Gettysburg PA and West Point NY

Our next stop was at Gettysburg PA, and this was a great stop, we parked our coach at the Harrisburg Flying J and drove down to Gettysburg. We took a bus tour of the battlegrounds and that was so good, so interesting, if fact we felt like we were there, watching the fight. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the battle and it was obvious that he loved his job, he made it so fascinating.




We had to order another new water pump and have it shipped overnight to Flying J, so Joe could install it, and decided to take another drive down to Gettysburg to see the town itself. There are many buildings and homes that are original, and each have a plaque beside the door to identify them. We took a walking tour of the town and enjoyed that too.


The next day our water pump was delivered to the Flying J where we were staying and we finely got our water pump installed and working, so we could take showers, and not have to live out of a gallon jug. However, we were not too happy the next day when the pump stopped working again. We went to Walmart and bought more gallon jugs of water, and headed for West Point NY area. We placed a few phone calls to the factory again, and were waiting for a return call, figured that may take a while, so we went ahead with our plans. We stayed in a large parking lot at an Elks Lodge in Poughkeepsie NY and drove the 20 miles South to West Point. This is a beautiful place as you can see by these pictures. We enjoyed seeing all of the great old buildings there and hearing the stories about West Point.

We finely received authorization from the factory to take our coach to the Camping World in Amsterdam NY just about 40 miles NW of Albany NY. We called and made our appointment for June 30th and headed there on the 29th. We intend to dry camp for a few days after this pump gets fixed to make sure it is working properly. We will be staying here in the Albany area for a week to visit family. Then we'll be going toward Boston Massachusetts for a few days and on up to Cape Elizabeth Maine to visit some friends.

Pennsylvania

Our next stop was Tohickon Campground near Quakertown PA. We were visiting friends here in this area, a man that Joe worked with about 25 or 30 years ago, Tom Lunde and his wife Kathy. We went over to their house for dinner and stayed for about 5 hours, had a great time talking and laughing. It was a good visit, and we will be sure to keep in touch.


We went down to Philadelphia for the day, and saw the Liberty Bell and the Historic District, very interesting place. They have several trams touring the area as well as horse and carriage tours. We just took a self guided walking tour and saw everything we wanted to see. It was a nice day and was not raining, so we enjoyed it a lot.

We stayed at that campground for about 6 days then pulled out to get some repair work done on the motor home. We headed a little West then to Hershey PA, there was a Thousand Trails Park there, so we decided to stay there for two weeks. It was a nice campground and a great location. We met a lot of nice people here, and Joe finely got the plans for a flagpole he wanted to make, and as you can see in the picture below, we now have a great flagpole.

We went to Hershey and toured the factory to see how the candy is made, tasted some chocolate and then we took a tour around the town and the grounds belonging to the Hershey family, on a trolley, that was a lot of fun. The Hershey family story was very interesting. We went to Chocolate World to buy some candy.

We had to bring the coach back in to Cummins Engine for a recall on our turbo, so have been here for a couple of days and will be leaving tomorrow and going to Gettysburg for a day or two. Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, lots of green fields and rolling hills, very pretty.

More Washington DC

More Washington DC pictures. These are pictures of our Open Top Tour bus. As you can see from the pictures I took on our tour, many of them are from the top of the bus. This was a great way to see everything, take some good pictures, and get a suntan all at the same time.

One of the most interesting historical places to visit in DC is Ford's Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a play. This theater still shows plays several nights a week, in fact, when I was here TDY for 2 months in 2003 just before we retired from the Air Force Reserve, I went to a play here at Ford's Theater.

The first pictures are of Ford's Theater, and the other pictures are of the Peterson House, the hotel right across the street, where President Lincoln was taken after he was shot, and where he died 9 hours later.

Next is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where our paper money is printed. We were able to take the tour of this place and watch as they were making money. We saw many large pallets of paper money all in high stacks. Very interesting to see where and how our money is made. The second picture is the National Headquarters for The American Red Cross.

We visited the Korean War Memorial, and this was beautiful, these are some pictures we took.

These are some of the other buildings in Washington DC, and some of the statues also, there were so many and all looked so impressive and important. We had no idea what most of them were, but they were nice. I think it would take years to learn all there is to know about this fascinating place.

As you can tell, we both were very happy to spend time in Washington DC, we both loved it there, spent 5 very full days, and could have spent even more time there. Now we are heading for Pennsylvania to visit a friend of Joe's and check out the area.