Eastbound to Westbound Redux

 Wow, what a blast of a week (actually 10 days, but who's counting? Certainly not me!) we had in Salem, MA. That one ranked right up there my friends. I could probably end this blog post with those two statements but let's give you guys some filler so you can get the gist. The main event of the week was the marriage of my sister Sue and Bill Dumont and what a fine wedding it was. A Salem harborside venue with all of our closest family members and friends in attendance to witness the vows exchanged between two of the best people I know. But, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself...the wedding was this past Saturday evening and we arrived in Salem over a week ago so let's back up a bit...more on the nuptuals later. We had reserved a camp spot on Winter Island at the entrance to Salem harbor back in February. At that time we were not sure if C-19 would thwart our plans or if Debbie's knee rehab would be OK. So we rolled the dice, made the reservation and damned if we didn...

We left you all on the last post from NY with a teaser about a fools folly. Well, where to begin with this one, let's start at the beginning then. We had 2 points of interest to view as we headed east towards Boston and both are in the village of Woodstock, NY, or so we thought. The 2 points were the site of the 1969 Woodstock Musical Festival and the Pink House where Bob Dylan and The Band (then known as The Hawks) laid down the Basement Tapes in 1967. Debbie and our son Joe are huuuge Dylan fans so the Pink House was a definite can't miss. The Woodstock Musical Festival...well, I'll get to that in a bit. We drive about an hour and a half east from our last spot at Gilbert Lake, NY and arrive in Woodstock, NY. We have reservations at the North South Lake SP and go to check in at noon and no joy. They do not have our reservation and I have no confirmation e mail so we go on the hunt for a last minute spot for the night. Finally around 3 PM we are settled in at the Rip Van W...

 What a fine time we had in Letchworth but, alas, t'was time to move on. Where to next? Let's go check out the Finger Lakes region a coupla hours drive east. What a wonderful drive along the two lane country roads passing thru small towns that all have really old buildings and houses.  But these towns are so different from all of the other small towns we've passed thru on our trip. Yes, the homes are old but the paint is fresh, lawns neatly trimmed and town avenues faithfully maintained, like townsfolks give a shit, pride in ownership sorta thing. A stark contrast from most of small town America we have been thru.  I gotta tell ya, western and upstate NY is very impressive! By the way, skip the maddening Interstate highways with the absolutely insane truck drivers and get off on some parallel 2 laners, pass thru some small town 'Merica, slow the f down and have some fun. That's a Howie tip for y'all. As we traversed these back country Finger Lake 2 laners, we pa...

 After our epic stroll down Howie memory lane in PA we headed north to the Empire State of NY. I have traveled many times to NYC over the years and back in the 70's attended a couple of US Grand Prix Formula 1 racing events at Watkins Glen, NY. My buddy Pete TerHorst, who follows the blog, will certainly recall one memorable trip home we had from the Glen in 1975 or so? Damn Pete, we were very lucky to make it back to DC alive from that lark. But, we saw one helluva F1 race that weekend! Looking back, I guess I was never really exposed to all of the fascinating things the State of NY has to offer. As Debbie and I were talking, we think NY might just be the best State we have visited so far on our trip. This place has it all, beautiful countryside, congenial people, tons of history and coming from CA....I have never seen so much damn water in my life! Crap, the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls in one minute would meet San Diego's average water demands for a year. I ...

 Entering our 14th state of the trip and after about 4000 miles we have arrived in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Our first stop will be Pittsburgh where I lived up until the 7th Grade. My mother grew up in East Carnegie, father grew up in Mt. Lebanon (both suburbs of Pittsburgh) and every, and I mean every, relative I had up until my marriage and in-laws were from Pittsburgh. All of them -  Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins, all Pittsburghers and all fine people. Hard working, family was everything and fun loving people for sure.   My mother's side of the family, the Daugherty's and Burke's, worked the steel mills along Chartiers Creek in East Carnegie and the railroads hauling coal into Pittsburgh for the mills and finished steel products out. Some also worked the coal mines around western PA. My fathers side of the family the Arnold's were mostly involved in the sales of construction and municipal maintenance related equipment. Most of the fami...