The Cruisin Cajun Birthday Rally in Rayne

It's hard to believe...but it's time to eat again...first the Cajun breakfast (eggs, grits and 2 biscuits!!), then lunch with Brenda and "the girls", and now, time for dinner....shrimp and grits, salad, grilled veggies, garlic bread and pumpkin roll

It's been great to see everyone. They’ve all been amused hearing about our adventures with the crippled slide and drunken hot tub parties. There's nothing quite like 4 days at John's Shed followed by 3 days of Rallying.... Fortunately, we only have a 5 hours drive on Sunday--we're going to stay in Mobile, so with any luck, we can catch an afternoon nap when we get to the campground.

Lunch at Huey and Katie's!!!! Unbelievably good!!

Memphis, at last

I had way too many airline bottles of cheap red wine last night- but we got up at 6 AM the next day and got on the road to Memphis. It was a 10 hour drive, but we were bound and determined to get as far south as we could. We arrived to sunny 70 degree weather and beautiful views of the Mississippi. Heavenly....and the slider worked, the jacks went down, and so far, everything is running great.

Our neighbor had one of the most innovative ways to tow his truck and boat back to Wisconsin!

We decided to spend the week here..just enjoying the river. We got our absentee ballots mailed for the election on Tuesday, the 2nd—not that it really made much of a difference. Instead of watching the election results, we put in a movie….just too depressing for words.

The Verdict on our Slide-out

Monday morning at the factory—the noises start at 6 AM when the factory workers arrive to start their day. We were thrilled to get a knock on the door and see Nevin (Ken’s brother and great technician). We breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we were in good hands. We walked through our punch list and showed Nevin our crippled slide.

Our crippled slide- note the angle!

His reaction—“no problem”! While he’d never seen anything quite like it, he told us that it would probably straighten out without damage to the frame. When he returned about noon, he told us that they’d probably start work the next morning and “would we like him to pull our slide out?”. While I was away at the grocery store, he used a separate controller and our slide was out and we had our motorhome back! I came back to a fully extended slide- something that we haven’t had for 3 weeks!

Even better—the next day when they took our coach in for repairs, they couldn’t find anything wrong. The slide and the jacks were operating perfectly. So, there was no repair bill for $1000’s of dollars and no permanent damage to our slide. Nevin’s diagnosis- the lock arm on the slider deployed before the slide came into the motorhome—the motor kept pulling with the slide arm on the outside of the coach and the slide bent up), But, since we had a major malfunction of the slide and the probable culprit was the circuit board (once again, lightning does strike twice—in our case 5 or 6 times), we asked them to replace the circuit board.

With our bill paid and our minds put to rest, we headed to bed early for our 10 hour drive to Memphis the next morning. About 2AM, we awoke to the sound of an buzz. We got up and found that the Pressure Pro (tire monitoring system) was on and beeping. We unplugged it and heard another beeping sound. John got the flashlight, headed out to the outside compartment with the transfer switch (yes, the one that was just replaced 3 months ago- our 4th one so far). Sure enough, the smoke alarm was sounding because the wires had, once again, started to melt. Depressed beyond belief, John unplugged the electrical and we got a few more hours of sleep before going back to the factory techs with our problem. Another day of sitting and waiting while they replaced the transfer switch. (This time, they put in a metal box vs. the plastic one we had before. They think it's possible that it was installed improperly ---from Day 1--that the wires were not properly cut back and each time it was re-installed, they were using the same corroded wires. Not sure if I understand it completely, but we're feeling better about a factory install of a brand new metal box.

We spent the day in the Customer Lounge talking to other Newmar owners. How strange they are! One couple would take their lunch to the railroad station every day and count the cars! (They bring their own lunch- don't trust eating in restaurants. Oh, they also collect old Army jeeps.) The other couple regaled us with tales of their son- who works for a mattress company- and is the guy who delivers the new mattress and takes away the old one. They told absolutely gross stories about the mattresses with bedbugs and the one that had been used for the delivery of a baby. Yuck! (And, of course, everyone in the lounge agreed that this bed bug thing is coming from immigrants and from China.) They didn't finish up with our coach until about 1:30- so we decided to spend the night and have another night at the "Hideaway". We got the inside scoop on the state of the motorhome industry. Newmar's factory staff has gone from 1200 to 400 people! The town, which basically lives on the two motorhome plants, is filled with "For Sale" signs and alot of people have just had to walk away from their mortgages and leave for other cities to find jobs.

The Long, Long Day

The longest day—13 hours on the road. We got what we thought was a very early start, getting on the road at 6AM while the rest of New Jersey slept. Most of the day was spent on I-80…long stretches of nothing….New Jersey, Pennsylvania (what a very LONG state), Ohio and finally getting to Indiana. It was a race to the factory as we watched the sun slowly sinking and our available light dwindling. We thought that the trek west might work in our favor, but by 7:30 the sun had pretty much disappeared. We lucked out with the only pull-through left in the parking lot, so there was no crazy “back-in’s in the dark” to deal with. While I got the motorhome set up, John drove over to the “Hideaway” (the “Hunter’s Hideway”) and got two blue cheese/olive burgers to go. Wine, burgers and we crashed.

Sunday in Nappanee used to be tolerable—when the local grocery store, Martins, carried the NY Times and the Chicago Tribune. No more- the demise of the newspaper in our country has hit Nappanee and John brought home the “Elkhart Truth”. The only good thing about being in Nappanee—no prayers or fast beating hearts when you start up the motorhome. You actually hope that anything that could go wrong will go wrong while you’re there.

Tacos, Fondue and a tour of Hoboken

Chloe after the "Brits" left...

We’ve decided that we're not "Jet-lagged", we're "Brit-lagged". After Jean and Gordon left, we enjoyed our last evening at the condo--a bit of wine, a little TV and some take-away Indian. The next day, we packed everything up and John took Chloe and our stuff back to the motorhome while I played maid and laundress. The place looked spotless when I left and I think Octavia was quite happy to see us leave.

Octavia....glad to see us gone!

The next day, it was time to unpack and pick up some groceries at the ShopRite and do more laundry!

Post British Invasion

I just finished making up the bed, grabbed a glass of wine and as we were contemplating dinner, Jim called. We met him for dinner at the Taqueria. Glad that we opted for Madame Claude's for our Saturday night dinner instead of this little dive. The food was good, not exceptional - but we had a great time with Jim. After dinner, he suggested a drive to Hoboken. We didn't realize how close it was to us--instead of a right turn into the Holland Tunnel- go straight and you're there! While Jersey City is ethnic, Hoboken is very white and Italian. Since it's the home of Frank Sinatra, Jim turned on the "Sinatra" channel on the radio while we drove through the city. We stopped at the "Melting Pot" on Sinatra Boulevard for dessert--a heavenly chocolate fondue served with bananas, strawberries, cheesecake, pound cake, rice crispy bars --and some cognac. We did a mini-tour of the city (really beautiful architecture- more high style Victorian than in Jersey City)...then it was back to Jersey City and a bar on Grove Street that has flamenco dancing on Tuesday nights. What a town!

Until next year....

Our last day with Jean and Gordon is always hard. The morning was busy—with packing for their flight home and cleaning up Jim’s condo. Since we had time before their flight, we went to a local restaurant, the Hamilton Inn, for brunch. Jersey City has such a nice feel—so much like Charlestown. The people are remarkably friendly and the architecture reminds us so much of our old neighborhood.

At the end of every trip together, once the bags are all packed, the realization hits that we probably won’t be seeing each other for another year. The trip to Newark airport was short—and it was so sad to say our goodbyes. But, now it was time to plan our next adventure together….who knows where 2011 will find us?

Chelsea Market

Once we figured out how to use the Keurig coffee maker and enjoyed the individually brewed cups of coffee, took our turns at the huge showers with multi-showerheads, and got ourselves dressed, we reluctantly left our “condo” and drove to NYC to wander through Chelsea Market. Saturday was a crazy day—tourists, tour groups and New Yorkers—shopping and eating their way through this old market.

The Chelsea Market was built within the former Nabisco factory complex where the Oreo Cookie was invented and produced. The 22-building complex fills two entire blocks bounded by 9th and 11th Avenues and 15th to 16th Street.

In 1997, the building was re-purposed into a kind of “gourmet urban food court” with bakeries,

fish shops, a dairy store, produce market along with clothing stores, wholesale kitchen equipment and the Food Network’s headquarter upstairs.

Jean and Gordon found the most amazing little stall selling flavored salts, vinegars and sugars- complete with tastings. They walked out with blueberry balsamic vinegar that was good enough to drink.

We managed to find our way back to Jersey City and Jean and I took off for the Path station to take the World Trade Center line to Century 21.

Century 21

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

It was our last chance to shop at this 4 story mecca of discounted designer clothes, shoes, accessories, cosmetics and household goods. The narrow aisles are packed with people from every part of the world pulling wheeled carriers loaded with their treasures. Checkout alone can take 30 minutes.

It was our last night and our “graduation dinner” just had to be at Madame Claude’s. We had the same waitress and had a wonderful meal.

Madame Claude's

“How YOU doin?” …..“Fuggetaboutit”

A trip to NYC has to include its’ largest borough… we were off to Brooklyn. This was our second “Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour”. We had such a great time with Tony, the owner and guide, two years ago. When the bus (much bigger than the one from our last tour) pulled up, a young girl came out and our hearts sank. How could anyone match the authenticity of Tony? Well, it turns out that his cousin, Paula, is every bit of a cut-up as Tony—and a history buff as well. One of the reviews of the tour captures it perfectly: "Imagine you call your buddy Joe from Brooklyn whom you haven't seen in a while. "Hey Joe, I will be in the area, do you wanna hang out?" Joe says: "Would love to see you, let me pick up up in the city and we'll head over to Brooklyn and I'll show you around my neighborhood. We'll grab some grub at a couple of places only the locals know about". This is basically what you're getting when you go on this tour Brooklyn Pizza Tour”.

Grimaldi's Pizza
The “slices” –the first at Grimaldi’s –Neapolitan style pizza made with a coal fired brick oven –thin crust with just tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil.

Grimaldi’s is at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge so we walked down the street to get some great views of this amazing engineering phenomena.

Note: The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge started in 1869 and took 14 years to complete. The driving force behind the whole project, John Roebling, would never get to see the bridge he had designed: he died after crushing his foot in an accident. His wife completed the project.
The bridge was inaugurated in May 1883. But even after the inauguration, many New Yorkers were not convinced the bridge was safe. So to prove the doubters wrong, P.T. Barnum led a caravan of circus animals - including a herd of 21 elephants - across the bridge in 1884.

The second “slice”—a Sicilian style pizza at L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst. Thick crust pizza cut into large squares—made with the cheese baked in the middle—keeping the crust crispy---topped off with a cup of spumoni ice cream.

L&B Spumoni Gardens
In between, we saw the neighborhoods of Brooklyn interspersed with clips from movies shot in the city. As we watched the opening scene of “Saturday Night Fever” with John Travolta walking down the street under the elevated rail line, we drove down the same street and saw the places he stopped. We drove the streets where they filmed the chase scene from “The French Connection” (which was filmed without shutting down the street—all but one of the cars were regular drivers!)

A made a stop at Coney Island and a walk down the boardwalk (with a clip from “Annie Hall”),

Coney Island Boardwalk

a drive along Shore Road in Bay Ridge with “million dollar homes”, and a drive through Brighton Beach- the Russian section of Brooklyn- called “Little Odessa” …and of course, the obligatory film clip from “Donnie Brasco” explaining the many meanings of “Fuggetaboutit”.

Back to Jersey City and the “gypsy wagon” made its’ way from the motorhome to our new digs.

The Urban Gypsies

We really did look like urban gypsies—with bags and wine filling the car. I’m sure Jim’s doorman was impressed as we dragged our bags through the lobby and up to the 24th floor.

The daylight views were just as spectacular as our night views from the other night. We settled in to our respective rooms, got some wine (and took lots of photos as the day turned to night and the city came to life with lights). We were in heaven….Jim’s cat, Octavia, not so much. Our idea of a dog and cat love story was dashed.
Octavia...

Octavia was not thrilled with this small white barking creature invading her space and quickly decided that Jean and Gordon were her new best friends.

Wall Street, Ground Zero and "The Mosque"

Friday morning and we joined the Wall Street warriors on the water taxi to the east side of Lower Manhattan. It was a crisp fall day and quite lovely in the sunshine—but in the canyons of Wall Street, jackets were essential.

The water taxi docks by the South Street Seaport, once the sight of the busiest seaport in America.

From there, it was a short walk to Wall Street (where Gordon noticed a dog dump right near the Wall Street sign…how appropriate!) We walked the length of Wall Street. Interesting—there were more tourists than suited financiers. The Asians were taking photos of each other in the “George Washington pose” at Federal Hall. And the streets around the NY Stock Exchange were packed with camera toting tourists.

The New York Stock Exchange
Note- how did Wall Street get its name? After the Dutch purchased “New Amsterdam” from the Native Americans, a wall was erected that formed the northern boundary of the new colony. The first “walls” along the street were basic plank fences, but as time passed and tensions with the mother country grew, a stronger, taller wall was built in order to defend the colony against both the British and the American Indians tribes that still dominated the area. The British removed the wall around the turn of the 18th century.

We stopped at Trinity Church, home of the oldest congregation in America, established in 1697 under charter by King William III.

Trinity Church

Jean and Gordon got a kick out of the plaque on the floor: “On this spot stood Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her gracious visit 9 July 1976 His Royal Highness The Prince Phillip stood nearby”.

Ground Zero was showing signs of progress. Quite a change from the past few years when it seemed that there was no progress at all.

Ground Zero...

Building was beginning on a World Trade Center Memorial (expected to open in 2011, at the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks) The memorial, dubbed 'Reflecting Absence', will have cascading waterfalls with illuminated reflecting pools at the exact site of the former towers. The names of the 2979 people who died during the attacks that day will be inscribed around the edge of the waterfalls.

We stopped at St Paul’s Chapel.

St Paul's Chapel

The rear of the chapel faces Church Street, opposite the east side of the World Trade Center site. After 9/11, St. Paul's Chapel served as a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site.

With all of the heated discussions, rallys and political sound bites about the proposed Ground Zero Mosque and Muslim Community Center, we had to see the actual site. It is an active mosque today..

The proposed site of the Islamic Center

We found the site guarded by a single New York City cop who was happy to give us his two cents about the center, it’s questionable funding and just about everything else (including his belief that all wars are caused by women and religion). He lived through 9/11 and was involved in the cleanup.

John and I grabbed the water taxi (with Chloe in tow) back to Jersey City while Jean and Gordon continued their exploration of Manhattan. When they got home, we hustled them off to dinner with our old neighbor from Charlestown, Jim. He left Charlestown several years ago and moved to Jersey City. With an invitation for drinks at his condo before dinner, we walked in and our jaws dropped.

The View to die for!

The views of Manhattan were spectacular. The city was sparkling with lights and from every window you could see another piece of NYC. We were ‘gobsmacked’.

Madame Claude's Thursday night
We drove a few blocks away for dinner at one of Jim’s favorite spots—a little French inspired restaurant called Madame Claude’s. On Thursday nights, the owners and his friends play music –French gypsy music. The restaurant was small and absolutely charming. The menu- gorgeous! La Marocaine – a crepe with spicy lamb sausage, mushroom and crème fraiche, Couscous Madame Claude- stewed chicken and lamb sausage in Moroccan spices served with vegetables and couscous. There was duck confit, braised lamb shanks…and crepes with baked pear and chocolate sauce. All this and BYOB!

And to make a wonderful evening even better, as we told Jim of our challenging trip—4 people in our crippled motorhome. he casually offered his condo to us for the weekend—he was off to Vermont on Friday. We literally jumped at the offer—what an amazing way to end our trip with the Brits!

Chinatown, Little Italy and the Lower East Side

Our first driving experience into the city. We got our map and drove through the Holland Tunnel with Chinatown in the headlights. No problem…we managed to find Canal Street and followed the map to the first parking spot we found- right in the heart of Chinatown. With Chloe in tow, we walked through the crazy streets of Chinatown—tasted our first “bubble tea” (with tiny pieces of tapioca providing the “bubbles”) and checked out the strange foods in the Chinese markets.

(Jean and Gordon must have felt a bit of déjà vu—a bit like being back in China).

We wandered a few blocks into Little Italy- what is now a very tiny section of the city. Chinatown is gradually encroaching and what’s left of the old Italian neighborhood is now just a few city blocks. It was a gorgeous sunny day- perfect for alfresco dining, so we found a spot at an outdoor table, had pasta and watched the people stroll by.

The final neighborhood for our stroll was the Lower East Side. We saw the Tenement Museum (watched a short video on the history of the neighborhood) and noted that the neighborhood is undergoing rapid gentrification.

Even Gus’s Pickles was gone- which sent us on a search for “The Pickle Guys”.

Back at home, time for some wine and a look at the amazing views from Liberty Harbor..

Times Square, Midtown and Hell’s Kitchen

Watching the forecast, we decided that with a few glimpses of sunlight through the clouds- we’d take a double decker bus tour. Another PATH experience- this time all the way to 34th—and a walk to Times Square. We got the front row seat on the bus—the only seats with a little protection from the wind and cold (fortunately, since we had left that morning without our jackets). Our guide was great—a real New Yorker – yelling at people on the sidewalks and full of NY stories.

After our tour, we walked down “Restaurant Row”—the row of restaurants catering to the pre-theater crowd. Their fixed-price lunches were a bit more than we were looking for, so we continued onto 9th Street to Hell’s Kitchen where we found a little sports bar.

We left the Brits after lunch giving them a chance to explore the city on their own. They got home hours later, having walked from Times Square to Grand Central Terminal and all the way back to Greenwich Village.

New York City!!

Time to leave lovely New Jersey and our gorgeous campsite and head to Jersey City. The campground there leaves a lot to be desired—just a large parking lot. But this parking lot is right across the Hudson River from Manhattan – with the PATH only a few blocks away and the water taxi leaving directly from our parking lot. We got set up and headed directly for NYC.

The Path Station on Grove Street

The PATH experience wasn’t quite as terrifying as we remembered. The last time we were there, the PATH trains felt like they were going to disintegrate under the Hudson.

Once we arrived at the Christopher Street Station, we got our bearings and walked through Greenwich Village—down Bleeker Street to a little bar on MacDougal where we spent the afternoon people watching.

On the way home, a stop at Murray's Cheese..

New Hope, PA

It was a gorgeous Sunday—the perfect fall day, crisp temperatures and bright sunshine. We decided to drive to New Hope, Pennsylvania and just spend the day walking through this quaint little town.

Philly’s 9th Street Italian Market

Philadelphia’s 9th Street Italian Market (the oldest and largest working outdoor market in the US) was in full swing on Saturday morning.

We had a great time wandering through the stores and the outdoor stalls, checking out the fresh fruit and veggies walking into stores filled with amazing Italian meats and cheese, fresh pasta, bread and spices. Gordon’s chef genes kicked in as he planned our evening meal of grilled chicken breast stuffed with pancetta and pine nuts.

The Italian section of the market turned Hispanic as we walked south.

At the end of the market blocks, we got to the “Philly Cheesesteak” corner – with dueling restaurants of Pat’s and Geno’s. John and I had tried Pat’s so decided to Geno’s a try. (Our decision- go with Pat’s). We split a cheesesteak and an order of cheese fries….just to give the Brits the obligatory taste of this Philly classic. (Their concensus- “once was enough”)

Cheese Fries!

Jean did, however, do a great job on the ordering of our cheesesteaks, following these simple rules:

How to Order a Cheesesteak: A Guide for Tourists
There is a protocol to ordering a cheesesteak at the cheesesteak epicenter of Ninth and Wharton, which, if not followed, can result in being sent to the back of the line Soup Nazi–style, or even worse, getting less meat. At Pat’s and Geno’s, you must order by saying the name of the cheese you want and then “with” or “without” (or as it is often pronounced in South Philly, “wit” or “witout”), which means with or without grilled onions. A correct and traditional order there would be “Whiz wit.” “Mushrooms witout” will get you a steak sandwich with mushrooms but no onions or cheese. You order and pay for your drinks and fries at a separate window.
Acceptable cheesesteak condiments include peppers of all kinds, hot pepper relish, hot sauce, ketchup, dill or sweet pickles but not mustard and mayo (although a really good steak won’t need any condiments).

Once we got back to Laurel Pond, Jean and I made a beeline to the Outlet Mall—just a mile away—and got a short shopping trip in while the guys started the fire and cracked open a few brews. We got back in time to play sous-chef to Chef Gordon and helped him chop and dice.