Tag Archives: travel

Assateague Island National Seashore

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We left Bethany Beach and drove down the Delmarva peninsula toward our next stop: Cape Charles, Virginia, on the eastern shore. Just south of Ocean City, Maryland, I saw a sign for Assateague Island National Seashore. I’ve always wanted to see the wild horses on the barrier islands of Assateague and Chincoteague since reading Misty of Chincoteague in fifth grade, but I had heard that the horses are only on the islands seasonally. So we stopped by Tourist Information to get the scoop. Turns out the horses are present on both islands year round. 

The woman at TI explained the difference between the horse habitats. Assateague Island is owned by the government and is maintained by the National Park Service. The horses there are wild; the only human intervention is birth control. Scientists discovered that if the horse population grew to over 100, the plant life on the island suffered, which affected the biological balance of the whole island–flora and fauna. So to strike a healthy balance, they allow each mare to foal only once. After the first foal, the mares are inoculated to prevent conception. This year’s census was in the low 80s, and the island is thriving.

On Chincoteague Island, the horses run wild but are technically owned by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. They control their horse population by rounding up some of the younger horses each summer to sell at auction to raise funds for the fire department.

We opted to visit Assateague, since Tourist Information was so close to the National Seashore entrance. It was a perfect-weather day for exploring the park. We saw probably 20 horses, some up close and others farther away, and we had a picnic lunch under the cedar trees on a bayside beach.

The horses are magnificent, and I commend our National Park Service for preserving their habitat so they can continue to run wild. The island is a beautiful place to visit. We especially loved the boardwalk through the salt marsh where we saw lots of wildlife.

On the Delaware shore

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observation tower at Cape Henlopen, Delaware

After Rockville, Maryland, we continued on our FFF (Family and Friends Fall) Road Trip to Bethany Beach, Delaware, where my brother and his wife have recently purchased a home. 

We love these concrete observation towers along the Delaware coast. Built from 1939 to 1942 to guard the entrance to Delaware Bay after world war broke out in Europe, there are eleven on the Delaware coast and two across the bay in New Jersey. They were built to last only 20 years, but are still standing after almost 80. (And, yes, I did go up in one, despite the rusty old stairs.) 

view of Delaware Bay from the top

German ships were a real threat to American shipping even before we were directly involved in the war. When the Luftwaffe was unsuccessful in defeating the Royal Air Force with its eleven-month campaign of daily air attacks against the UK (the Battle of Britain), Hitler shifted gears and imposed a naval blockade in the Atlantic, hoping to starve the British into surrender. German U-boats and destroyers patrolled off the US Atlantic coast looking for American ships headed to Britain that may contain relief supplies.

bunker with Howitzer guarding the bay

These towers are a poignant reminder, especially now that our Greatest Generation is almost gone, of the sacrifices Americans were asked to make to defend their homeland. I hope they last another eighty years. Thank you, Delaware, for honoring the memory of those who served.

2018 Family & Friends Fall Road Trip

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detours on I-95 as a result of Hurricane Florence

We left Stuart on September 21st on a rare (for us) road trip. Since we began our extended travel in 2013, we have always flown to our destination, rented a car, driven the most comprehensive route I could comfortably squeeze into two to three months, returned the car, and flown home. And that’s what we intended to do this time, but then Marcus got the itchin’ for a road trip–from start to finish in our own car. Having grown up seeing the USA from the back of a (Chevrolet) station wagon, I was down. I love nothing more than to pack a car to the gills, stash a cooler full of goodies, and hit the road.

This trip is also different in that we’ll be doing much less sightseeing than usual. This trip is dedicated to visiting some family and friends that we haven’t visited or seen in far too long. The first leg of it, from Stuart to Rockville, Maryland, to visit Marcus’s sister Sheri and family, involved driving through North Carolina only eight days after Hurricane Florence whipped through. Although most of I-95 was in great shape (primarily due to speedy recovery efforts on the part of NCDOT, is my guess), there were still a few detours to negotiate.

The parts of I-95 we did travel had lost quite a few trees and billboards (no loss there!), but the saddest thing we witnessed was the number of dead wildlife along the shoulders. Of course there are always deer, raccoons, and possums who wander across the highway at night, but we saw many more than usual, including a wild pig–something I’d never seen. Made me realize how many animals must have been displaced from their homes due to flooding and had nowhere to go but to seek higher ground–on the interstate.

Best wishes to the state of North Carolina for a full recovery, and our condolences for your losses.

Familiness

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Rarely in our travels do we get to visit family. It’s not intentional, it’s just that we’ve been focusing on knocking off the foreign countries on our bucket list. We’ve been traveling internationally every other year, and only this year decided to use the years in between for domestic travel, which gives us the opportunity to visit more with family and friends. 

For our Niagara trip, we decided to fly into Westchester County Airport, just north of New York City, an easy, direct flight from West Palm Beach. This would allow us to add some places to our itinerary that we’ve been wanting to see in upstate New York and begin and end our Grand Loop of Lake Ontario with Marcus’s brother, Elliot, and family in Greenwich, Connecticut, only eight miles from Westchester.

Our “easy” flight got in four hours late, and it was after 9:00pm when we rolled into Elliot and Christine’s driveway. Their kids, Alex and Sascha, ages six and five, were supposed to be in bed, but materialized at the bottom of the stairs as we came into the house. They were too excited to sleep. They escorted us to our bedroom where personal notes of welcome lay on our respective nightstands. Throughout our visit, they followed me around like ducklings, never more than a hug away. Well, except for those times when decorum dictated that I excuse myself. And even then, upon opening the bathroom door I would find them just where I’d left them. I loved it!

Over coffee in the mornings, I taught them how to solve kenken puzzles, and they reciprocated by helping me time my dry-eye therapy. I was the “mystery reader” in Sascha’s kindergarten class and attended Alexandra’s piano recital. I climbed the playscape with them at school and cheered them on during their running time trials around the cul-de-sac. We celebrated the weekend with “pizza-and-movie night” in the basement and munched on delectables out of a picnic hamper at a polo match. We (and a stuffed monkey) explored deep space in our rocket ship on the couch before dinner and, after dinner, played board games at the table. (The monkey excused himself from board games, however, saying he had an early start the next day.)

The days were packed with activity, but I vividly remember one quiet moment after Alex and Sascha had both rehearsed their upcoming recital pieces with their parents. I looked up from my spot on the couch and was struck by the familiness around me. Elliot and Christine were still at guitar and piano, enjoying some time together to dig into their own music. Sascha constructed skyscrapers with Jenga pieces in the light from the piano, stopping now and then to capture his creations with the camera on an iPad. And Alex and Marcus played chess at the dining room table in the room beyond. It’s been too many years since we’ve been this intimately engaged in the dynamics of a family. I miss it, but am so thankful that we had this opportunity to experience it again.

Thank you, Elliot and Christine, Alex and Sascha, for inviting us into your family, and for reminding us of an often-forgotten benefit of travel.♥

Hot bar!

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The Fire Bar at Hawkeye’s

Recommended by our hosts at the B&B: The Fire Bar at the Hawkeye Bar & Grill at Cooperstown’s Otesaga Resort Hotel. Perfect spot to chill with a glass of wine, a bite to eat, and maybe even a game of bocce on the lawn, if you’re not too mesmerized by the view. 

The Otesaga Resort Hotel is located at the south end of Otsego Lake in the Village of Cooperstown, New York, and hearkens back to the day when people from the City spent their summers at grand hotels such as this. 

 

James Fenimore Cooper referred to Otsego Lake as Glimmerglass in his Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels featuring the character Natty Bumppo, also known as Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans, one of the Leatherstocking Tales. The lake also happens to be the source of the Susquehanna River, the 16th largest river in the United States, according to Wikipedia.

It’s no coincidence that Cooper’s stories took place in the area around Cooperstown. His father founded the village, and James grew up in what was then a 19th-century frontier town.

the sun setting on Glimmerglass (Otsego) Lake

The weather was perfect on this particular evening, a cloudless, late-spring promise of blissful summer days ahead. As the sun set we drew our chairs closer to the fire and watched for dugout canoes gliding silently across the Glimmerglass.

On the Homestretch

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the Homestretch B&B

As we rounded Niagara, we entered the homestretch on our counterclockwise lap around Lake Ontario. We’ve driven from Greenwich, Connecticut, up the Hudson River Valley to Hyde Park and Lake Placid, across the St. Lawrence River into Ontario, through the 1000 Islands region to Toronto and Niagara. Now we’re back in New York, crossing the Finger Lakes region and the Catskills to return to Greenwich. I was looking for a place to stay in the Finger Lakes region and recalled an article I’d read about Cooperstown, New York. Yes, we all know it as a mecca for baseball fans because of the Hall of Fame, but the article asserted that the village is a destination in its own right. So I found us a B&B just outside of Cooperstown. Appropriately, it’s called the Homestretch B&B.

The Homestretch is owned by a lovely couple. He raises thoroughbred racehorses on their 105-acre farm, refurbishes antique homes (including their own), and is a master carpenter and artist. She is an executive assistant in the local hospital network and runs the B&B, in what precious free time is left in her week. Their two grown children are on their own, so they converted the family home into this perfectly pastoral retreat.

From herbed baked eggs and French toast for breakfast on the side porch to lazy evenings with a nightcap by the fire pit, this was the ideal way to wind down our trip.

the fire pit

bonus: dogs! Bailey & Bud

 

Geek alert!

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elevation changes between the Great Lakes

Only two full days in the Niagara area, and the best-weather day will be at the Falls. What to do on the other?

A question came up in the car on our drive from Toronto to St. Catharines, Ontario, where we are staying in the Niagara region: If the Great Lakes Waterway connects the five Great Lakes, allowing navigation from the westernmost lake, Superior, to the easternmost lake, Ontario, and on through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean, how do ships bypass the falls on the Niagara River? The Niagara is the natural connection between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. [Is it just us, or do other people have conversations like this in the car? A friend just shakes her head when I tell her these things and admonishes, “This is what happens when engineers intermarry.”]

ship entering Lock 3

Marcus had read that there is a manmade canal across the Niagara isthmus that was built to handle maritime traffic. I checked the road map. Sure enough: The Welland Canal connects the two lakes.

Why had I never heard of this canal? With its eight locks, it descends the Niagara escarpment from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario—100 meters* overall. It is the greatest elevation change between any two adjacent Great Lakes. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a canal that drops 100 meters over 43 kilometers in length. How is that possible? Guess where we’re going on our extra day? 

*Note: We’re in Canada now, so I’m using metric units. If Jimmy Carter had had his way, the US would be using the metric system today, just like our neighbors to the north and almost everyone else everywhere. As it is, we are one of only three countries in the world that insist on using “traditional” units, the other two being Burma and Liberia. Seriously? [Sorry. Rant over.]

front gate of the lock holding back water

 

back gate closing behind ship

It turns out that the Welland Canal is the town line between St. Catharines and Niagara-on-the-Lake, so we didn’t have to drive far. We arrived at Lock 3 just as a ship was pulling in from the Lake Erie side. And it just barely fit! We stayed to watch the whole process, until the ship was on its way at the lower level to Lock 2 an hour and a half later.

maneuvering out of the lock at the lower level

After checking out the Welland Canal Museum, which is very conveniently located at Lock 3 and very well curated, we drove up the Niagara escarpment to Locks 4, 5, and 6. This is the steepest part of the grade, and the three locks–one right after another–climb the escarpment like watery steps. 

Locks 4, 5, and 6 (courtesy of Google Earth)

Kudos to the engineers who built all four of the Welland Canals, from the original canal with its 40 manual locks in 1829 to the current canal utilizing eight hydraulic locks in 1932.

We were just wandering…

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After leaving Yonge-Dundas Square, we continued our meander toward the waterfront. We stopped in at the Craft Beer Market for a snack and came across this unusual appetizer: fast-food sushi. Cheeseburger and fries wrapped in bacon, topped with a pickle. Barbecue sauce for seasoning. We couldn’t resist the novelty of it.

Toronto has a love/hate relationship going on with raccoons. Apparently, they’re running rampant, getting into residents’ trash and generally wreaking havoc, as these crafty little bandits are wont to do. They have become a counterculture icon for Toronto: you’re either for them or against them. Personally, I love raccoons. What’s not to love about a bandit that brings its own mask to the party?

I’m also a sucker for funny signs. We had to try out the Bier Markt just because the sign above their door made us laugh. Nothing funny about their charcuterie, however. It was delicious! It’s amazing what you find just by wandering.

Goodbye, Toronto! We will miss you, but it’s time to move on to the impetus for this trip: Niagara!

#turbanup

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Yonge-Dundas Square

On our last day in Toronto, we wanted to get out and walk this city we’ve grown to love. Normally when we stay in one location for a week, we take at least one day off from exploring to catch up on laundry, pay bills, and generally take a break from sightseeing. But something about Toronto draws us outdoors. Perhaps it’s the compact size. Toronto is a very walkable city, especially from the location of our apartment in Church-Wellesley—almost downtown, yet with the feel of a quiet suburb. We love discovering the personalities of each of Toronto’s neighborhoods from our hub. And after living in our quiet little hamlet of Stuart for most of the year, the city offers such variety. We feel like kids in a candy store! Or perhaps it’s the amazing weather we’ve had this week. Who could sit indoors when the sunshine beckons from our floor-to-ceiling windows?

We didn’t really have a destination, so we headed toward the Harbourfront, where we seem to end up in our wanderings every day anyway. It was an overcast Sunday—not much going on as we headed downtown, except for a queue snaking through Allan Gardens, people waiting to buy cacti and succulents at the greenhouse. Must have been some sale!

We chose Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto’s unofficial hub, as a waypoint. We were struck by the energy in the square when we visited a few days before and wondered what might be going on there this sleepy Sunday. Nothing sleepy about the square this morning! We arrived just in time for #turbanup. 

Sikh for a day

The Sikh community was out en masse to educate the public about who they are, what they believe, and why they wear those colorful turbans, or Dastaar as they call it. Sikhi, the fifth largest religion in the world, originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of India. Guru Nanak Dev Ji taught that all people are from the same creator, regardless of social status, gender, or religion. Because there is no difference between royalty and anyone else, everyone should wear a crown, or Dastaar, as a constant reminder of a person’s value and importance, and also as a reminder of their personal, daily obligation to take care of other people.

Today everyone was invited to turban up. There were tables and tables of fabric in every color and shade imaginable, and experts to help you wrap it in whichever style you chose, be it farmer, warrior, or raj. They also provided lively music and a Sikh-style community banquet. Free food for all is an everyday practice at all Gurdwaras, Sikh temples. 

community banquet

We had an enlightening discussion with a young, Sikh woman, and enjoyed watching everyone—Sikh and otherwise—participating in the festivities. Did I mention? I love this city!