Travels with Kelli

  Well I was on the road again, this time going to Allentown. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this lovely house and barn. The house was built in 1820 for the Kuntz family. William Kuntz along with his sons owned and operated the Slate Exchange Hotel on the main street in town.  The Hotel was there to provide lodging to railroad passengers and travelers that came down the Lehigh Canal. A canal that was from part of William's land that he sold for the Lehigh canal in town. The hotel was converted to apartments prior to WWII before it was completely demolished to make way for the fire company hall. At  least the house and barn from the homestead is still standing and its still looks great.                                                        See you at the next bend in the road,                                                                            Kelli PS pictures from the hotel and sign from here .

First I found a great sight for interesting sites across America . Who knew there was a Chef Boyadee statue or a twisted steel archway or how about a casket that is also a mailbox. I can see a lot of day trips that will be in my future. Our first stop will be serenity glass park in Port Allegheny. A town that was called the glass manufacturing capital of the world. Its just a small corner in town but the artistry of using glass to create sculptures. There are colorful panels that are of important images that are 16 feet in height. There's also a glass archway that is the entrance to the area from the street.  Old Jail Museum Smethport,Pa. This is the original jail house and was converted to a museum  in 2003. Oh and according to Pursuits Magazine it is the 6th most haunted place in Pennsylvania. And like any good jail it has a dungeon. Kinzua Bridge State Park is the home of the Kinzua Viaduct. The Viaduct was once the longest and tallest railroad structure before it was p

Well this trip is almost over. Today I went to Gettysburg National Military Park . My one take away from this place is how quiet it is, even when it is over crowded with visitors. Its like the wall in DC that it creepy quiet, you could almost hear the ghost speak to you. Today I just went to find a monument and ended up taking pictures of wildflowers. Below are a few pictures from the day. Since I've done the auto tour with Kathryn years ago, this time I just drove to one or two different monuments and then spent 30 minutes in downtown.  This was a statue on the road in Gettysburg. It is the Bucktails monument dedicated to the 13th reserves by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1890. The thing that caught my eye first was that the statue looks like he's covered on the face with black mold. Its a decolorization on his face. When I took the picture as you can see a breeze passed through and the the leaves moved. Could it be the ghosts wanting to show their pres

Now I should re-title the blog post Heading North but since its the same vacation we will keep it . Today's first stop was to for a brunch meet up with Cindy and Glenn her husband. We met in Georgetown at Thomas Cafe that was old school and the food was good. This little hole in the wall is a hidden gem. I ordered the  Low country Creole Omelet. This place is a definite for the next Retired Southern meet up.  It might not have been the first Friday of the month but a retirement breakfast was still in order. Just like on the way down, I ran into several down pours and I'm talking coming down so quick and hard that there was instant flooding on the roads. I made it to my hotel the Comfort Inn in Fredericks, VA. They put me in a room with one queen bed, that's ok but it was just next to the elevator and I thought that I'd hear the elevator all night but nope it was good. My only negative was that the door looked like it was smaller than the door frame in thickness. It

Anne, Becky and I started the day off right going for Mani and Pedi appointments.Becky made the reservations for The Woodhouse Day Spa . They told me there is a location in Kingston Pa. Don't tell me that, I might have to check it out.  I just hope I didn't scare the girl with my toes LOL. Now I'm summer ready! They had a lovely boutique that I could see buying, EVERYTHING! From there it was the first day of house hunting. But of course before meeting up with the realto we had lunch at East Bay deli . I had the Terrific Turkey Melt and it lived up to its name. This was different than I expected. Clay the realtor drove us around different neighborhoods to get a feel for what might be of interest. My take away from this day was gorgeous houses but a lot of the neighborhoods had little to no property, the house took up most of the property. Each development had a rec area (pool, tennis courts, etc...) These are an example of the houses. It was like an episode of

Got up at the crack of dawn, seeing the sun rise over the mountains of Virginia. First stop was to be at Tom & Terry's lake house for a quick visit before finishing off the road trip to SC. The goal was to be at the hotel by 5:30...... that didn't happen, because goals are meant to be broken. LOL. It was more 7 pm when I did finally arrive. From Winchester Va. to The lake house there were several places I stopped at, the first being the Graffiti House. I thought now that will be a cool looking house with all the colors sprayed on it, nope.  I got inspired by The forgotten South , she uses pictures to tell a story of the buildings that are neglected and run down. She's been going around the south preserving history even though its through photography and writing about them. Today's history lesson..... The Brandy Station Civil War battle was one of the history's greatest cavalry engagements. It consisted of over 20,000 troops (17,000 being cavalry). N

*** long post, short vacation. Well  I can't take it anymore, I need to go on a road trip. My cousin Anne is looking to move to Charleston SC area and I have "volunteer" to meet her to house shop and hang out. So the first thing I did was purchase a gadget that will make it possible to listen to my CLASSIC Ipod with a speaker in the car and in the hotel room. SCORE! Then I entered a contest and won a Yeti Roadie 20! It came just in time for the trip. Double SCORE! Its packed, ready, and strapped into the front seat.  The night before the trip, I created a playlist for my road trip. All songs related to travelling. My classic Ipod has on it 10,200+ songs. I was able to make a list of over 120 songs. That should get me to my destination. And it wouldn't be a real road trip if these songs were not included: Mona Lisa, Them Bones, and On the Road again. (songs that were ALWAYS played on the cassette player when we did our vacations back in the 70's. And yes it wa

Olivia joined me for this adventure to the ruins of Concrete City in Nanticoke, Pa. It was a series of houses that were built in 1911 for employees of the area railroad coal division. Each home was completely built out of concrete,from basement to the roof. It was a new type of architecture known as International style. I understand from reading that there is another one of these communities that was built but like this it is no longer inhabited. Concrete City consisted of 20 duplex homes and a concrete pool in the center of the development. The weeds were so over grown that if the pool still existed we didn't see it. Above is what it looked like orginally. (picture comes from uncoverpingpa.com) It is now consisted a historial site.  So to start off there is no place to offically park. There  is a dirt road that will take you to the development but the potholes were so deep that you would definitely lose a tire or a small car. We parked on the side of the road and w