Evidently people like the way I cook. My good, but limited, menu consists of gumbo, rum soaked black beans and "chicken Dunaj". I make things like Key Lime Pie. Friends still talk about a meal I made a couple of years ago with Alaskan caught halibut and tequila. I can boil water and I can make potato salad. You know...with either bacon and mustard, or dill....
Sunday we had a graduation party to attend and the subject of potato salad had come up. I offered to make some for the hosts, Carl and Jill. They were stuck with this one ingredient for the day's plans. So, I offered and Janet smoked a salmon fillet and I churned up some potato salad, all the while drinking some very good white Bordeaux, Graves. Janet was impressed with my concoction. I don't know if the wine was influencing her ability to decide, but she said it was very good. Then the subject of potato salad came up for next weekend's Fourth of July celebration. We're attending again the Riverside Symphonia at Tinicum Park in Pennsylvania. It's a grand event held on a polo field and the Symphonia plays classical and show tunes and then switches to patriotic John Philip Souza stuff when the fireworks begin. It is an event that has many people eating grand meals and drinks, some with caterers. We've asked Janet's mother and her Aunt Betty to come, and evidently Aunt Betty's recipe for potato salad has had Janet's family jumping up and shouting hurrah for decades..... (Janet said mine was better....Betty must never know!) I too shall leap for joy with the first taste of her potato salad!
Anyway, the party was in Downingtown, PA at Carl and Jill's house. Situated on two acres along the Brandwine Creek it is pastoral and I relish the opportunity to visit. We showed up hours in advance to help with preparations and were rewarded with a great time and a place to sleep and today we lingered for most of the day at their pool. That's not really mooching is it? I mean we did a lot of work...happily. They are good people and they have a retirement home in Milford, DE and we've been down there several times already; we were down there over the Memorial Day weekend.
For a home vacation you could do worse.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
trenton thundershowers
We attempted to go to the Trenton Thunder/Reading Phillies AA baseball game at Riverfront Stadium in Trenton last night, but it was rained out. The game was delayed for nearly an hour, but after only 1 1/2 innings of play it started pouring again. Even though the rain stopped the field conditions were too bad to continue.
We still had a great time. The ball park is new and clean and the prices were very good. I paid $12 for seats that were down the first base line and just a few rows from the field. Good beer, like Spaten Munich was available at the BeerHaus for $5.75, which is just .25 more than the Buds, etc. We ate a couple of burgers and some Chickie and Pete's Crab Fries, drank some beer, gave our Trenton Thunder playing cards to the kid next to us because he and his father got to the stadium too late for the free giveaway, dodged some lightning bolts, got up close and personal with some people as we waited out the storm and then watched the top half of the second inning a few rows up from home plate as we figured people were not coming back after the delays; it was already 9:30. Later when the game was called we exchanged our tickets for a game on July 5 and in first row seats directly behind home plate. We were excited to be able to return. Plus, there will be fireworks that night. Those same seats would cost me thousands of dollars in Yankee Stadium!
I know these aren't tales of some exotic locales, or far flung lands, but these days of Home Vacationing are endearing. So often have I rushed at first opportunity to get away from home to see something else, I failed to regard my environs with any appreciative eye. Perhaps it's easier to find the alluring qualities in vacationing from home because I have been many, many places. I recently did one of those silly things on Facebook where you "pin" the places you've visited, and I came up with 24 countries. There are of course many places in this wide world I have not seen, and many places I would love to return to, but for now $12 tickets at the baseball game is my world. And, I am happy with where I am.
love to all....greg
We still had a great time. The ball park is new and clean and the prices were very good. I paid $12 for seats that were down the first base line and just a few rows from the field. Good beer, like Spaten Munich was available at the BeerHaus for $5.75, which is just .25 more than the Buds, etc. We ate a couple of burgers and some Chickie and Pete's Crab Fries, drank some beer, gave our Trenton Thunder playing cards to the kid next to us because he and his father got to the stadium too late for the free giveaway, dodged some lightning bolts, got up close and personal with some people as we waited out the storm and then watched the top half of the second inning a few rows up from home plate as we figured people were not coming back after the delays; it was already 9:30. Later when the game was called we exchanged our tickets for a game on July 5 and in first row seats directly behind home plate. We were excited to be able to return. Plus, there will be fireworks that night. Those same seats would cost me thousands of dollars in Yankee Stadium!
I know these aren't tales of some exotic locales, or far flung lands, but these days of Home Vacationing are endearing. So often have I rushed at first opportunity to get away from home to see something else, I failed to regard my environs with any appreciative eye. Perhaps it's easier to find the alluring qualities in vacationing from home because I have been many, many places. I recently did one of those silly things on Facebook where you "pin" the places you've visited, and I came up with 24 countries. There are of course many places in this wide world I have not seen, and many places I would love to return to, but for now $12 tickets at the baseball game is my world. And, I am happy with where I am.
love to all....greg
Thursday, June 25, 2009
6 months till christmas
We are as far away from Christmas as you can get and today is the first day we're going to the shore. It's supposed to be a great beach day, the first one in a long while. I just checked the weather for Sandy Hook and it's looking good!
We opted to sleep in rather than get up at an ugodly hour to drive across New Jersey in order to save on the $10 admission to Sandy Hook, which opens at 7:00. I know I'm a cheap bum, but I like to sleep in sometimes. To make it before 7:00 comfortably we would have had to leave around 4:30 a.m. YUCK.
Lambertville is almost directly west of Sandy Hook and on the other side of New Jersey. There are just three main roads to follow ... 518, 522 and 520. The last bit of the ride before we hit Sea Bright is through Rumson, where Janet had me stop at a lemonade stand being operated by Bruce. He was wearing a Journey tour shirt and a John Deere trucker's hat. Actually, throughout the ride we were worried for the clouds seemed more ominous than we expected. But the reports said it would be a beach day and when we left the leafy streets of Rumson and hit Route 36 in Sea Bright, it looked much more promising.
It was a great day at the beach. We arrived around 11:00 and did not leave until 6 p.m. After gettting Janet set up I went for a run. The last marathon I entered started at Sandy Hook and the first 8 miles of the race are lonely, for there are few people in the park at race time. I still like running along the multi use path they have that courses the length of Sandy Hook from the entrance to the Fort Hancock coast guard station at the north end. In all I ran about 5 miles.
Sufficiently sweaty I rejoined Janet and we relaxed in the full sun for the rest of the day, sneaking peeks at the other naked bodies that surrounded us. I had prepared some chicken and had some leftover pineapple salsa and we bought a beer from the beer guy on the beach for quite a good lunch. We went for a long walk along the surf, sometimes walking in the cold water knee deep, though we tactfully avoided going all the way in, unless nature called us! We also tactfully avoided a colleague of Janet's who was down at the southern end of the beach, wearing his trademark denim hat.
As we lolled under the cloudless sky we became painfully aware of several odd personalities that plied Gunnison's Beach. Janet and I have a great time making up knicknames for people. The fellow running the concession stand at the nude beach, his eyes never looking up at the myriad of body types, extra folds and all, was referred to as "beer guy", of course. Behind us, as we slowly revolved our chairs to face the sun arching across the sky, was "Meatloaf", who kept up a constant harangue about everything from trading with the Chinese to the death of Farrah Fawcett...we did not yet know about MJ... His grating voice was as loud as his belly was rotound. Before we rotated our chairs away from him, he stood posing in all his glory, arms akimbo and spewed out his diatribe to his little (but not in girth) clutch of friends. There's something good about the passage of time.
Throughout the day we listened to the bickering of a couple. We called them "Terminator" and "Iced T". He had a military haircut and physique, wore mirrored sunglasses and alternated between yelling at and canoodling with his tattooed and statuesque girlfriend, whose "high maintenance" attitude went well with her "high priced" boobs (or so Janet says). Iced T kept saying she was going to Arizona....see the connection... and Terminator would tell her to go now, loudly! Then they would lapse into a cuddle phase until the next round of complaints. The name "Terminator" replaced "Jarhead" when he said at one point he too hated his job...to which I started muttering to Janet in an Arnold voice that "humans are too easy to kill."
Aside from the varied and typically creepy men walking around trying to either ogle Janet or me, the latter usually adorned with tattooes, piercings and attachments to their nether regions, there was "Banana Man" who gained the name when he left, putting on a yellow t-shirt and a pair of tight-fitting yellow stetchy pants that revealed obscenly every centimeter of his old rickety ass even though he had just been fully naked. There was "Tent Boy" who struggled with a pop up tent, but never entered it, preferring to sit cross legged before it smoking cigarettes like a prostitute before a brothel. There was "The Ghost", a white haired, white skinned man whose color never reddened throughout the day though he lounged in the sun with his younger looking wife.
But the most disturbing character was "The Mushroom" and his companion whom we named "Dick-Girl". Mushroom wore tighty white briefs to the beach under his shorts. He never got fully naked and spent the day wearing just a white-shirt. It made him look like a mental patient looking for the toilet. Had he remained in his folding chair with his blanket wrapped around his head and allowed his "girlfriend" who also never got naked and wore double tops and a demin mini skirt, to writhe before him, he would have just been another weird person at Gunnisons. BUT...he would get up and walk around and stare at people. At one point Janet opened her eyes to see him hovering over her, lasciviously drooling. Now, it is appropriate to "look" at people, either for the "entertainment" or "grotesque" value, but you're supposed to give it a quick once over and not stare. This guy was creepy. His girlfriend was creepy. We thought she was a man, hence the name. But, we realized "Dick-Girl," was not an appropriate moniker for her when they eventually left and she flashed us while tucking in her shirt. The whole afternoon would have become unhinged if not for our ability to find the humor in everything. We laughed and laughed and shook our heads.
We stopped in Red Bank at a brew pub called Basil T's. They make several respectable beers and I had the IPA and a stout. Janet drank a Hefeweizen or wheat beer. The beers were adequate, but the cost of their food was outrageous. After drinking a couple rounds at the crowded bar we left, drove back across the state and into New Hope and we each had another beer and some very good wings at Triumph brewery. It was a good day, but of course every day is good when you're vacationing from home.
Thanks for reading....We're going to a Trenton Thunder AA baseball game Friday evening.
g
We opted to sleep in rather than get up at an ugodly hour to drive across New Jersey in order to save on the $10 admission to Sandy Hook, which opens at 7:00. I know I'm a cheap bum, but I like to sleep in sometimes. To make it before 7:00 comfortably we would have had to leave around 4:30 a.m. YUCK.
Lambertville is almost directly west of Sandy Hook and on the other side of New Jersey. There are just three main roads to follow ... 518, 522 and 520. The last bit of the ride before we hit Sea Bright is through Rumson, where Janet had me stop at a lemonade stand being operated by Bruce. He was wearing a Journey tour shirt and a John Deere trucker's hat. Actually, throughout the ride we were worried for the clouds seemed more ominous than we expected. But the reports said it would be a beach day and when we left the leafy streets of Rumson and hit Route 36 in Sea Bright, it looked much more promising.
It was a great day at the beach. We arrived around 11:00 and did not leave until 6 p.m. After gettting Janet set up I went for a run. The last marathon I entered started at Sandy Hook and the first 8 miles of the race are lonely, for there are few people in the park at race time. I still like running along the multi use path they have that courses the length of Sandy Hook from the entrance to the Fort Hancock coast guard station at the north end. In all I ran about 5 miles.
Sufficiently sweaty I rejoined Janet and we relaxed in the full sun for the rest of the day, sneaking peeks at the other naked bodies that surrounded us. I had prepared some chicken and had some leftover pineapple salsa and we bought a beer from the beer guy on the beach for quite a good lunch. We went for a long walk along the surf, sometimes walking in the cold water knee deep, though we tactfully avoided going all the way in, unless nature called us! We also tactfully avoided a colleague of Janet's who was down at the southern end of the beach, wearing his trademark denim hat.
As we lolled under the cloudless sky we became painfully aware of several odd personalities that plied Gunnison's Beach. Janet and I have a great time making up knicknames for people. The fellow running the concession stand at the nude beach, his eyes never looking up at the myriad of body types, extra folds and all, was referred to as "beer guy", of course. Behind us, as we slowly revolved our chairs to face the sun arching across the sky, was "Meatloaf", who kept up a constant harangue about everything from trading with the Chinese to the death of Farrah Fawcett...we did not yet know about MJ... His grating voice was as loud as his belly was rotound. Before we rotated our chairs away from him, he stood posing in all his glory, arms akimbo and spewed out his diatribe to his little (but not in girth) clutch of friends. There's something good about the passage of time.
Throughout the day we listened to the bickering of a couple. We called them "Terminator" and "Iced T". He had a military haircut and physique, wore mirrored sunglasses and alternated between yelling at and canoodling with his tattooed and statuesque girlfriend, whose "high maintenance" attitude went well with her "high priced" boobs (or so Janet says). Iced T kept saying she was going to Arizona....see the connection... and Terminator would tell her to go now, loudly! Then they would lapse into a cuddle phase until the next round of complaints. The name "Terminator" replaced "Jarhead" when he said at one point he too hated his job...to which I started muttering to Janet in an Arnold voice that "humans are too easy to kill."
Aside from the varied and typically creepy men walking around trying to either ogle Janet or me, the latter usually adorned with tattooes, piercings and attachments to their nether regions, there was "Banana Man" who gained the name when he left, putting on a yellow t-shirt and a pair of tight-fitting yellow stetchy pants that revealed obscenly every centimeter of his old rickety ass even though he had just been fully naked. There was "Tent Boy" who struggled with a pop up tent, but never entered it, preferring to sit cross legged before it smoking cigarettes like a prostitute before a brothel. There was "The Ghost", a white haired, white skinned man whose color never reddened throughout the day though he lounged in the sun with his younger looking wife.
But the most disturbing character was "The Mushroom" and his companion whom we named "Dick-Girl". Mushroom wore tighty white briefs to the beach under his shorts. He never got fully naked and spent the day wearing just a white-shirt. It made him look like a mental patient looking for the toilet. Had he remained in his folding chair with his blanket wrapped around his head and allowed his "girlfriend" who also never got naked and wore double tops and a demin mini skirt, to writhe before him, he would have just been another weird person at Gunnisons. BUT...he would get up and walk around and stare at people. At one point Janet opened her eyes to see him hovering over her, lasciviously drooling. Now, it is appropriate to "look" at people, either for the "entertainment" or "grotesque" value, but you're supposed to give it a quick once over and not stare. This guy was creepy. His girlfriend was creepy. We thought she was a man, hence the name. But, we realized "Dick-Girl," was not an appropriate moniker for her when they eventually left and she flashed us while tucking in her shirt. The whole afternoon would have become unhinged if not for our ability to find the humor in everything. We laughed and laughed and shook our heads.
We stopped in Red Bank at a brew pub called Basil T's. They make several respectable beers and I had the IPA and a stout. Janet drank a Hefeweizen or wheat beer. The beers were adequate, but the cost of their food was outrageous. After drinking a couple rounds at the crowded bar we left, drove back across the state and into New Hope and we each had another beer and some very good wings at Triumph brewery. It was a good day, but of course every day is good when you're vacationing from home.
Thanks for reading....We're going to a Trenton Thunder AA baseball game Friday evening.
g
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Moe...Moe...You're gonna break the hammer!
As part of the growing legion of fans of this summer's blog of stay at home vacations I have been getting leads for places to visit, and thankfully they're are free or close to free! The ex wife wrote and told me to go to hell. Leslie wrote and told us about the Three Stooges Museum. It is open one day a month and it's in the area. We are planning to go Saturday, July 11th. If anything it'll be a mild diversion on the day. I've always been a fan of the Three Stooges, but what boy would not be. Slapstick humor is the most base form of comedy, but it is the most widely appreciated. No dry wittisms here. As a boy I had tried to perfect my Curly shuffle like all my friends and here is this bastion of all things stooges. Perhaps you should plan on going as well? It is free...
http://www.stoogeum.com/
I wonder if they'll have the hammer Moe broke over Curly's head?
Keep the ideas coming....love to read what you think about our escapades and where you think we should be going next. Hell... I got the time.
http://www.stoogeum.com/
I wonder if they'll have the hammer Moe broke over Curly's head?
Keep the ideas coming....love to read what you think about our escapades and where you think we should be going next. Hell... I got the time.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
the art of mooching
It's a fine line between an invite and mooching and to wander fully into mooch territory is to be avoided at all costs. One may step up to the abyss and wonder (aloud) when the invite is to come, but they must only do so in a timid, quiet voice. Perhaps pandering to the potential hosts' proclivities and slathering them with flattery will exact the response you so desperately desire, but where does that leave you? Especially if an offer crosses your transom more enticing than the first; you're stuck with having to materialize your sorry ass because you've mooched and are now expected.
Of course, you can be a cad and have no morals and allow the wind and your mindset to blow you along, allowing you to alight as you see fit. But, this is a dangerous game with the mooching/invitation procurement, for your game will be exposed rather quickly and the invites will dry up fast. Once exposed, mooching will not work. You will become anathema to your former potential mooch subjects and as if by some religious proclamation you'll be excommunicated from their good graces. People don't like to be used for gain, even if they are more than willing to share.
Of course, you can be a cad and have no morals and allow the wind and your mindset to blow you along, allowing you to alight as you see fit. But, this is a dangerous game with the mooching/invitation procurement, for your game will be exposed rather quickly and the invites will dry up fast. Once exposed, mooching will not work. You will become anathema to your former potential mooch subjects and as if by some religious proclamation you'll be excommunicated from their good graces. People don't like to be used for gain, even if they are more than willing to share.
No, it is best to live well, to be a person whose company is desired and make it be known that your gracious hosts or potential hosts are far too kind to shower you with their attentions, drinks and/or the use of their pool. Above all, you must truly believe these sentiments and not cast a jaundiced eye at what might appear to be at first feeble opportunites, for given the proper attitude and nuturing such seeds may flower and bear delectable fruit.
It is important to have a fluid response to the day and an easy calm charm to your demeanor. Both of my children have already demonstrated the uncanny ability to get people to "take care" of them. Friends buy my forever broke son food at the diner, albeit smaller items; he claims that he always offers to finish off friend's larger portions for which they are grateful; and he has culled a number of friends with pools and cars. My daughter is constantly being invited to the homes of "fans" in far flung locales like Key West and Corolla. They practically beg her to join them on small holidays.
Janet and I work well together in the world of invitations. But you see, we never have expectations for the day and often our plans are windblown and scattered. Yet, by day's end we seem to have grand memories of our escapades and we're never at a loss for smiles. Yes, serendipity and chance are the handmaidens to (mooching) invitations. Working as a team, although "work" is far too strong a term, our opportunites for invitations are doubled automatically. Unlike people who have every weekend planned for, well, forever, we consider everything that comes to us. We never flat out say "can't make it," but instead we truly gush happily at the invitation and somehow try to work it in the schedule.
This past Saturday 's "vacation from home" we were to be on separate sojurns. I was to attend an end of the shad season party on Lewis Island in Lambertville, and she had a graduation party invitation for one of her students. My fete was rained out and was then invited to her party.
She at first did not want to attend; she thought the party would be of limited charm. But, it was the right thing to do for reasons I shall not list in this blog. It proved to be a good time, for I got to meet several people Janet has spoken glowingly about over the years and the whole bbq pig splayed before us on a table in the garage was quite the vision and quite the meal. We smacked our lips in anticipation as we watched the caterer pull chunks of meat from the porker's carcass and simmer them in a roux of his own making. I don't have his business card for I would give him credit in this entry for a grand meal.
Sadly though they had no beer of worth and after washing down our pulled pork sandwiches with Yuengling lager we said good-bye. We had fulfilled our obilgation to the invitation. Janet wished her former student good luck, another one good riddance, and then she dragged me to the Drafting Room in Exton. The beers there are far superior to anything fetched from the coolers at the graduation party and in the cool, sedate enviorns of the unlikely beer haven in a strip mall we were hard pressed to pick just one for each of us. I liked the Drafting Room enough to sign up for their taproom e-mail club. http://www.draftingroom.com/
Indeed, as part of the mooch world it is quite okay to seek out specials from such places as the Drafting Room. Janet has belonged to the Mug Club of Iron Hill, a small chain of craft brew in the Philadelphia area, for awhile now. She gets more beer per pour and discounts after spending a certain amount. I mean, if they're going to be giving away stuff, then is it really mooching?
Speaking of mooching we are already caculating our next trip to Outback Steakhouse. We met my son at the Montgomeryville location for a Father's Day lunch. As a Dad I got a certificate for $10 off my next trip to the faux Aussie restaurant. Janet also took an online survey for the place and we are to get a blooming onion appetizer for free..... CHEAP...remember that word. It isn't really mooching though if they're gonna give it away!
After lunch my son drove back home to Lambertville....Montgomeryville is half-way between Collegeville and Lambertville... Janet and I stopped off at ...yes... an Iron Hill and then a Trader Joe's to buy ingredients for today's meal... (macademia encrusted mahi mahi....). Returning to her townhome we decided to go for a walk through her neighborhood. Sometimes vacations at home mean exactly that! We walked over to the Rita's for some mango flavored water ice....where I came from we called it Italian Ice. While remarking that we could use some rum for the mango ice Janet got a phone call from her pilates compadre, Leslie, inviting us over for drinks.
How could we refuse?!
It was the pefect end to a wonderful weekend of home vacationing. The charming and beautiful Leslie (she reads this blog) made drinks and we sidled around her outdoor patio with a number of her friends to eat snacks from Trader Joes and Italian pastries fetched from Brooklyn. The rain had stopped this afternoon, after several days of nonstop dreariness, and we all marveled at the brilliant hues of the sun sculpted clouds on what was the longest day of the year.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
chasing the sun
If you consider the sun to be an integral part of a beach day then you're just living in some fantasy world my fair readers. Why there's so much to do at the shore. There's no reason to think that torrential rains and cold winds will put a damper (get it) on the fun times to be experienced. But, the fun on rainy days at the shore usually involves drinking games and for me the games are very short-lived. I am not able to drink that much. Janet tells me that all the time when she checks up on me under the table. Well, in spite of the dreary skies, our intended vacation last weekend was the Jersey shore. You may remember the rain, my basement is still damp and the dehumidifier is running nonstop!
Anyway, our intended final destination on Saturday was Gunnison's Beach at Sandy Hook. It is a clothing optional beach and she and I have gone there a few times over the years. It's a good place to work off the tanlines. Because it is federal property the New Jersey municipal laws pertaining to nudity do not apply. The daily fee is $10, $50 for a season pass. It is free before 7 a.m. and after 4 p.m. Weekend visitors to Gunnison's swell over several thousand. Sometimes there's off-color behavior and we definitely avoid the southern end with the gay's (not that there's anything wrong with that.......), but generally it is a pleasant time. Did I mention there's a bar on the beach?
We have also gone to Island Beach State Park, which is a barrier island south of Seaside Park.
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/island.html
It is pristine and beautiful. The water teems with fish. I've seen schools of bluefish chasing fry through the surf, walked around foot long sand sharks in knee deep water and happily collected colorful infant clams and skittering sand crabs with my kids. The surf at Gunnison's is not clean at all by compartion and if not for the cache of nude bathing I doubt I'd travel there.
Saturday was overcast at home in Lambertville, but we decided to give the day a chance and headed out around 9 a.m. Because the weather was suspect, we traveled first to Brick to a canoe/kayak shop. I needed to purchase a carrying yolk and aft thwart for my Old Town Discovery 158 canoe. Talk about home vacations! I've got the Delaware River in my back yard and have gone on several overnight trips with my boy over the years. During the years we lived "downtown" I used to "canal" with the kids. We'd put the canoe on a skateboard and roll it across the street to the canal. Sometimes we'd paddle through town to a coffee shop that sold ice cream.
I moved up the hill onto Music Mountain 10 years ago and haven't used the 158 since the divorce. The yolk and thwart rotted out from not being stored properly.
In Brick the sky was sunny, but as we traveled the 30 miles north towards Sandy Hook the clouds gathered ominously. The temperature dropped and just after Long Branch we decided it was not worth paying the $10 to sit on a rainy, cold, windy beach. This is after all a vacation on the cheap.... Thinking we could wile the day away until after 4 p.m. when they stopped charging at Sandy Hook, we decided to have a drink. I turned the car and took Janet to Columns By The Sea in Avon. We sat on the wind swept porch and shuddered through a bottle of Long Trail IPA each...just $3.50 per, and gnawed at some suspect wings which were not worth the money....$8.00 for 8 wings. While there we noticed an advertisment for the New Jersey Seafood Festival in Belmar which was being held that day! Belmar is just across the Shark River Inlet from Avon. Janet wanted to drive, but I knew the area better and insisted we walk. She's a Shoobee after all and doesn't know Benny territory. Belmar was packed and the traffic crawled. We would have been hard pressed to find another parking spot.
Let me tell you briefly about festivals. They are fun, cheap events and usually free or at a minimal cost. Last summer in Lake Charles, Louisiana we went to the Cajun/French Music Festival and it was a wonderful. Other favorites are the Crawfish Festival, the Shad Festival and the NJ Wine Growers Association. We tend to avoid events like crafts festival that charge admission, because there's no sense in spending money for something that is just a passing interest... CHEAP... remember that word!
Thankfully we did not have to pay for the NJ Seafood Festival. It was crowded and though an array of food was available to us, the long lines and shoving elbows of the crowd were not alluring enough. It wasn't fun. At one point as I briefly lingered at the assembly line of workers preparing lobster a man shoved his way past me to take a picture. We oozed our way past all the booths, but bought nothing. We strolled along the crowded Belmar boardwalk, stopping to clamor onto the jetty at the Shark River inlet. It was cold out there and windy. We decided not to go back north to Sandy Hook. Instead we ate the cold "Chicken Dunaj" I had prepared for our trip to the beach while seated in the parked car in Avon. Don't laugh. It was better than sitting on the windy boardwalk.
Can't tell you what comprises the recipe for Chicken Dunaj... unless you want to die afterwards ... or give me $20.
Before we headed back across New Jersey we stopped at Kelly's Tavern in Neptune City. http://kellystavernusa.com/index.asp I have been going to this joint since I was a teenager when the drinking age was 18 in Jersey! It's a great place with a modest array of beers, though usually I'll drink Bud Longnecks here. Buds always taste better at the Jersey shore. The food is exceptional bar food. My favorite is the Ham Galway with a side order of fried mushrooms. But, we had those wings and the Chicky D, so we each ordered a 16 oz. Margarita for $5.00 per. It was mixed right at the bar in front of us. We chatted over the strong concoction and again tried to make the connection between the map of Ireland on the ceiling and the Japanese sushi preparer (They aren't "chefs" are they?), in his ornamental outfit at his little booth near the package goods display.
Leaving the Jersey shore we headed west on Route 195, but then took a detour through Freehold. Janet is a big fan of Bruce. She always insists on driving through Rumson on our way to Sandy Hook, where Springsteen lives now. I think she's hoping she'll see the Boss taking out his garbage or something. Famously though Bruce is from Freehold and we thought to stop there and have yet another beer. After parking the car we walked through the rain and settled on some place called the Court Jester. http://www.jestersweb.net/ There were several beers on tap to our liking including a Rare Vos from Ommegang in Coopertown, NY. All pints are $5.14...
No sun, but a good day nonetheless.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
what to do what to do....
Okay....So the economy is bad and the jobs for this freelance graphics operator/designer have been been scarce of late. I'm not used to this. I've been busy to the point of exhaustion throughout my working career, even during the summer months. For years I blasted through the summer haze with barely enough time to cut the lawn, never mind vacations. Of course, when we traveled, the clan was dragged out to some fairly exotic places. Hawaii, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Mexico, Barbados, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as Dewey Beach, Delaware were some of our destinations. The kids have embraced this sense of adventure and both have traveled fairly well on their own despite their youth. My daughter and son have both been to France and Canada. My daughter as a young teen has flown to Aruba and Key West to visit relatives and my son has expressed an interest to travel across the country via car. I'm happy to have instilled this love of traveling in my kids. It's important to know there is something out there besides, say, the Jersey shore.
It's a big world and someone has to see it.
It used to be that jobs would drag me around the world and I traveled very extensively. I used to tour with Sinatra as a roadie and that 5 year stretch afforded me the chance to see a lot of countries, twice. Then, when I got back into television sports I visited several other foreign countries as well as the United States, for events like summer and winter Olympics and Super Bowls.
Sadly, that's all in the past now. The family has moved on. I got divorced and Mr. Sinatra is crooning for the big guy upstairs. Sports isn't the same anymore for a myriad of reasons. Which happily leaves me with a lot of time to travel.
In the five years since my divorce these are my excursions: My boy and I took a two week drive down to the Florida Keys, camping along the way. We stopped in places like Ocracoke and Charlestown and Bahia Honda. The next summer I kicked around Cape May. Then, in 2006 I met Janet and she has become my traveling partner. She and I took a Windjammer Cruise through the Grenadines that first year! We sailed out of St. Lucia and stopped along the way at some very small islands. In 2007 we rented a house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and then took a side trip on the way home.
We attempted to follow the historic barbeque trail listed by the North Carolina Barbeque Society. We started in Ayden, but only lasted until Chapel Hill when our capacity to eat stopped cold! Here is the posting: http://www.ncbbqsociety.com/trail_map.html. Good luck.
After we came to our senses we drove along the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah National Park, which was a life dream for Janet, before ending our trip(s) with a visit to the Gettysburg battlefield.
Last year we spent three weeks on the road traveling through the cajun country of Louisiana. You may remember the blog I kept of that trip. http://www.cajuncountrytravels.blogspot.com/.
So, with this rich history of past trips, but no riches in our pockets what are we to do this year? Both Janet and I are strapped for cash and yet we're both off for the summer. She's a school teacher. I can assure you that unless I win the lottery or snag a great book deal with a fat advance, we are stay-cationing! I know that's probably an overused term right about now. I am sure you've heard it used in the media and at first thought it was witty. Well rest assured I am quite able to take a good idea and run it into the ground, but I'm calling this blog Vacations From Home.
Even though I am gainfully unemployed right now, Janet is working. So the vacation period hasn't quite begun, but last weekend we had quite a "trip". We drove down to Philadelphia and saw something called the Dragon Boat Races. http://www.philadragonboatfestival.com/
Evidently a lot of dragon races are held around the country and the date is meant to coincide with a Chinese holiday. Dragon races originated thousands of years ago.
Whatever the history, it was a lot of fun, even if we had to walk a long way to get to the actual race course on the Schuylkill River. There was a team from Janet's gym and we watched them in one heat. There were over 60 teams competing and it was a convivial affair with plenty of food and drinks. The military had a large presence at the races. The Marines, Army, Coast Guard as well as the Philadelphia Police and Fire Departments fielded, er, floated, teams as well as an array of gyms and organizations and youth groups.
The boats themselves were long and each was decorated with a colorful dragon's head. There are 20 people paddling, one guy standing in the back steering and someone in the front banging a drum. Either the steerer or the Buddy Rich in front call out the commands for the different strokes involved to hurtle the boat down the river.
We didn't stay until the end, though Janet's friends offered us food and beer. We were determined that day to see Chestnut Hill. Janet had been promising to take me to this quaint, affluent part of Philadelphia. It is miles from Center City and the area is literally the highest point in the city. The main thoroughfare, Germantown Avenue, is cobblestoned giving Chestnut Hill a special aura.
Well, apart from driving through the neighborhoods to ogle the large houses, Janet wanted to bring me to McNally's Tavern, home of the The Schmitter® (I'm serious about the copyright symbol!). It's good. They've been making it since the Revolutionary War, or at least the past 40 years. It has all kinds of meats on it, as well as sauted onions and something like Russian Dressing. The Kaiser Roll is toasted. It's a gooey mess and very tasty, but smaller than I expected. It was just $7.00 and the bartender kept trying to get us to buy three, one to take home for a special price where we'd save 4 dollars. We declined, but evidently The Schmitter is exported to the sporting venues in town and it was once served at Shea Stadium, perhaps leading to the Mets major collapse to the Phillies over the past few years.
McNally's is long, dark and clean with a modest selection of beers. I drank Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The basement is an adventure. I won't describe it, you'll just have to be brave.
Unless you know where you're going, you won't find McNally's. We drove the length of Chestnut Hill twice looking for it before we got lucky. There's just a plaque on the front door and no other markings. Look for the trolley turnaround across the street.
The next stop on this first day of "vacation" was the General Lafayette Inn in Lafayette Hill, PA. Just a few miles out of the city along Germantown Pike. Janet and I are a couple of beer snobs and the GLI evidently has a fine reputation for good beers. Again, Janet had been wanting to drag me here, but I ran through the door and into the musty, worn, warren of rooms before she got out of her car. They had a Pale Ale on handpump and I happily lapped at it like a thirsty cur while Janet did a sampler round. The pint is $4.00 and the sampler of 4 is $6.00. Well the GLI brews are constantly changing and some have silly names like: Alt! Who Goes There and Germantown Blonde. All are very good and several have won prestigious awards. After eating a plate of pedestrian wings (we're snobs about wings too) we walked through the 1732 that is reportedly haunted. We didn't linger to find out.
Typical of Janet and I we crammed a lot into just one day. It was a good start to our "Home Vacation" summer.
It's a big world and someone has to see it.
It used to be that jobs would drag me around the world and I traveled very extensively. I used to tour with Sinatra as a roadie and that 5 year stretch afforded me the chance to see a lot of countries, twice. Then, when I got back into television sports I visited several other foreign countries as well as the United States, for events like summer and winter Olympics and Super Bowls.
Sadly, that's all in the past now. The family has moved on. I got divorced and Mr. Sinatra is crooning for the big guy upstairs. Sports isn't the same anymore for a myriad of reasons. Which happily leaves me with a lot of time to travel.
In the five years since my divorce these are my excursions: My boy and I took a two week drive down to the Florida Keys, camping along the way. We stopped in places like Ocracoke and Charlestown and Bahia Honda. The next summer I kicked around Cape May. Then, in 2006 I met Janet and she has become my traveling partner. She and I took a Windjammer Cruise through the Grenadines that first year! We sailed out of St. Lucia and stopped along the way at some very small islands. In 2007 we rented a house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and then took a side trip on the way home.
We attempted to follow the historic barbeque trail listed by the North Carolina Barbeque Society. We started in Ayden, but only lasted until Chapel Hill when our capacity to eat stopped cold! Here is the posting: http://www.ncbbqsociety.com/trail_map.html. Good luck.
After we came to our senses we drove along the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah National Park, which was a life dream for Janet, before ending our trip(s) with a visit to the Gettysburg battlefield.
Last year we spent three weeks on the road traveling through the cajun country of Louisiana. You may remember the blog I kept of that trip. http://www.cajuncountrytravels.blogspot.com/.
So, with this rich history of past trips, but no riches in our pockets what are we to do this year? Both Janet and I are strapped for cash and yet we're both off for the summer. She's a school teacher. I can assure you that unless I win the lottery or snag a great book deal with a fat advance, we are stay-cationing! I know that's probably an overused term right about now. I am sure you've heard it used in the media and at first thought it was witty. Well rest assured I am quite able to take a good idea and run it into the ground, but I'm calling this blog Vacations From Home.
Even though I am gainfully unemployed right now, Janet is working. So the vacation period hasn't quite begun, but last weekend we had quite a "trip". We drove down to Philadelphia and saw something called the Dragon Boat Races. http://www.philadragonboatfestival.com/
Evidently a lot of dragon races are held around the country and the date is meant to coincide with a Chinese holiday. Dragon races originated thousands of years ago.
Whatever the history, it was a lot of fun, even if we had to walk a long way to get to the actual race course on the Schuylkill River. There was a team from Janet's gym and we watched them in one heat. There were over 60 teams competing and it was a convivial affair with plenty of food and drinks. The military had a large presence at the races. The Marines, Army, Coast Guard as well as the Philadelphia Police and Fire Departments fielded, er, floated, teams as well as an array of gyms and organizations and youth groups.
The boats themselves were long and each was decorated with a colorful dragon's head. There are 20 people paddling, one guy standing in the back steering and someone in the front banging a drum. Either the steerer or the Buddy Rich in front call out the commands for the different strokes involved to hurtle the boat down the river.
We didn't stay until the end, though Janet's friends offered us food and beer. We were determined that day to see Chestnut Hill. Janet had been promising to take me to this quaint, affluent part of Philadelphia. It is miles from Center City and the area is literally the highest point in the city. The main thoroughfare, Germantown Avenue, is cobblestoned giving Chestnut Hill a special aura.
Well, apart from driving through the neighborhoods to ogle the large houses, Janet wanted to bring me to McNally's Tavern, home of the The Schmitter® (I'm serious about the copyright symbol!). It's good. They've been making it since the Revolutionary War, or at least the past 40 years. It has all kinds of meats on it, as well as sauted onions and something like Russian Dressing. The Kaiser Roll is toasted. It's a gooey mess and very tasty, but smaller than I expected. It was just $7.00 and the bartender kept trying to get us to buy three, one to take home for a special price where we'd save 4 dollars. We declined, but evidently The Schmitter is exported to the sporting venues in town and it was once served at Shea Stadium, perhaps leading to the Mets major collapse to the Phillies over the past few years.
McNally's is long, dark and clean with a modest selection of beers. I drank Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The basement is an adventure. I won't describe it, you'll just have to be brave.
Unless you know where you're going, you won't find McNally's. We drove the length of Chestnut Hill twice looking for it before we got lucky. There's just a plaque on the front door and no other markings. Look for the trolley turnaround across the street.
The next stop on this first day of "vacation" was the General Lafayette Inn in Lafayette Hill, PA. Just a few miles out of the city along Germantown Pike. Janet and I are a couple of beer snobs and the GLI evidently has a fine reputation for good beers. Again, Janet had been wanting to drag me here, but I ran through the door and into the musty, worn, warren of rooms before she got out of her car. They had a Pale Ale on handpump and I happily lapped at it like a thirsty cur while Janet did a sampler round. The pint is $4.00 and the sampler of 4 is $6.00. Well the GLI brews are constantly changing and some have silly names like: Alt! Who Goes There and Germantown Blonde. All are very good and several have won prestigious awards. After eating a plate of pedestrian wings (we're snobs about wings too) we walked through the 1732 that is reportedly haunted. We didn't linger to find out.
Typical of Janet and I we crammed a lot into just one day. It was a good start to our "Home Vacation" summer.
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