On Saturday, February 3, Tammy and I along with the VT Gangwers left CT for OR for a weeklong visit. We had an uneventful flight to Portland and then got in our rental car for the drive to Albany where we had rented an AirBnB home for all of us to stay.
On Sunday, we went to church; then we went out to eat with Blake's family. There was no cable TV at the rental home, so we hooked up Pop's computer to watch the Pat's vs Eagles in Superbowl 52. We had to leave the game at half time for church only to discover after church that my Pat's had lost to Stas' Eagles.
On Monday, Blake and Jaclyn along with the VT Gangwers headed to Newport for an overnight stay. Tammy and I stayed behind with Lilly as the VT Gangwers were shown the sights of the west coast. They saw about everything we had seen in last summer's week-long vacation in those two day. We used this alone time to shop at Costco to stock up for the week. During the evening Lilly entertained herself with running around the home and shredding a napkin to smithereens.
Tuesday, we took Lilly to visit Talking Water Gardens, as well as, took a walk around the neighborhood. The rest of the day was spent awaiting the return of Jaclyn and Blake and the VT Gangwers from their west coast adventures.
Wednesday, we went to the Albany Carousel Museum. Lilly rode it several times for our benefit so we could all get a turn riding it with her. The VT Gangwers took a quick tour of how the carousel animals are carved. We all then went to visit a local antique shop where I purchased my first dollar pocket watch.
Thursday, we hung out at a local park for awhile where Lilly played on the swings and slides. That evening, we celebrated Lilly's birthday early with her first taste of sugar by way of an icing-laden cupcake. Friday, we visited Corvallis for some shopping.
Saturday, we checked out of the house and traveled to Portland where we had dinner at Cartopia. We had to say bye to Jaclyn, Blake, and Lilly at this point as they headed home, and we went to our hotel rooms. As a side note, we enjoyed great weather all week.
Checking in to our hotel rooms was the start of several unfortunate "adventures". The hotel had no record of our reservation. After trying to deal with booking.com for about an hour, we were able to get to our rooms. The next day, Sunday, we boarded our plane home by way of Chicago. Landing in Chicago, we learned all Southwest flights had been cancelled for the day because they had run out of de-icer. We along with thousands of others waited in lines through out the Southwest concourse to rebook flights. After standing in line for over two hours, we weren't able to get a flight out of Chicago until the next day at 10pm. The silver lining in all this was that Tammy's brother was able to pick us up at the airport and bring us to their parent's house where we spent the night and the next day visiting with them.
We flew out of Chicago on Monday night arriving in Hartford early Tuesday morning. I dropped Tammy and the VT Gangwers off at the house and headed to work for the day.
Pictures of the trip can be accessed here https://photos.app.goo.gl/NH7qlaapLpLOJfzy2
Monday, February 26, 2018
Sunday, February 4, 2018
8 Parks in 8 Hours
I was asked to put together a Gangwer family reunion for 2018 in the eastern part of PA. As part of the plan, we wanted to have it held at a park. Tammy spent several months researching on the internet many parks in that area and narrowed the possibilities down to a list of 8.
Tammy and I decided to take the weekend of January 21 to visit each of the 8 parks to check them out for ourselves. We left on a rainy Friday night after work to get a head start on our travels making it to Matamoras, NY. We ate for the first time at a Perkins Restaurant.
On Saturday, we left around 8am in a snowstorm for our first park of the day with the rain from the last evening having turned everything to ice. I could have done a Subaru commercial and was thankful I had purchased snow tires for the year as we drove the back ice and snow covered roads up and down hills and around sharp curves to Hickory Run State Park which upon our arrival was a frozen wonderland.
As we headed south on I476 toward park number 2 Beltzville State Park, the weather and roads improved, we still had a freezing, blustery wind to contend with though. Betlzville did make the short list of choices for the reunion with nice facilities and a swimming lake.
We then headed to Nockamixon State Park only to find it was closed due removal of trees being killed by a beetle invasion. So on to the next park, Tyler State Park, which did not offer much of what we were looking for.
Central Park in Doylestown was next on the list to visit. It was a nice park with a great playground, well-kept grounds and pavilions. It was on the expensive-side of rental but made the cut.
Neshaminy State Park did not really impress us much so we moved on to Fort Washington State Park. The park was very clean and seemed to have newly built pavilions. It was added to the list of choices for the reunion.
We arrrived at our last park, Ridley Creek State Park, a little after 3pm. It seemed run down and was without question nixed from the list.
We ended the day in Bensalem having dinner at Outback Steakhouse and staying at the family favorite hotel in the area Hampton Inn and Suites. Sunday morning found us back on the road home to CT to report our findings and allow the family to vote on their choice of the 3 chosen parks for the reunion.
Tammy and I decided to take the weekend of January 21 to visit each of the 8 parks to check them out for ourselves. We left on a rainy Friday night after work to get a head start on our travels making it to Matamoras, NY. We ate for the first time at a Perkins Restaurant.
On Saturday, we left around 8am in a snowstorm for our first park of the day with the rain from the last evening having turned everything to ice. I could have done a Subaru commercial and was thankful I had purchased snow tires for the year as we drove the back ice and snow covered roads up and down hills and around sharp curves to Hickory Run State Park which upon our arrival was a frozen wonderland.
As we headed south on I476 toward park number 2 Beltzville State Park, the weather and roads improved, we still had a freezing, blustery wind to contend with though. Betlzville did make the short list of choices for the reunion with nice facilities and a swimming lake.
We then headed to Nockamixon State Park only to find it was closed due removal of trees being killed by a beetle invasion. So on to the next park, Tyler State Park, which did not offer much of what we were looking for.
Central Park in Doylestown was next on the list to visit. It was a nice park with a great playground, well-kept grounds and pavilions. It was on the expensive-side of rental but made the cut.
Neshaminy State Park did not really impress us much so we moved on to Fort Washington State Park. The park was very clean and seemed to have newly built pavilions. It was added to the list of choices for the reunion.
We arrrived at our last park, Ridley Creek State Park, a little after 3pm. It seemed run down and was without question nixed from the list.
We ended the day in Bensalem having dinner at Outback Steakhouse and staying at the family favorite hotel in the area Hampton Inn and Suites. Sunday morning found us back on the road home to CT to report our findings and allow the family to vote on their choice of the 3 chosen parks for the reunion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)