Category Archives: history

Aug20

Atlantic City & attractions 2008

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Atlantic City & attractions 2008, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Here’s a mosaic from our trip-view the large one at the above link or go to the slideshow of the set here. Unfortunately, some of the photos were cut off a bit. Sunday-we basically just stayed around the hotel and went to the mall for dinner. Monday we went to the beach after having the hotel’s breakfast buffet. While we were on the beach, we heard the roar of planes coming very close, almost like one was going to crash in the ocean! Here is was the USAF Thunderbirds flying team practicing for their show today. It was neat at first, but after 45 minutes, it was a bit loud. That night we went to the outlet shops near by and bought a few clothes items (that’s basically all there was). Sean bought me a candle as he was getting a bit short with me about things. I couldn’t help it if ‘Aunt Flo’ decided to visit me during the trip. To prove that I could do it, I climbed the Absecon lighthouse as described below-ouch! The front of my thighs are complaining! After we left there, we headed to Margate where Lucy the Elephant is located. It’s over 100 years and a mascot for the area. You can go up in her, but I just couldn’t do the climbing again. We found a excellent deli (Downbeach) and we all loved what we had-mom said it was the best pastrami she has had for a long time. We decided to stop at Smithville, a quaint little shopping area on the way home. We hadn’t been there for a while, and it doesn’t change much. I bought a tiny hummingbird feeder from a store that sold all bird related things (that’s what they basically were-all Ireland, all angels, etc). to put in the window where my craft table is.

I haven’t felt that tired for a long time when we got home and it took me a few hours to fall asleep, but I stayed asleep for a solid 4-5 hours which is good for me. Mom or I haven’t done that kind of walking for ages. I’m really happy that she did so well in that aspect. Sleeping there was another story.

Oh, and Cosmo was glad to see us and not too stand-offish. He seems really tired, I guess he was pining after me!

Jul31

Strasberg, PA 7-30-08

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Strasberg, PA 7-30-08, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

Sean and I went on a daytrip up to Lancaster yesterday and did some power shopping at the outlets and got many good buys. On the way home, we got off the beaten path of Route 30 and went down Rt. 741 which runs through the quaint town of Strasberg. It was getting dark, but we parked in this gravel lot of a Lutheran Church and walked around a bit. Sean got some ice cream too. It’s known for the railroad station there, and we’ve done that, many years ago. I like doing some things on a whim.

The haul: A pretty tank with green background and blue flowers that look like a photograph; a sleeveless navy blue dress with white butterflies (like a potato print kind) and cute teardrop cubic zirconia earrings-Liz Claiborne outlet. Did I mention we had 20% off coupons for this one outlet center? I bought the dress to wear in our portrait for the church directory, so you’ll see it when I show the photo-probably Sept-Oct.

I finally got a microplane grater-used the 20% off at Le Gourmet Chef.

The Gap-really cute t-shirts-red with a flock of birds and green with flowers, plus a peach t. Used a coupon! Sean got some nice shorts there-coupon.

A place called Steve & Barry’s opened up-it is partly owned by actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Everything in the store is $8.98-even blue jeans! They must have a 100 or more t-shirt styles. I got Brian a Ford one and navy blue shorts plus some brown dress pants for me (I need to lose a few for these to feel comfy). The quality of the clothes was on the most part good-reminded me of The Gap.

Borders books-two paper crafts books and a gift for mom.

Tuesday Morning-they expanded their craft area-yeah-so I got this set of rubber stamps-little crowns, wings, flourishes for $2.50. The neat thing is they are magnetic and stick to their container. I need to see if I can get any more of them at the local TM for resale and gifts. Also got this big box of decoupage stuff-you are suppose to decorate the box-but bought it for all the papers included.

We ate at a new Olive Garden. Some older lady pushed by me to get ahead of me to get on the waiting list. She probably didn’t ask for first available, so we got seated before her and her husband, near the bar, but that was fine. Before we got called, she had the nerve to pull out her nail clippers and start clipping her nails (we were outside, thank goodness, but I saw the pieces flying). Ugh!

I am by no means skinny, never was, but there were so many heavy people, mostly women going into the restaurant. We sat where we could watch and I swear, every third one was big-like over 225! I mention this as it was a wake up call for me too. I am scared for how big so many Americans are getting. I try to serve more turkey over red meat, but we love our pizza too (only once a week). I do pasta, but I guess I should do more whole wheat pasta. Since Sean’s been home, he actually lost weight and gained muscle (he works out), so that goes to show what he is eating isn’t all that bad. I tend to snack at night. I’m not super hungry during the day and about 9:30-10 pm I have to eat something or I won’t be able to sleep. I had rice cakes the other night. It think I’m one of those people that needs to eat every 3-4 hours. My metabolism is terrible. You’ve got to try as hard as you can-but I think to get moving is a big thing. I have a few books that didn’t sell for me on eBay-Curves and the Biggest Loser-so I guess they are mine and I’ll be reading them. : )

Oh! Wish me luck-Sean took my van for my brother to look at today. Since Sean works in my hometown and my brother lives there, it worked out better for me. I hope the air doesn’t have a leak in it.

Sep9

Around the county

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Our Sunday afternoon was a bit warm and crowded. We headed up to the Mushroom Festival and parked in a bank lot-what luck! We couldn’t really look at what the vendors offered-how many baby strollers are there out there and people who are in a daze? A store in town had some collaged cards that caught my eye. I told them I like being inspired. We heard that Ilan Hall and Miguel Morales from Top Chef were doing a cooking demo at 2:30 and waited inside a tent for half an hour. We could have met them before hand as they were standing outside the tent for about 15 minutes. Oh well. I got a few good shots and Bri said the heat was getting to him so we left.

To my surprise Bri took me to Chadds Ford Days! Now that’s when I felt the heat! Lots of vendors, artists, antique dealers and local restaurants. I did get a 9 month free membership to the Chadds Ford Historic Society and I can go to ‘the big pumpkin carve’ next month for free. I’ve never been to that event! We saw some vintage cars-a 41′ Woody and an early 1960s Lincoln Continental similar to the one JFK was riding in when he was assassinated in 1963. The later vehicle was owned by someone at Chadds Ford Days. I saw a Martha Washington cabinet like the one I had, but it had been refinished and looked like new. The asking price was $185. We saw a child’s MW cabinet at another vendor.

Bri treated me to dinner at Ruby’s Dinner (yummy burgers with avocado and the works) and we went over to Borders where I purchased some awesome art magazines. I have to cook up some chicken for tomorrow (meant for tonight) later, but I plan to relax and get some great ideas from my new purchases.

Some of the photos in this collage were just things that I liked-the sunflowers with their hanging heads, a tractor, and old barn (I guess they are all in the collage).

We didn’t eat a single mushroom dish! The guys from Top Chef were talking so much, they burnt the mushrooms they were cooking!

Ilan and Miguel

The only things I bought were handmade soaps from a Virginia couple at Chadds Ford Days. I didn’t see my other soap people from last year at the Mushroom Festival.
Our day 9–9-07
To tell you the truth, I’d rather go to flea markets and yard sales. My mom was here yesterday and we hit a yard sale up the road. I got some vintage compacts-one has a little powder holder, rouge and lipstick. Mom went a little nuts there and I had to whine because the 90 degree heat from getting to me. She loves shopping-second hand seems to be her new thing.

Aug18

The last hoo-ha of the summer

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It’s nice to be home, but of course next Friday we’ll be in central Penna. to help Sean with his move in at PSU. Sean did most of the driving over the last three days. He said he needs to ‘get use to it’ since it’s about 160 miles one way to PSU.

Day 1-It was smooth sailing and we stopped off at the rest stop in Smyrna. This time I was looking for the freebie literature for my art projects. They had quite a few of them. The people working there were watching me, but didn’t say anything. I even got a neat NYC book. We got to Rehoboth Beach in a jiffy, but the traffic was backed up which we sat in for 20 minutes for so. We went to our favorite sandwich shop there called ‘The Arena’. It’s not like it’s name, a rather small hole in the wall with mile high sandwiches. I got chicken salad and actually took the second half apart to eat the filling out of it. Sean did the same with his tuna, but Bri ate his entire sandwich. I swear when that man is on vacation, he eats to his heart’s content. I wanted to go in a cute gift shop and sent them to the bookstore. I got a cute journal with a leaf cover and little handmade sandals as a cover decoration. I went to the bookstore and no guys! Here they had gone to the bookstore way up near the boardwalk. I had to get a bathing suit cover up and found a long sleeveless t-shirt style and got a freebie decal for the front. It was hot walking around and we had a 5 minute walk to the van, which is a long walk for R. Beach.

We got to the Atlantic Coastal Inn which sits in front of the old Fenwick Island lighthouse. This was taken from outside our room.

Fenwick Island lighthouse

Fenwick Island lighthouse at night

Directly near the lighthouse are trailers, a little tacky to have near this historic place. The only downfall was that we had to cross over the wide and highly traveled highway to get to the beach. The place last year was on that side of the road. We went to the beach for about an hour as the wind was like 25-30 mph, so you felt like you were going to get blown away.

Bri and Di on the beach

Sean on the beach

The water was nice after you got use to it. I don’t go swimming, but Bri and Sean do. We went to an Italian place for dinner and had to wait a while. We decided on pizza because of the big lunch. Afterwards, we went to the Country Store where I got a variety of fudge and jams. Sean wanted to drive all the way down to the inlet area of Ocean City (140 blocks) and cross the bridge to an outlet area (HA-I used inlet and outlet in the same sentence!) We had to wait about 20 minutes for the bridge to close. The outlets were a bust-the bookstore was gone and we got there too late to really look in any stores. Sean was happy to get ‘Dippin’ Dots’ ice cream. He’s still a kid in that respect.

The next day we went the same place where we went to breakfast last year and sat at the same table (without telling the hostess even). Later we went to the beach again. Still a bit windy, but hot. It got overcast and started to rain. I haven’t been on the beach for years when we got rained on. When I was little we got caught in a torrential downpour down in Wildwood, NJ and that scared me. We left and hung out a bit in our room. It was too humid to really do anything. We went out to ‘our big dinner’ at Harpoon Hannah’s. It was right down the road and thank goodness we got there fairly early. Sean and I had lobster tails (3 each!)

My dinner

and Bri had swordfish. It was pretty good. After dinner the guys went to find a car museum place and couldn’t and decided to play miniature golf. I got some down time and read up on Lewes, DE. a little town down the road that I hadn’t been to for a while. I wanted to see the actual town, not where you get on the ferry to go to Cape May, NJ, across the bay. We did that when I was a kid and I was seasick for like 3 hours when we got home.

On the last day we went to breakfast again and headed for the Shipwreck Museum. The bottom is a store that sells hermit crabs and lots of souvenirs. They do a great job with the free museum. I asked the woman there if I could take photos and she said yes. I’ll make a slideshow of the photos from there, but here’s a sneak peek:

Boat model with real gold coins, etc.

We checked out and headed for the Rehoboth Beach outlets. Sean wanted to go to Old Navy. It was crowded and the clothes weren’t that great. We didn’t stay long and headed for Lewes. We drove down to the beach area. It’s not huge, but you can see down the shoreline and we saw a few lighthouses in the distance. We headed to where a lightship was and got out and took a few photos. We found the Zwaanendael Museum,

Zwaanenael Museum

erected in 1931 to commemorate the founding of the town by the Dutch back in 1631, it’s 300th anniversary. It’s an unusual building. All the parking was taken, so Sean sat in the van while I went around and took some photos. I did manage to get one of a cross stitch sampler inside.

Dutch Sampler 1976

I really like Lewes. It’s a Victorian town and on the water! There are some retirement places there too. Hmmm! We headed to Dover, DE where my favorite bookstore is located-Atlantic warehouse. I tried to be chosey and concentrated on scrapbooking books and gift items. We headed home after an hour and stopped off at Wendy’s for an early dinner. Cos was glad to see us.

Off to eat lunch and then pick a ton of ripe tomatoes. It’s a gorgeous day here, a little cool and no humidty. I’ve already been outside for over an hour, most of that time with the cat.

I got my Cafepress.com rose t-shirt and it’s pretty. I’ll have Sean take a photo of me in it soon.

Feb19

The Mercer Museum

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Mercer MuseumUp in Bucks County, a few hours away, is a wonderful museum located in Doylestown. This area is one of my favorites and the museum is a ‘must see’ for those exploring Bucks (along with New Hope). I’ve been there twice, as has Brian. We took Sean up there a few years ago on his birthday. Instead of having parties, we take day trips for our birthdays. Mine are usually to either Dover, DE or New Hope.

Henry Mercer collected artifacts from all over the country and built this humongous structure to house it all. Each floor has several different areas of interest displayed in glass encased rooms. I know I mentioned this before, but it’s really a cool place. How many Conestoga wagons does one see in our lifetime, especially ones hanging from a ceiling! The one room with the medical instruments (if you can call most of them that) was frightening and I’m so glad I live in modern day American. We actually walked under gallows-chilling.

So if you get a chance to explore PA., drop by the Mercer Museum.

Inside the concrete palace

Feeling better-went looking for tummy med and found Equalactin and that seems to have made the burn go away. I had other stronger stuff but it was all expired. Most of thet time I try mint or ginger first before resorting to medicine.

Dec23

Jesus was born on April 17th, 6 A.D.

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I was watching ‘The Mummy Detective’ on TLC tonight-http://tlc.discovery.com/schedule/episode.jsp?episode=1&cpi=54712&gid=13084 and the discussion was about the three magi who came from
the east to find the new king. First, the man who invented the calendar way back when, messed it up. We are five years off. He was going by the rein of the emperors and was off 4 yrs there. They he went from the year 1 B.C. to 1 A.D., he forgot the year ‘0’. We should have celebrated the millennium in 1995! So, then they figured Jesus was born in Aries, from the way the planets were aligned.
The star the kings saw was actually Jupiter the planet. The magi- or ‘kings’
were from Persia and there was an old one, a middle-aged one and a young one. A photo of their skulls was examined by Bob the host (they are in a church). There were drawings depicting that the kings were 3 different ages. And forget the ‘no room at the inn’, they didn’t exist back then. Jesus was born in a cellar type area where the families animals were kept.
December 25th was chosen as it was during the winter solstice, a quiet time on the Christian calendar. The three kings actually made it to see Jesus when he was about 8 months old on Dec. 19th, 6 A.D.