Home at Last!

Greetings, friends, family et al!

We arrived home today about 8 p.m. after booking just over 4300 miles and about 2700 photos on our adventure. Cassie was home to greet us with ice cream - what a great treat!



Spent the morning in Bangor with Tim, Jess, and Joshua. Tim and I went fishing in the morning around his home. Wow! was it cold for June - almost July. Temp was 59 degrees but the wind and drizzle made it feel much cooler. Didn't have much luck. Two sunfish and a small bullhead, but it was fun to be out fishing. Have to take my boat over to Lake Neshonoc (sp?) which is only a couple miles down the road from his house. They are heading down to Cincinnati at the end of the week to visit Jess' sister.



We left there about 2 and drove over to Camp Phillip to see Christi for supper. We went into town and ate at Christiano's -- great food there. I had an amazing salad - Christi loves the pasta there. Huge portions. My salad was really a meal. Great to see Christi - had a hard couple weeks with the heat wave in Wisconsin. No air conditioning where she works. She is coming to visit us this weekend.



Left Wautoma about 6:45. Nice to see familiar landmarks and be sleeping in our own bed again!

Blessings to all!

Dave

Eureka! We have found Wisconsin!

Greetings from Bangor, Wisconsin!

Today was the longest driving trek in many a year for Joyce and me. We got into the Mazda before 7 a.m. in Zanesville, Ohio and didn't stop driving until 7 p.m at Tim & Jess's place in Bangor. Keep in mind that includes an hour we gained by crossing from Eastern to Central time.
We just needed to be back in Wisconsin -- away from hotels, motels, and museums -- and seeing familiar faces.

We did make one stop in Columbus at the James Thurber house. I am a big James Thurber fan. I think his writing is hilarious. Here is a photo of me reading from my Thurber Carnival book on the porch of his house at 77 Jefferson Ave in the middle of downtown Columbus.



We also rediscovered an old friend hanging around...



Throughout our travels today, Joyce read to me segments from the book - we laughed a lot. It was hilarious. Our travels took us through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and into Wisconsin up through Beloit and Madison. It was sure exciting to cross the Wisconsin border!

We were so happy to see Tim, Jess & Joshua --



Here's a photo of the happy grandma...



We have traveled over 4100 miles in our little adventure -- still not home yet. Tomorrow we hope to visit Christi at Camp Phillip on the way back to Appleton. We are planning dinner at Christiano's in Wautoma for tomorrow evening.

Joyce says she has kind of forgotten how to drive -- she has been my faithful navigator with maps, atlas, and GPS all along the way. I think she has only driven about 1 1/2 or 2 hours on our trip. But she has been the one who has managed to get us there and back. It has been a great adventure.

We also need to thank all those who prayed for our safe travels and for the Lord for sending his angels to watch over us. We passed another terrible accident today -- a semi and a pickup truck. The pickup was hardly recognizable. A reminder to us all to be ready at any time for the Lord to take us home.

Love to all!

Dave

Hershey, PA to Zanesville, OH

Greetings from Zanesville, Ohio - just down the road from the Zane Grey museum!

This morning we rolled out of bed, enjoyed our breakfast outside of Lebanon, PA, and then headed into Hershey.

We did take time to have a Bible reading and devotion time. No WELS church within a half-hour of our hotel. We talked about visiting a Mennonite church we drove by, but thought that might cause a little stir.



Mr. Hershey was a pretty amazing man from what we could figure out. Stopped at the Hershey Museum. Some of the photos on my Picasa album are from the Museum and some are from the Chocolate World building. Especially check out the Apostolic Clock from the Museum and all the fun Joyce had in "Hershey Heaven."



A couple hours at the Hershey exhibits was enough for us. They have everything there -- malls for shopping, a Six Flags - type amusement park, and more. Everything imaginable you could buy.



From there we hit the road across Pennsylvania. It is a long state with lots of mountains. We traveled through three of them by tunnel. We zipped through West Virginia in about 10 minutes -- they have a really fast speed limit there and are happy to be in Ohio tonite.

Supper was at a Bonanza buffet just over the Ohio border - Dave was a happy camper - salad & chicken wings!

Getting ever closer to home. Hallelujah!

Love to all --

Dave

From Sunnyside to Hershey (or less)...

Greetings!

Had trouble finding a place to stay in Tarrytown last night. Roads are crazy around here after dark and they don't mark streets well in this part of the U.S. They never list the cross streets so you can't tell exactly where you are. Frustrating. Plus last night they had closed the major bridge we had planned to cross because of major accident with a truck loaded with watermelon. Sounds funny, but it wasn't -- at least one person was killed. Lots of accidents today too on our way into Pennsylvania. We always try to say a special prayer before we embark for safe travels each day. The Lord has been very good to us -- watching over two roaming travelers who don't know the roads in this part of our country.



This was the view we woke up to out of our hotel room. Beautiful hotel - we ended up at a Doubletree in Tarrytown. Tarrytown is a gem of a city nestled along the banks of the Hudson River. Many gorgeous estates along the Hudson. We would love to come back and see some of the others sometime.

Really enjoyed our visit to Washington Irving's Sunnyside estate this morning. I had originally thought about skipping this stop because we are kind of "museumed" out. Glad we didn't do that. I had forgotten how important a figure in early American literature Washington Irving was. He was actually the first American to make his living as a writer. He pubished over 40 books and was a best-selling author in Europe before his reputation in America was established. Our guide said he was such an eligible bachelor that Mary Shelley (widow of Percy Bysshe Shelley & author of Frankenstein) chased him all over Europe trying to catch his eye. (Headless horseman & Frankenstein's monster - scary combination!)

He didn't actually settle at Sunnyside until he was 52. Before that he had spent much of life in Europe. He pretty much single-handedly showed the European cultural community that there was hope for "those brash, wild Americans." His estate is embodiment of the Romantic ideals and his house was a pleasure to tour. Not a big fancy house -- even though it did have 10 bedrooms. (He was a bachelor, but took in his five unmarried nieces and his brother Ebenezer!)
Sadly, no photography was allowed inside, but you can get an idea from the photos of the grounds what a wonderful place it was.



Here's a picture of me resting on Irving's piazza.

And here's a photo of Joyce enjoying a stop in one of Sunnyside's shady copses...can you see the little waterfall in the background. All these beautiful shots from Sunnyside are planned to look natural, but were actually designed by Irving to look natural -- the ideal of Romanticism.



Click here for my Irving's Sunnyside web album.

It started as an 11 acre farm and later expanded to 26 acres. He designed the home himself and it shows the influence of his visit to Scotland to visit Sir Walter Scott (the best-selling novelist of the time -- writer of Ivanhoe). It also includes French, Italian, Swiss, Dutch, and Spanish elements. We loved sitting on his piazza and listening to the birds singing. During his time, the railroad put a line right through his property - it still is there today.

Irving was friends with 6 presidents and served as America's ambassador to Spain under a 7th president - Martin Van Buren, a man he had talked into running for president! Our tour guide was excellent and knowledgeable. He pointed out that both literary and political greats were frequent visitors to this house. Presidents along with Napoleon, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and many others were guests at what he originally planned as his summer cottage.

One final note on Sunnyside - we found this little token of home on our way out. I hope you can read what it says... Neenah Foundry!



After Sunnyside, it was time to hit the road again. We traveled out of New York, through New Jersey, and into Pennsylvania. Having never been to NJ, we were really surprised by its mountains and rural look. Pennsylvania, too, is filled with beautiful mountain vistas. We stopped at a Days Inn in Jonestown, PA. It's about 20 minutes away from Hershey - a stop Joyce wanted to make before we worked our way home.

Blessings to you all!

Dave

A Whale of a Tale & Back to New York

Woke up to a second day where you could actually see the sun. Unfortunately the thunderstorms are predicted to roll in soon. Boston weather has not been good to us. Never able to make it downtown to get around and doesn't look like it's going to happen for us.



Today it's on to New Bedford and the Whaling Museum. Check out Joyce as she poses by a life-size example of one of these monsters of the sea!

Before we entered the Whaling Museum, we stopped in the Bethel Chapel which New Bedford whalers attended before they went out to see. Got to see Herman Melville's pew and the cenotaphs on the walls -- cenotaphs is definitely an Honors English word. Made it clear how dangerous a lifestyle whaling actually was. Note that the pulpit which is shaped like a ship is a new addition that was necessitated by Melville's fictional account of what the chapel looked like! It was made popular in a movie and everybody came expecting it to look like that until they finally raised the money to make it happen...funny!

Here is my Picasa Bethel Chapel photo album!

Also took a quick walk around New Bedford's historic district. Still has cobblestones on the street. Saw the Custom House -- architect was the same man who designed the Washington Monument later in his life.



The Whaling Museum has so much in it. You could easily spend a whole day there. Don't know if Joyce made it through the whole place - lots of reading & exhibits. So much artwork and more. Joyce especially like the examples of beautiful scrimshaw.

Check out my Picasa Whaling Museum photo album here!

Leaving New Bedford, we decided to drive through Rhode Island and past all the fancy mansions in Newport. Those are quite the palaces. Here's one example of one of the smaller ones...



Also got a beautiful view of the ocean at Breton State Park. Sadly this is the only ocean photo that turned out.



Our goal was to get back to New York by the end of the day. It was a challenge, but we did it.
We had to drive through a pretty nasty thunderstorm in mid-Connecticut. As we approached New York City, you should have seen the traffic streaming out of the city.

We are staying in Tarrytown tonight (which is a distant suburb of New York City.) Hope to visit Washington Irving's Sunnyside tomorrow before we hit the road into Pennsylvania -- maybe Hershey???

Blessings to all!

Dave

Plimouth Plantation, Mayflower & Tanglewood Marionettes

Today the sunny finally came out! Hurrah!

Enjoyed a wonderful day at Plymouth. Started out with Plymouth Rock -- it is much tinier than I ever expected since nowadays it is but a smaller part of a larger rock that has been parcelled out to all kinds of people and institutions around the U.S.

From there boarded the Mayflower II for a tour. Really cramped quarters for a crew and all those Pilgrims. Pilgrims basically were treated as cargo. Can't image how cramped and smelly it would have been. Some families as large as 8 persons were confined to a "cabin" (actually wood boards) that couldn't have been more than 8 ft by 6 ft. Re-enactors aboard ship answered questions.

Here I am next to the anchor rope - check out how small I look!

You can see more images on my Picasa Mayflower web album!




Next we traveled around town to see old houses, monuments, and other points of interest. I was particularly interested in a visit to Plymouth's Burial Hill which climbs high about the harbor. Here William Bradford and many other Pilgrims are buried. Famous missionary to China Adoniram Judson is also laid to rest there.

You can see more images on my Picasa Plymouth web album!

About lunch time we moved on to Plimouth Plantation. I ate a wonderful turkey dinner in their welcome center while Joyce tried the fish cakes and Boston baked beans. A walking tour of the grounds took several hours. We experienced both an Indian "village" and the Pilgrim settlement with talented re-enacters and craftsman who made it especially meaningful. If you get out here, you can't miss this stop. Wow! Talk about roughing it...

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Had an itchy trigger finger on the camera -- went through three sets of batteries. Will post photos tomorrow. Too tired tonite. We left the hotel at 8:10 am and just got back in the door at 10:30 pm. NOTE: At final count we took over 600 photos yesterday!

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You can see more images on my Picasa Plymouth Plantation web album!

After Plimouth Plantation, we drove down to Falmouth on the south end of Massachusetts for a performance of "The Dragon King" by the Tanglewood Marionettes.




Amazing performance. Beautiful marionettes with a wonderful mixture of rod puppets, some blacklight, some shadow. Afterwards got a backstage tour. Lots more photos. They are heading down to Georgia for the Puppeteers of America convention in a couple weeks.

You can see more images on my Picasa Tanglewood web album!

Also, Joyce found someone with her same taste in shoes - they sat next to each other at the puppet show.



That's all for now!

Blessings!

Dave

Eating with Longfellow at the Wayside Inn!

Greetings from the Boston suburb of Dedham! Tonight we are staying at a Holiday Inn Express.

Drove down from Maine this morning in pouring rain. We drove out to the ocean to get a foggy sight of the Maine coastline. Smelled the sea breezes. Planned to try to drive the coast through Kennebunk & Kennebunkport, but road construction frustrated the driver -- me!



Here is our take on Maine: "The rain in Maine falls maine-ly on the Paynes!"

We had a quick drive through New Hampshire -- will we ever stop paying tolls??? Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio...grrr!

Once back in Boston we drove down to Harvard area in Cambridge hoping to visit Museum of Natural History and the Longfellow House. We made it down there but traffic and parking were a nightmare. Only metered parking for an hour on the street! Thanks to the GPS for help, but the one way streets have changed and that makes things even more exciting. Frustrated driver Dave said, "Let's get out of here" and co-pilot Joyce navigated us back to Interstate 95.

Instead we drove out to Sudbury to Longfellow's Wayside Inn. What a treat! It is one of the oldest operating inns in America - if not the oldest! We ate a wonderful lunch for an affordable price in an amazing setting.



Here is Joyce with the menu...

Here am I enjoying a cool drink of water...



The Inn is stocked with all kinds of period pieces and is free to the public. Great place to visit.

Click here for my Picasa Web Album of the Wayside Inn!

When Joyce took a photo of me reading my Longfellow poetry collection, I magically opened the book to the page: Tales of a Wayside Inn! Longfellow didn't live here, but visited after the tragic death of his wife. He hoped that a visit here would break his despair and break the writer's block he was experiencing. It did. He wrote this long poem which I believe is patterned after Chaucer's Canterbury Tales where a variety of characters tell stories from their differing viewpoints. In the web album, you can see the different characters. The Innkeeper is the one who tells the story of Paul Revere's Ride -- one of Longfellow's most famous poems. It makes sense that the innkeeper would tell this tale because Revere actually frequented this area since it is located on the Boston Post Road.



We also toured the gardens. Joyce found another gentleman friend...



Henry Ford saved this historic site for the people of today. Also on site are some other neat buildings including an operating grist mill -- used to grind the corn and wheat used in the kitchen. Also located there is the little school house credited with inspiring the childhood ditty: "Mary had a little lamb..."



Then it was back to rush hour traffic to find our way to the hotel. Crazy driving out here in Boston. People drive on the shoulder of the highway as if it is an extra lane. You never know where or when you are going to get passed. I was gripping the wheel so hard that my hands went numb. Glad to be safely in the hotel room resting.

Tomorrow we are actually supposed to see the sun for the first time in a week or so in Massachusetts. We are planning to visit Plymouth Rock, the Plimouth Plantation, and the Mayflower. I am really excited about this stop. Actors and interpreters dress in period costumes and depict daily life in Puritan New England from the 1600s. Hope to get lots of photos.

Blessings to all!

Dave

Booth Bay Harbor for puppets?

To find out more about my new friend -- read on!



8:30 AM Hey, it's not raining today... at least yet...

If you checked out the blog yesterday and didn't see any photos for yesterday and Sunday, you might want to go back and check them out - I added photos and info late last night because I had been too tired to the day before.

Can you hear the wind at the window? I didn't think so. Very, very windy this morning.

We plan a 45-minute trip to the coast at Booth Bay Harbor - hopefully to see a puppet performance at Boothbay Harbor's Windjammer Festival. They'll have plenty of wind to jam!

Time for breakfast - catch you later.

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5:30 PM

We did make it up to Boothbay Harbor for their Windjammer Festival. Glad we didn't come up here just for the scenery. Maybe it's what you grow up with, but both of us felt that Door County, the bluffs in LaCrosse, or northern Wisconsin is just as scenic as this area. Can you hear all the Mainers hissing and booing...

By the way, when you are in this part of the country, there is a big difference between Maine Street and Main Street! That is a Payne Free Traveling Tip of the Day.

Boothbay Harbor and its narrow streets were packed with people and cars. Very difficult to even find a parking place you didn't have to pay for. We went to see the Frogtown Puppeteers present "Everybody Loves Pirates" - a show Cassie and I had seen at the Puppeteers of American National Conference in St. Paul in the summer of 2007.

The show was to be held on the lawn, but the weather wasn't going to allow that so everything was moved inside this tiny old library. The room that they performed in was smaller than my classroom at FVL. And they have a huge stage - I bet it is 20 feet long and 6 feet high with lots of props and puppets plus their sound system. I don't know how many people attended but it was wall-to-wall. I would guesstimate maybe 100 kids and adults were crammed inside.



We arrived at 1o:30 to stake out seats for the show slated to start at noon. Good thing we did. Had a chance to introduce ourselves to the puppet team. They were so nice! They even allowed us to videotape the program. It was so good! Fortunately the battery lasted throughout the program - it was 55 minutes. I had a 60 minute DV tape and 60 minutes of battery time. Afterwards they brought us back stage for a behind-the-scenes tour. I even got to try on one of the puppets. We talked puppetry for about a half hour and then let them pack up their show. What fun!

Click here for my Picasa Everybody Loves Pirates web album!

We drove a little around Boothbay Harbor to shoot some photos, stopped at a thrift shop, and then headed back to our hotel in Brunswick. Along the way we stopped for a Dairy Queen break just outside of Bath, Maine. Bath was once the largest seaport on the coast after New York and Boston.

Click here for my Picasa Web Album of Boothbay Harbor photos!

On our way back into town we stopped to get a photo of the Civil War general Joshua Chamberlain for our two history buff sons.



I stopped to asked a student how you actually pronounce the name of the college. Bowdoin College is pronounced "Boe-din" -- he said "silent o". Strange - I wouldn't have guessed that. Did you know their school mascot is the "polar bear" -- because Admiral Perry was a Bowdoin grad. They have a special artic exploration museum here in his honor.

Finally - a correction to yesterday's blog -- the Harriet Beecher Stowe house mentioned in yesterday's blog is not the same as the house we checked in at. That was a typo on the info pack distributed to us. Here is the real place where Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.



Joyce is taking a nap right now while I am typing away. Tomorrow we head back down to Boston area to finish up there. We will have a strategy meeting tonight to figure out the remainder of our trip. We're technically on the way back now...

Blessings to all!

Dad

Salem to Maine!

Greetings from Maine!

Weather today was the nastiest yet. Seems a storm is stalled off the New England coast and keeps sending waves of showers across the Boston area.

Before I get started -- if you are interested in photos from our Sunday adventure - I added them tonite to the Sunday post -- too tired last night...

Today we drove over to Salem on the north side of Boston -- infamous for the Salem Witchcraft trials. Drivers there were crazy and the roads narrow, narrow, narrow! Stopped at the site which holds the "House of the Seven Gables" and the home where Nathaniel Hawthorne was born.






We also got a look at the Atlantic Ocean from the Salem harbor. From there we drove up north into New Hampshire and Maine.



Mom stopped at what claims to be the oldest candy shop in the country.



Tried to catch the lunch buffet at Pizza Hut but the GPS took us to another invisible restaurant! Third in three days. Tells you how the economy has been affected out here. Lots of boarded up buildings and out of business spots. Fortunately, across the street from the invisible Pizza Hut was a Qdoba! That was GOOD! Hadn't seen any around here so assumed there weren't any...

Thought we would see lots of the coast on our trip into Maine -- not so. Interstate 95 is more inland -- probably wouldn't have made much difference with all the rain. When we drive back, we will try to head along the coast. Supposed to be very beautiful.

Staying tonight in Brunswick, Maine. Cassie, it is just down the road from Lisbon Falls -- where we stopped in to see the Moxie guy. He is quite a talker. He remembered the Lutheran Vanguard visit in detail. He says anytime they want to come, they are welcome. His exact words were that if they pulled up their bus an hour before the parade, they would get them in! Funny guy. Here is a photo of Mom with him.



The Moxie man is one interesting & dynamic guy. Also, guess what? Stephen King -- the writer -- used to sit in his shop and wait for the bus to pick him up -- he attended the local high school. He has been featured on the Food Network, Travel Network, and many others. Recently a young director used his store to shoot a video that is getting some important exposure at film festivals. Mom will remember the name - I don't right now.

Brunswick is just down the road from Boothbay Harbor where we are hoping to see a puppet show tomorrow. We'll see - weather isn't promising and it is supposed to be an outdoor show. We plan to go early to get a seat.

Brunswick is an interesting little place. It is the home of Bowdoin College - a little college with lots of famous alumni -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, President Franklin Pierce, the famous explorer Perry, Joshua Chamberlain - one of the heroic generals of Gettysburg, the founder of Netflix, one of the founders of the Mayo clinic, and more. Also - a weird fact -- the place where we checked into our motel is the house where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin and where Hawthorne and Longfellow roomed when they were in college. (We didn't know that when we booked the place -- we just stumbled across it in a book about the city!)

Blessings to all!

Dad

Fathers Day in Concord

Today was Concord Day! So much to see -- such drizzly weather to see it in!

Started off attending church at Pinewood Lutheran Church about 1o minutes down the road. GPS came in really handy -- don't think we would have found it any way else. 10 minutes away but it took us 40 minutes to find. Pastor was out of town for ELS convention so the treasurer conducted the service - did a great job. We stayed after for fellowship time and got the scoop on Boston travel and attractions. Service was conducted from the old hymnal. That was fun -- only a couple did Joyce and I get tripped up on the "thees" and "thous." Beautiful church -- actually is coming up to celebrating its 175th anniversary -- used to be located down by Harvard University.



After church we headed over to Concord -- home of lots of authors I wanted to see and a site very significant to Revolutionary War history.

Started out at the Concord Museum and then went across the road to the Ralph Waldo Emerson house. Emerson was such a famous person that his whole house is practically intact from his time, but strangely enough his study is across the street at the Concord Museum. Wish you could see it better, but they have it roped off and you can't take photos, but only peek in.



From there we went the Old Manse! This was one spot I was really looking forward to. Manse is the Scottish word for pastor's house and a shortened version of our modern word mansion. It has ties to Thoreau, Emerson, and Hawthorne. The Emerson family owned the house, Thoreau worked as a gardener there, and the young Hawthorne's rented it when they were newly-weds. Mrs. Hawthorne even wrote on the windows with her diamond ring.



This house is where Hawthorne penned his famous collection of short stories: Mosses from an Old Manse. Supposedly he was a very distractable writer and he faced away from the windows. He wrote on a tiny little desk attached to the wall that is no bigger than a typical student school desk today.

That same property has the North bridge where the British fired on the Minutemen at the beginning of the fight for independence.



Sidelight & fun fact -- another famous occupant of the home was a pastor. He had a desk designed specifically for him. He wrote standing up -- he would write until his feet got tired and figured that meant his sermon was long enough!

From there went to Wayside - the only house Hawthorne ever owned and the house where Louisa May Alcott grew up. Check out the 3rd story "sky tower" that Hawthorne added to the house after living in a tower in Italy! It is said he could see all the way over to Walden Pond in those days!



Twelve published authors lived in that house from the time it was built in the 1700s. The welcome center is actually the barn where the Alcott children performed their plays as youngsters. The house is also associated with Margaret Sidney -- famous children's author of The Five Little Peppers series -- kind of the Harry Potter of that day. It was free day for all National Parks on Sunday so we received our tour for free. Even nicer, they allow visitors to us digital cameras with no flash.

Click here for my Picasa web album of Wayside photos.

One interesting tidbit about visiting all these authors homes is how every one had copies of the Bible close at hand and often in Hebrew and Greek . . . Shakespeare, too.

From there we walked over to Orchard House, the home where Alcott actually wrote her famous books like Little Women.



Finally we travelled out to Walden Pond where Henry David Thoreau conducted his famous literary experiment. They have a replica house there made to the specifications of his two-year stay. Couldn't resist getting pictures there. Here I am sitting in one of Thoreau's three chairs.



And here is Mom entertaining another 100-year-old gentleman.



Even though the rain was really coming down at that point, we ventured for a soggy stroll over to Walden Pond as well. We wouldn't call it a pond - it's a lake to us. Now part of state park with a swimming beach and hiking trails.



After our adventures of the day, we drove back up to the hotel area and tried to find a place to eat. We tried a Denny's first. Guess what? We drove over by GPS to an empty parking lot. Second time in two days we tried to eat at an invisible restaurant! Next, we tried a Chili's -- not an empty space in the parking lot so we had to move on. We settled on an Uno Grill and went in for salads and soup.

Got back to the hotel room -- called my dad to wish him a happy day -- received calls from Cassie and Christi and then crashed.

Still planning tomorrow's exploits!

LATE UPDATE: Holyoke is credited with the invention of volleyball!

Blessings!

Dad