060607 MONROE, NY

Monroe, New York

From Goldsboro Pennsylvania to Monroe New York was a short drive .

When I spoke with Marty and Diane Soss and warned them I may visit them, I asked them the standard question.
Do you have a flat driveway with a long extension cord? They answered yes. Unfortunately, some people underestimate the size of the Beast or it’s other dimensions and even though they are willing, it does not always fit comfortably.

AS I drove slowly down their street, I peered in each driveway and hoped it wasn’t theirs for one reason or another.
Some were curved, another down a steep incline, and another blocked by low tree limbs.

When I finally viewed their driveway, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was great. While I did feel bad that I was blocking their garage doors, they assure me they had so much stuff in their garage, there had not been any room for their cars since 1999.

Although Marty and Diane did not have a dog for Peter to play with, Marty seemed to be a willing companion and frequently took him for walks and petted him. They used to have a dog in the house so they were very generous and permissive.

Diane owns a small restaurant in a nearby Shopping outlet – The Commons, apparently one of the largest on the East coast. She cooked for us every night and the food was delicious. She always prepared more food and side dishes than we could consume and then asked the age old question passed down from Jewish grandmothers to their daughters:–“you hardly ate anything, what’s the matter with my food?" This was not the place or time to think about dieting or weight loss. Peter would follow Diane around the kitchen as she cooked and I think she gave into those sad brown, hungry eyes.

Marty and I go back a long way, to being boy scouts in Brooklyn, wrestling on the beach and paling around the neighbor, and later both attending Long Island University in Brooklyn. Actually, that's where he and Diane met, dated and eventually married.

Old friends are like time machines; they can transport you back and forth thru time with a thought or a word and bring up memories long forgotten.

Despite some rainy days, we had a grand time in Monroe, and as with most people and places we love, wished we could have stayed longer, but The Highway Guys had places to go and people to see.

Many of you may be curious as to the obvious absence of photographs for the past few weeks. It may make some of you happy to hear that those of you who consider me a photographic and electronic whiz kid with the computer has managed to accidentally erase an entire photo file that could not be resurrected..

060603 - West Chester & Poconos, PA

West Chester, Pennsylvania
Arrived – May 21, 2006
The drive from Gettysburg is about a 2 hour run to West Chester Pennsylvania (just south west of Philadelphia), but when it’s on the Pennsylvania Turnpike driving takes on a whole different meaning. I remember using this road from Cleveland to Brooklyn in the sixties and I don’t think they changed it or fix it since. The worst part is that it’s a toll road. I hate paying for bad roads.

Alan and Lil had told us that the next time we were in town, just pull in and park the Beast, so that’s what we did.
Using our GPS to find the right street ( they live in a very rural area), we carefully navigated the long“S” shaped drive, and nestled ourselves in the rear of the driveway, back by the garage. It was a good fit. Lil was home and came out to greet us and Alan came home later in the day.

Since Lil is a nurse at a local hospital on the 3-11 shift, and Alan is a workaholic that manages to squeeze in an hour of flying each day into his busy schedule (He has an acrobatics plane), we didn’t expect to spend a lot of time together, but we managed some good quality time each day. Sam, the 6 year black Lab was happy to show Peter around the grounds, but Peter didn’t have an electric collar on, and so he occasionally wandered beyond the property line to do some of his own exploring at the neighbors. Fortunately, they were dog lovers.`
During the week, we caught up on some reading by the pool, as well as being treated to some good meals prepared by both Lil and Alan , who is very skilled on the out door grill.

We also had a thrill to visit with Trish and David and their year old son Julian. In fact we got to Pennsylvania just in time, since they were packing up their home and leaving for relocation to Santa Monica, California the next week. It will be nice to be able to see them again when we get back to the West Coast.

With the Memorial Day weekend behind us, we bade a fond farewell, and headed north to the Poconos to find long lost cousins Dottie and Arvy. Actually, they weren’t lost, I had lost touch with them for many years. Unfortunately, Dottie was allergic to dogs, and even though Peter tried his best to be non-allergenic, we elected to stay at a nearby motor home park and confined our socializing to local area restaurants. It was fun and educational, catching up on family news and events that I had missed out on. We traded stories endlessly and when it was finally time to leave, we regretted the many stories still untold.

060520 - GETTYSBURG, PA

5/20/2006
Gettysburg, PA

When you travel north on the east coast, it can seem like a lot of territory with very few miles.
As we exited North Carolina, thru Virginia, west Virginia, by Washington D.C., thru Maryland to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Sounds like an exhaustive journey but in reality they are small states and quickly traversed.

Having watched the history channel for many years, I felt that I was quite knowledgeable about the Civil War and it's various battles and so I had mixed feeling about going to Gettysburg. I had the same feeling when I planned a previous trip to Mount Rushmore.

I discovered that there is a tremendous difference between knowledge and experience.

For all the books and movies and documentaries that I was exposed to thru all of the various mediums, the only one that really counts is being there. The pastures and fields were clean and well kept, the fences mended and the roads paved. The only signs of what had happened on these grounds over 200 years ago were the stories told by the battle monuments, grave markers, militate pieces, and statues that illustrated the and pointed to the bloodiest encounters our country's history had ever displayed.

We opted for a live tour guide vs. a recorded one, and we were not disappointed. He was a young man, a native, and had a real flair for describing the battles, the military strategies, and the personalities of the soldiers and their commanders in the heat of battle. He made the events seem to come alive as he spoke and waved his hands and pointed here and there to indicate the action and movements of troops and artillery that created planned havoc across the country side.

Realizing that this area was a small portion of the historic event that both split and re-united our country in it’s infancy and made it stronger for the experience.
There was much more we could have visited and seen in the town and surrounding area but walking is becoming more challenging and so we settled for the tour and went back to the Beast to rest, but very happy for the opportunity.