Our Christmas Greetings

We hope this season finds you wrapped in the warmth of family, friends and good spirit.

As you may know, Rick and I set out in October 2009 for our “Great Adventure”…i.e. nearly one year of travelling most of North America in our 40 foot motor coach that we fondly call Gigantor. It was the most extraordinary of times and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to indulge in “chasing the sun for as long as it’s fun”.

We crossed many things off our bucket list….The Rose Bowl Parade, The Grand Canyon and Napa Valley were at the top… and visited so many jaw-droppingly beautiful places, it’s quite impossible to tightly sum it up.

We travelled over 20,000 miles in coach and car. We meandered the entire coastline from North Carolina to Whistler, British Columbia and developed an obsessive behavior of collecting far too many shells. Rick jumped feet first into surf and deep-sea fishing. We got to visit so many dear friends along the way. Played great golf courses, ate in some terrific restaurants, went to cooking school in New Orleans, gazed at the stars and watched sunrises and sunsets from coast to coast. Spent the winter in the California, Arizona and Nevada deserts and Rick helped build two Habitat for Humanity homes in Las Vegas. We carped the Diem, as they say, and it was extraordinary.  The archives on the  right side of this blog will lead to the in-details.

Kelly, Chip and Ian moved to Newport, RI in August where Chip is working at the Naval War College. Kelly is again diving into volunteer work and Ian is getting settled in fifth grade which is middle school there. One of the highlights of our trip was when they came to visit us in San Diego and we did all the fun kid-things there. We also got to visit with Rick’s son, Matt, as we travelled through Spokane.

Now, our next great adventure is searching for a new home somewhere a little warmer than the northeast. We’ve been at it for almost two months now….thought it would be easier than this, but supposedly the joy is the journey!

We hope we’ll be sending new address cards out soon.  May you have the happiest of holidays and joy and peace in the New Year. Merry Christmas.

Full Circle ~ Back in Georgetown

September 9 ~ 28

My mother is looking and seemingly feeling great.  We spend our time together in Manheim, PA catching up, looking at our photos, going out to eat and dedicating Sunday to watching football.  She remains a die-hard Steeler fan.

Heading towards Georgetown, we start to feel a bit odd....it's been almost a year.  Our dear friends, Betsy and Ed, have graciously lent us their home while they are in Europe and we have a full plate of dinners, lunches, brunches, teas, coffees and drinks all laid out.  But, I wonder, can you go home again?

Fortunately the answer is yes!  After spending two days at a College Park, MD RV resort, Cherry Hill Park, (cherryhillpark.com), packing two weeks worth of clothes and getting Tor ready to put in storage for that time we drive into town and finally exhale!

We get to spend a couple of days with our hosts before they take off.  Try out a new M Street Mediteranean
restaurant called Morso (no website yet) and it's a terrific if you're into small plates which we are.  Had a variety of good dishes, but the hands down winner is called a Lamb Pide....in essence a lamb pizza on flat bread....wonderful. 

Went back to what used to be my favorite DC restaurant, The Source, (wolfgangpuck.com) Wolfgang Puck's sleek eatery in The Newseum. Again we opt for small plates in the bar. The Tuna Tartare "cones" are still unbelievable....however, everything else has been notched way down.  The former Kobe sliders are now made of undistinguished ground beef and cooked beyond belief.  We all agree we wouldn't go back again....this is not an inexpensive place and mediocre just isn't good enough.

My birthday falls during this time and Rick makes a wonderful brunch which we eat in the garden.  Then "Skype" (my new favorite thing) with Kelly, Chip and Ian while we open presents.  I have followed Kelly's tradition of putting all bows in her hair...not particulary attractive at this age, but always gets on laugh!

Spend the day at the rejeuvenated American History Museum and are meeting friends for drinks at their place before we go out to some new hot place in the West End.  Or at least that's what I thought!  Rick and Cecelia have cooked up a surprise dinner party and what a treat to see my good friends after such a long time.

Spend the next days in a total Bacchanalian revelry....party on!  What fun.  

What a treat to just walk all over town.....hitting the familar hangouts like Martin's Tavern (martins-tavern.com)  The Georgetown Waterfront Park is as special as ever.....and so glad to see the incredible granite markers finally unveiled and made "skateboarder" safe. 

  

Our time here is growing to a close and exhilaration mixed in with a sizable amount of fear begins to set in.  We are heading to Wilmington, NC to look at property.  We have been there several times and have thought this might be a place where we would consider settling down.  We are now about to begin our next Great Adventure!

Driving East to Newport, Rhode Island

August 24~September 9

We’ve been in an electronic black hole. My PC laptop self-destructed….Rick’s Mac is schizophrenic…..the printer is having issues…..my camera is suffering from a droopy iris. This, plus the dreary landscape and long, long boring drive to Newport has put me in a snit. Bought a new laptop and trying to get in the groove again.

Leaving Chicago we made the short trip to Elkhart, IN…..why?....because that is where Tor was “born” and Rick wants to take a factory tour to figure out exactly how these coaches were made. We’re very surprised just how unfactory-like it looked. Very much like a cottage industry; a very successful cottage industry….guess that’s why Berkshire Hathaway bought it!

Stayed at Elkhart Campground (elkhartcampground.com) seemingly whose only reason for being is for the throngs of people who visit the huge number of RV factories here.

Stopped in Shaker Heights to visit my former sister and brother in laws from another life.  I'm so very fond of them and their daughter, great to see them after a very long time. Tried  to get Tor in their driveway, but that was a losing battle before it began.  Parked it in a large city lot.  Had cocktails in Tor so they could see it, then they took us to a wonderful, kind of funky restaurant, Felice Urban Cafe. The pictures I took are so bad that for everyone's sake, I'm not going to post them!

Trying to find a next stop that would be a fun place to stay for a couple of days rest.....thought the Poconos would be good......wrong!  Thought we could play golf and go to the Mount Airy Lodge, which I've always heard was a lovely old hotel.  Well, found out the hotel closed a few years ago and was razed to make way for a casino.  Looked at two places to stay; one was so scary we opted out....they other, Mount Pocono Campground (mtpoconocampground.com) at first also looks very scary, but if you can make yourself get past the "seasonal" sites, the others are bearable.  Went to the casino....gave back a lot of our former winnings.....but had good calamari and sliders at Red's Bar.

Just two more days to Newport!  Stop in East Lyme, CT at Aces High....have no idea why they call it that...(aceshighrvpark.com).  It's billed as a luxury resort....wouldn't go that far, but it is perfectly  fine and  probably a good base if visiting Mystic and New London.   It also offered Rick a chance to get out his fishing gear again! It was a good thing we weren't planning on fresh fish for dinner!

Finally get to Newport and it's so good to see our kids and their new home. We have a souvenir night...these from San Francisco Chinatown.

A lobster dinner.....Kelly really didn't eat all this, but it is her fav!

 

Spent two days on the beach...some "surfing".

Sand castle building.

Due to the Hurricane Earl which churned up the sea, we found the beach different each time.  One day it looked like a jellyfish farm with eggs all over the sand and in the water.

The next, a huge clam buffet for the seagulls who got very, very aggressive in attacking their prey.

Since we will be visiting here alot, we bought a season pass to the Newport Mansions operated by the Preservation Society.  We did two this time.....Rosecliff and Marble House. Unfortunately you can't take interior pictures, but the exteriors certainly presage what's inside.

The Newport Polo Club, located in the town of Portsmouth, hosts a wildly popular Internationsl Series.  We were lucky enough to catch the home team win over England.

Ian's favorite part is always the divot stomping and the half time football tossing on the field.

Dinner at 15 Point close to the polo grounds....pretty view but hugely disappointing....bad food and terrible service.

"Did" the shops in Newport twice.....adorable  and perhaps the preppiest town in the universe, which suits Kelly and me just fine....but mostly we just enjoyed our time with the kids.....Ian started his new school and soccer team....both seem to be working out really well....proud grandparents need to say he scored two goals in the first game!

The only disconcerting thing we discovered during our stay was that our visitor from Park City, "Stuart Little" not only didn't leave us weeks ago as we thought, but he also had a wife!   Had is the operative word because the traps we left in hidden compartments got them.  We also discovered they were setting up housekeeping under a floorboard and under the sink made of shredded toilet paper and paper towels, Q-tips and......rigatoni!  They're gone now but it still creeps me out!

I so hate to leave, but our great adventure is coming close to full circle.  We'll stop in Pennsylvania to see my mother, then back to Georgetown.