattan. The building including the spire is 1776 feet tall. 

The beautiful New York City skyline from the boat.

For lunch we had our choice of several food trucks in a park near the World Trade Center. Great food at a very reasonable price, especially for New York.

The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street.

The skyline of lower Manhattan at 8:30 AM September 11, 2001 just minutes before the planes flew into the twin towers. 

 The National September 11 Memorial Museum states that the mission of the 9/11 Memorial Museum, located at the World Trade Center site, is to bear solemn witness to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993. The Museum honors the nearly 3,000 victims of these attacks and all those who risked their lives to save others. It further recognizes the thousands who survived and all who demonstrated extraordinary compassion in the aftermath. Demonstrating the consequences of terrorism on individual lives and its impact on communities at the local, national and international levels, the Museum attests to the triumph of human dignity over human depravity and affirms an unwavering commitment to the fundamental value of human life.

There is an excellent film that covers the events of that day and what happened after that. The flags are of the 90 countries who had citizens killed in the attack.

A model of The Sphere. The original that was in the plaza between the Twin Towers was damaged, but survived. It is now in Liberty Park overlooking the 9/11 memorial. 

The Flag of Remembrance which honors the victims of the attack was created by Mindy Kombert and Sherry Kronefeld. An image of each person who died that day was placed on the flag in shades of red, white and blue. The blue field and stars was reserved for uniformed first responders.  

The Impact of Art: Peace and Healing after the 9/11 Attacks. Here is a link to the story about the creation of the mural.

This is the steel beam that was struck by the plane that flew into the South Tower.

The museum is built in the foundation of  the two towers. This was where the beams were attached to the bed rock.

A piece of the TV antenna that was on top the North Tower.

One of the firetrucks that was crushed when the towers collapsed. No photos are allowed in the In Memoriam exhibit and the September 11 Historical Exhibition. Some of  the accounts of the day in these exhibits were very difficult to read and hear.  

The Foundation Hall has remains of the original World Trade Center including the slurry wall and this Last Column that was the last one removed from the rubble in May 2002. It has the names and numbers of many of the units and people who worked to clear the rubble. There is also an exhibit on the struggles those who worked at the site after the attack had to get the government to cover their health issues.  

The 9/11 Memorial is on the footprint of the Twin Towers. They have the names of each victim and the companies and city departments where they worked. On their birthday a rose is placed on the name of the person.

One World Trade Center over the 9/11 Memorial.

Another way the victims are honored.

These are the words of the memorial's designer, Michael Arad, about the flow of water in the memorial. “In what we ended up with, you can see each strand of water as it goes over the edge of the weir, appearing as separate, individual streams as it falls. By the time it reaches the end, the clarity dissipates, and it becomes a woven tapestry of water. I think it speaks to individual and collective loss — bringing together many lives into one".

On our second day in the city we went to the Empire State Building, Time Square and to see The Lion King. This is the Art Deco entrance of the Empire State Building.

Looking down on the streets of the city and Macys, the nation's largest department store. 

The Empire State Building was built in 1930. The building was in a race to be the tallest along with the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street, two other going up at the same time.  At a height of 1,250 feet it was the tallest building in the world for forty years until 1971 when the North Tower of the World Trade Center was built. With the antenna it reached a height of 1,454 feet. Originally, the mast was in place to anchor airships.  

The buildings being built on the Westside that are pictured above from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. 

The skyscrapers at the south end of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. In the foreground is the Flatiron Building that was built in 1902. At the time, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city. It takes its name from being triangular like a cast-iron clothes iron. 

The Statue of Liberty from the top of the building. I put the phone up to the telescope to get this picture.

Looking out across the East River and Roosevelt Island. The tallest building on the right is the United Nations and the one of the left is the Chrysler Building. 

Looking north at Midtown Manhattan with Central Park in the background. Many of these buildings are residential.

The Crossroads of the World, Time Square. It is really one of those places you need to see to believe. It is so big with so much within the surrounding buildings like a canyon in the city. 

You see people from all over the world including this couple from WashPA. The tower behind us with 2018 at the top is where the ball is dropped to ring in each New Year.

George M. Cohan who published over 300 songs including, Over There, Give My Regards to Broadway and You're a Grand Old Flag.  

Looking down on Time Square from the Lobby of the theater. Across the street is the huge ABC billboard that advertises shows and runs the latest news headlines.

We saw the The Lion King. The show was fantastic, especially the African animal costumes. This famous poster for the show was designed by the cousin of our tour guide, Keaton. Very Cool!!

Of course, no pictures were allowed during the show. This is Sarabi and Simba.

I found this picture on line of two of my favorite characters, Timon and Pumba.

Giving a shout out to our Escapees HOP hosts Jim and Lisa who put the whole thing together. Our tour guide Keaton (right) was great keeping everyone up to date and informed about what we were seeing and guiding us from place to place. 

This post only covers the two days we were in the city. The next post will be about our tours of the CIA, Roosevelt home and museum and West Point in the Hudson River Valley.

We have made it back to WashPA and are settled in for a three month stay with a lot to do.

Pottsville, PA Area

As I said in the last post we ended up in Pottsville for an extended stay in hopes of getting the RV repaired. (I will do a post on this when we finally get the repair done correctly.) The place doing the work only had a 15 amp electric hook up, meaning we would not be able to run the AC. Since it was nearly 100 we opted to stay at the Ramada Inn for the weekend, so we had some time to explore the area. Who knew we could find so many things to do near Pottsville to keep us busy.   

We did find some good places to eat within walking distance of the hotel. The first was the Wheel, where the specialty is gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. As you can tell by the smile Nanc loved hers. Another place was the Crimson House, a very good tapas restaurant run by the same people.

Just down the road in Shartlesville is Roadside America, a miniature world of handcrafted buildings and toy trains. We saw a story about this place on Sunday Morning a couple months ago that said the attraction is having a hard time making ends meet and the family is looking to sell. A miniature town with every detail of life in the early 1900's.

 Roadside America was built by Laurance Gieringer who started building models when he was five years old. The huge circus with a small airport. Several of the displays have buttons to push to activate some of the people.

The O-gauge model railway is a big part of this little world. Some of the trains are parked in the rail yard while others are always running. I had an O-gauge Lionel as a kid so this was a real step back in time for me.

This area shows life in the 1800's with horse drawn wagons. In the 1930's the display, which was in Mr. Gieringer's home, became more and more popular. 

The coal industry was very big in this part of Pennsylvania so a tipple where the rail cars would be loaded is a big part of the exhibit. There is a cutaway look down into a deep mine.

A look at the rural life in this hilly part of the state. In 1940 he began to build a warehouse size building for his miniature villages and trains. It was opened to the public in 1953 and has continued to this day.

We walked around a couple times to see as much as possible. This is one of those places you could visit many times and find something new every time even though it has not changed since 1963 when Mr. Gieringer died.

There is even an Alpine mountain complete with a waterfalls, an ice rink, ski slopes and a tram running up the steep hill. If you have any interest in roadside oddities you need to add Roadside America to your to do list. The detail is quite amazing and who knows how much longer it will be open.

We stopped at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary located between Hamburg and Pottsville. The sanctuary is 2,600 acres of land that is part of 13,000 acres of public and private protected land. It is located on Hawk Mountain in the Appalachians on a major route for 16 different raptors migrating from Canada to the southern US and even South America.    

It was very hot so we did not hike. The visitors center has interesting displays on the different birds. The best time to see birds is in the fall and to a lesser extent the spring. The mission of the sanctuary is to conserve birds of prey worldwide. In the early 1900's the Pennsylvania Game Commission paid a $5.00 bounty for every raptor that was shot.  

To reinforce the importance of their mission they have this exhibit about the Passenger Pigeons. These birds were once the most plentiful and the most common bird in the US and were hunted into extinction by the beginning of the 1900's. The last one died in a zoo in 1914. Hawk Mountain is a neat place that we will have to return to in the fall sometime to see the migrating raptors.

When we put out the word that we were in Pottsville for the weekend we got a message from Diane and Andy. They are RVers we met at Betty's RV Park and got together with at Quartzite. Turns out they live in the area, so we got together at another good, local restaurant, Roma Pizza. After dinner they invited us to their place. It was a fun time getting caught up with all our travels since we last saw them.

Another Pennsylvania place I have always been interested in but never been to is Centralia. This was a small mining town with a population of nearly 2,500 people the first half of the 1900's. In 1962 a fire was started while burning trash at a strip mine. The fire ignited a seam of coal and has defied all efforts to extinguish it. It has burned to a depth of 300 feet and is over eight miles long. It is expected to burn for another 200 plus years. This church once overlooked the town.  

By 1980 the population was down to 1,000 as many people were affected by the fire and gasses. In 1992 the state used eminent domain and condemned all the property. Today there are seven people living there. As part of their agreement with the state, they can stay until they die. This was once a street lined with homes and businesses.   

While we did not see or smell any burning coal, we did see this new happening in Centralia, graffitied streets. There are sidewalks, driveways and even a few places were you can tell people had landscaped lots, but there are only three houses still occupied.   

This is the main street in nearby Ashland to give you an idea of what Centralia would have looked like in its hay day. Growing up in an old coal town with the pollution and environmental messes the companies left behind sure shaped my view of the need for strong environmental laws.

You can tell we were running out of things to do when I let Nanc drag me to the Hope Hill Lavender Farm. Nanc sure liked that big chair. 

They had a little bit of everything lavender, but it is not really a guy kind of place.

Since the issue we have been having with the rig has not been resolved, we changed our plans to travel to Connecticut and found a place to stay along the Delaware River in Eastern PA over the Fourth of July. We are now at the KOA north of New York City for a week as part of our excursion with the Escapees to explore the Hudson Valley and visit NYC. From here we are heading to WashPA for three months.

Yuengling Brewing

We drove over the mountain from Bloomsburg to Pottsville to tour Yuengling, America's oldest Brewery. (Little did we know that a couple days later we would be back in Pottsville for an RV repair.) The brewery was started in 1829 by David G. Yuengling and has been run by a Yuengling every since. It was originally called Eagle Brewing and an eagle is still on the bottles and cans today.  

In 1831 a fire destroyed the original brewery and a new one that is still brewing today was built. Their first beers were Lord Chesterfield Ale and Porter. These are still brewed today.  

The beer bottle chandelier welcomes you to the gift shop where the free tour begins. There is now a new, modern second brewery just down the road in Mill Creek that was built to meet growing demand.  

A unique feature of the brewery is the caves that coal miners dug into the hill under the brewery using only pick axes. They stay at 54 degrees year round and were used to store the kegs before there was refrigeration. 

The water for the original brewery came from a spring above the building. A bit of water still flows from the spring. As production increased more water was needed so they now use Pottsville water.

An old storage tank in the cave where the beer was kept until it was put in kegs. They sure have come a long way from a small local brewery. Not only are they the oldest in America, they are also the largest American owned brewery. That's right, the big three Bud, Miller and Coors are no longer American owned.

This old machine enabled them to fill only four kegs. When one was done the bung would be pounded in by hand and the barrel rolled off. This machine was used into the 1980's when they reintroduced Yeungling Traditional Amber Lager, the beer that is now their flagship brand. 

How the kegs have changed from 1829, when they were wooden barrels, to today's modern kegs. The new barrel filling operation was not part of the tour.

The Rathskeller was built in 1936. Employees were allowed to drink beer here during their shift. That practice was stopped by OSHA in the 1990's. Guests were served here before the tours became so popular that a larger area was needed.

The maintenance shop looks much the same as it would have looked 150 years ago. The head man has worked for the company for over 30 years.

These ladies had the job of washing the bottles and kegs for the beer. On the right the man is drinking a Winner Beer, the one that celebrated the end of Prohibition. Bottom is a batch of beer in the cooker. During Prohibition they produced near-beer (0.5% alcohol) and their Porter, which they claimed had "medicinal" qualities, even for nursing mothers. The local word is that a few barrels also escaped through a hole in the basement into the church next door. 

Today the original brewery has been modernized with increased production. 90% of the beer here is put in cans, while at Mill Creek 90% goes in bottles. To meet growing demand and expansion they purchased an old Stroh's brewery in Tampa in 1999. With this new production Yeungling is now available in more and more states. They don't move into a state until they can supply the whole state. 

Here we are with our free samples. I usually drink the Traditional Lager, but I really liked the Lord Chesterfield Ale. It is only available in Pennsylvania. That is Dick Yeungling in the background. He has four daughters who all work for the company. If the tradition that a family member always runs the company holds, the girls are going to have to follow another tradition and buy the company from their father. 

The sampling room is in the old dairy that they opened during Prohibition to make ends meet. The ice-cream is still on the market. 

Look who else drank Yeungling, The Three Stooges. While some people have boycotted Yeungling because of the owners political beliefs, I always ask what the political beliefs are of the brewers of their favorite beer. Most don't know. At least Yeungling is American owned.

Just up the street from the brewery is the Yeungling Family Homestead. The family lived in the house from 1913 to 1978. The home was donated to the Schuylkill County Arts and Ethnic Center and is now used by the center for many local cultural events.

We are now in Eastern Pennsylvania until the weekend and will then be heading to New York for the Escapee's HOP to the Hudson River Valley and NYC. The issue with the RV has still not been corrected. It seems that every place checks something off the list of possibilities but does not get it fixed. Hopefully, we will make it back to WashPA where we will have three months to find a solution to the problem.