Fall is here, the temperatures are dropping... |
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| and Jim thinks he is freezing :) We are starting to see some of the fall colors here on the east coast. We are in New Jersey for the beginning of October, but will be spending time working our way south, slowly but surely. More wine tasting, a little bit of Washington DC, visiting Jim's sister, checking out our friends new 5th wheel before they take off for Arizona for the winter. We also hope to see more fall colors as we drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you came here to read about the wine tasting in New Jersey, head on down. If you want to see how Lenne is doing, head to here. |
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| We stopped here to have a bite to eat before doing a little New Jersey wine tasting. Prior to getting here, we had passed a couple riding their bikes along the road. We had noticed that they were loaded down, they were doing bike camping. | They stopped for lunch too, and of course, I had to strike up a conversation with them. Very nice people, Dick & Carol Bourne, they are biking from Quebec, Canada to Key West, Florida. They keep up a blog if you want to see what & how they are doing. | ||
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| The beautiful house to the left of the sign is not part of the property, but I loved the look of the house... | Here is the outside of the tasting room at Tomasello Winery, they do a lot of weddings here... | ||
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| So many wines, too little time. All the wines you see (except for the 4 on the far left by Jim) are all semi-sweet to sweet wines. They make a lot of different wines, but not anything that we wanted to bring home.
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Some fall color behind the vineyard at Tomasello. | ||
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| It took a while to find this winery, but what a treat. You can see a little of their vineyard to the left of the building. Based on what you see here, you wouldn't expect the cute tasting room on the inside. | The family is here to help us enjoy their wines. Ollie Sr. was pouring our wines (owner & one of the 2 wine makers). They have been open for a little over a year, we bought a couple of bottles to enjoy later. | ||
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| The main entrance to the Renault Winery Resort. You can eat here, play golf here, stay over night here and maybe (though we didn't get to) even taste wine here. | Nice entrance to the wine tour and tasting room. Jim thought they were set up for bus loads of people... | ||
| Back to the "real" world ... :) if you can call Atlantic City the real world :P After trying a few wines, we were so close that I decided we might as well spend a couple of hours spending more money. I hadn't been to Atlantic City for years, last time was with a girlfriend after a business trip to Philadelphia for Boeing. Jim and I don't do a lot of gambling, don't like throwing good money into someone else's pocket, but you always have to give it the 'ole college try. I walked up to a nickel slot machine, put in a $20 and started losing, I didn't like that machine, so got what I had left and went to another machine. I was doing ok, then I won a couple of pots that put my $20 up to $37.50. Wow, I had made $17 on a nickel machine! Did I stop there? oh no, not me... well, in about 10 minutes I was down to NOTHING! That is the way it is for me... Easy Come, Easy Go... (and here I thought playing nickels would make the money last longer, there I go, thinking again...) Jim found a quarter machine, he plopped in his $20. He played for 5 minutes and was up to $51 dollars! I said, better stop now, you still have yours, you got mine back and we are up eleven dollars. Lets go eat dinner on your winnings... Well, dinner was a little more than $11 dollars, but still cheaper than losing $40 :)
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| Welcome, come spend your money here! 24/7 |
part of the skyline, this is the Tropicana, all of the casinos have spread out since the last time I was here... | ||
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| Heading to Bally's and the boardwalk, this scene has changed since the last time I was here, this is the end of the Atlantic City Expressway... | The famous Atlantic City Boardwalk... | ||
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| The building behind Jim with all the billboards is a shopping mall on a pier, you can spend even more money on Tiffany, Gucci, etc | The beach, the ocean on the other side of the boardwalk... | ||
| Our next adventure was to head over to Delaware to do a little sight seeing. We first headed to Greenbank Mill, and then back towards home, stopping at New Castle, DE to see the historic area. | |||
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| We found this sign of the times, the price of gas is dropping in New Jersey, after I took this picture, a few miles down the road, we found regular gas at $2.99 a gallon (cash). Wow... their diesel was at $3.48 or something like that.... | The grist mill at Greenbank Mill, the wheel is in the middle of the building if you look closely. There is also a woolen mill on the property, they "grew" their own sheep (these are descendants of those sheep in this picture) to create the wool for the mill. | ||
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| in 1969 a couple of boys caught the main mill building on fire, this is one of the charred main beams that was so big, it didn't burn through and is still strong enough to hold up the building. | This is the Philips main house, you can see part of it also. This is a fairly new public land, they still have a couple of apartments that they rent out on the property. | ||
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| Merino sheep, the prized sheep of the woolen mill for the really soft wool. It was very difficult to get, if not impossible because the Spanish would not let them out of the country. | Leicester sheep, they breed these with the Colonial Williamsburg Leicester sheep to keep the breed strong between the two sites. | ||
New Castle, Delaware |
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| Amstel House, built about 1730 and open for tours. | There is some great shopping along the main road. | ||
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| Old Courthouse, built in 1732. | One of the Inn's in the town, this one as you can see was built very early, about 1685. | ||
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| You can purchase history, we did not see the price, but it's on a great corner of the town :) | The Oak Knoll Fest was also going on while we were in town, we wandered down to look at some of the booths. There were a lot of people in town and at the festival. | ||
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| A statue of William Penn. | New Castle, DE was the landing place of William Penn. | ||
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| Real cobblestone, real street, in New Castle, Delaware. | Immanuel Episcopal Church in New Castle, Delaware. There is a signer of the Declaration of Independence and several Revolutionary War heroes buried here. | ||
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| Looking down the cobblestone road through the evening light. | We saw this menu and I decided that this was the place to eat. We both tried the soup and we shared an order of the frittata and their "famous" crab cakes. | ||
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| This is where we ate, the Arsenal at the Eagle and Cannon. | We really enjoyed our dinner and a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir from Argyle made it just that much better. | ||
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| Compared to Europe, these dates are nothing, but it still seems awesome to me, 1732 and the building still is standing and in excellent repair and still in use! | You could buy your corn, wheat and watch a hanging all at once... | ||
| We are back on the road in the RV now, heading down towards Fairfax, VA, not far from Washington DC. We are going to visit Jim's sister and make a couple of runs down to DC to see the sights. | |||
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| We keep running into competitors of triathlons, here the policeman is directing traffic as the bikers come around the corner. | From their website, New Jersey Triathalator... | ||
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| We were in our RV, trying to figure out how to get across a bridge and saw this bus ahead... there were lots of flashing lights on the police cars... | come to find out, the bus was stuck tight as a cork in the toll booth and they were trying to figure out how to get it out... | ||
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| Mormon Church, it just showed up as we came around a corner on the freeway into Washington DC... | Family: (l to r) Gema, Shane (back), Adam, Larry, Rebecca (Jim's sister), Jim and Daniel. | ||
| My sister-in-law (Rebecca, above) sews clothes that replicate the 18th century (around the very late 1700's time frame) and they enjoy wearing them down in historic Williamsburg. They had a fashion show of clothes at a local historic site and some of her clothes were featured. The weekend we left the area, they had a "breeching" party for their youngest grandson, Daniel. It's all about becoming a big boy and going from a dress to breeches (pants). "George Washington" and his entourage helped them celebrate. It was a great weekend for them all.
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| Gema & Rebecca (Rebecca made both outfits) | Daniel (in "dress" before breeching party), Adam (in breeches), Gema and some girl. | ||
| We left the Fairfax area of Virginia to head down to just north of Roanoke, Virginia. It was an easy drive, well, at least for me, I just come along for the ride :) | |||
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| A farm all lit up in fall colors | Once we got to the RV park we are staying in, we found out that the following weekend was going to be a BIG weekend, it was going to be full, full of lots of families decorated for Halloween and the kids are going to be trick-or-treating on Saturday, Oct. 18th. Oh Boy :P | ||
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| Families everywhere, eating, laughing, making lots of noise, just having fun. | more decorations... | ||
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| and LOTS of kids, I thought this little ladybug was just the cutest thing, her brother was having fun too. | Another little cutie, a little lady lioness... | ||
| We left the Roanoke, VA area to head down to the Asheville, NC area for more Blue Ridge Parkway viewing... Here are a few pictures from the drive and the RV park in Asheville. | |||
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| Scenic views from the RV as we drive south... | More color from the side of the freeway... | ||
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| We took a little hike to Linville Falls, walking on a wonderful fall day, lots of leaves, it smelled glorious | The Linville Falls and a little fall color... | ||
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| Color from the RV Park... | You can also see the Biltmore Mansion from the end of the park. | ||
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even more color and some of the RV's in the park. |
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| It was a pretty quiet week in
Asheville, waiting to hear how the delivery of Jim & Allison's new
5th wheel was coming along. They got it on Tuesday, and were
busy getting it all situated. We drove down to meet up with
them on Sunday, to check out the new digs. We met up with them
at Paramount's Camp Wilderness RV Resort which is attached to
Carowinds Amusement park. Allison is keeping a blog now that
they are both retired, check out
Allison's Post Work thinking... All we are going to do is visit, be there if they want/need help or just relax. We enjoyed a little dinner together and got a tour of their new home on wheels. They are going to spend the winter in AZ and left on Wednesday (Oct. 29th) to work their way there. |
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| I can't help it, more color along the road (as you can see, it was through the windshield, sorry) | A huge peach along the way, it is a water tower. I probably have a picture of it from the last time we went through this area... | ||
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| A Toast! to the new home on the road for Allison & Jim. | Jim and Jim checking out the awning on the new 5th wheel. | ||
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| Ok, you put "A" into "B" and then you push "C"... | Jim & Allison are into biking! 2 mountain bikes on the back and 3 road bikes in the big storage space...l | ||
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| Which way do we go, which way do we go... I know, let's go to Spartanburg! | and they are off! Happy Trails in your new home, Jim & Allison. | ||
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| it's another one of those, a pretty tree in the RV park... | Enjoy Alison Krauss, one of my favorite Songstress's and "Carolina in my Mind"... as we leave South Carolina. | ||
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yes, Alison is one of my favorites... I dedicate this one to my wonderful husband, Jim, who lets me have all the fun that I want (well, mostly :). This is one of my most favorite songs and sung by one of my most favorite people. Jim, thank you for everything! |
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We head to Alabama next, for one week, then it's over to Arkansas
for 1 week, and then home! I failed to mention in September that there were a couple of weddings; my niece Mari married Brian and my nephew Jake married Bri. I wish them all a wonderful life together with their new spouses. Sorry, I don't have any pictures to share... but I do of my new great niece :) |
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Little Malia, newest addition to the family... my niece Sam's new baby. | ||
| So, that is that for us this month...
November is here and we are on the last stretch home. Looking
forward to seeing our Texas friends!
Kim Steve has been busy. They put an arbor over the patio so that it can have a longer season than just spring/summer. He is also building a brick pizza oven. I can't wait for that to be done, Steve makes really great pizza. He has his own recipe for the pizza dough and everything! |
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| The new arbor over the patio at the tasting room. | The beginnings of the new brick pizza oven. | ||
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| Pinot Noir grapes, just waiting to be picked. | already picked, ready to head over to the winery to be de-stemmed and put in the fermentation buckets. | ||
