Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Front Royal, Virginia Shenanadoah National Park North Fork Resort 10/19 - 10/24/2021 Travel Tour

                                              From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com                                                                                                              Tim and Linda Bunyan

Front Royal, VA in the Shenandoah National Park at North Fork Resort -  C2C Resorts
5 nights @$38.00/night.  Located in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.



 Our site is along the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, the Civil War Museum, and John Brown's Fort, a key site in an 1859 abolitionist raid on the federal armory. The Federal armories at Harpers Ferry and Springfield Massachusetts, were among the first machine-operated industries in the United States.  Workers in the armories used many labor-saving machines to produce the three major components of the musket: the lock, the stock, and the barrel.  John Brown's raid was to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the


United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (since 1863, West Virginia).

The location where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet.

Harpers Ferry is the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail, whose midpoint is nearby.

Peaks of Otter Campground National CG 1 night $10.00.  One of 4 Blue Ridge Parkway campgrounds in Virginia with 132 sites.

Blueridge Parkway - Noted for its scenic beauty Skyline Drive is the longest linear park in the U.S. and runs for 469 miles in Virginia and North Carolina.  

The Parkway links Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park mostly along a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains.

Abbott Lake - a 24-acre serene and pristine lake and park located along the Blue Ridge Parkway as one of the attractions to the Peaks of Otter Park.   It features a one-mile loop trail, fishing, and also a wedding venue.   The only hotel on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.  

Historic grist mill 

This mill was built about 1910 by Edwin B. Mabry, a jack-of-all-trades who had been a chairmaker, a miner, a coal company blacksmith, and a farmer.  He and his wife, Mintoria Lizzie Mabry, operated the mill until 1936, grinding corn and sawing lumber for their Meadows of  Dan neighbors. In 1945, the National Park Service restored and landscaped the mill - one of the most photographed features on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Blue Ridge Music Center - a state-of-the-art performing arts facility built to preserve and promote the historic music of Virginia and the Blue Ridge.

We experienced the music of the regions.  Fiddle and banjo traditions of Virginia and North Carolina.  From the old-time string bands, ballad singing, and dancing that define the music of Southwest Virginia, Northwest North Carolina, and Tennessee of blues influences and growth of bluegrass.

Cumberland Knob

is where the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway was started in 1935 as a part of President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps.

Air Bellows Gap in North Carolina elevation is 3729'.  we see a long-range view of an area of mixed agriculture in the regions.  The Christmas tree industry is introduced and ranked second in the nation for Christmas tree sales and produces over 20% of the live Christmas trees grown in the United States.

Mount Mitchell - peak in North Carolina is the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains 6,684' surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest.  Determined the height of the range exceeded by several hundred feet that of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Stanley W. Abbott, a Cornell-educated landscape architect was the first employee on the scene in 1933.  He was given permission to get to know the region and think about how to build a graceful road through the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains,.










Sunday, October 17, 2021

Mill Run, PA Flight 93 Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater House 10/17 - 10/19/2021 Travel Tour

                                             From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com                                                                                                              Tim and Linda Bunyan

We scooted out of New York and headed directly west on Interstate 78 to Pennsylvania to Mill Run at Yogi Jellystone RV Park for 2 nights @ $39.00/night.


As we left the Big Apple in the rearview mirror and found the calm of rolling hills and corn fields surrounding the roadside in PA.  We noticed we were in the open countryside where the fateful airline had gone down.  We knew it was a moment to pay tribute at the Flight 93 National Memorial.

The site of United Airlines Flight 93's September 11, 2001 crash is now       a memorial with a Wall of Names.


One day a common country field; now only a field of honor forever. 
 The memorial is built to commemorate the crash of UA Flight 93 which was one of four aircraft hijacked during the September 11 attacks in 2001.
44 people died  The crater was backfilled and now the impact site and hemlock grove remain.  That area is open only to the families of the passengers and crew of Flight 93.




A somber morning turned child-like in the afternoon as we checked
 into our RV Campground named: Yogi Jellystone  

Located in the beautiful Laurel Highlands, the campground features train rides, a carousel, paintball (no we did not participate) Yogi Bear's Wetland, and waterslides.

We visited "Fallingwater" a historic house designed in 1935 by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for the Kaufmann family.  The family owned Pittsburgh's largest department store and they asked for a vacation home.  (Kaufmann's). 




Fallingwater is designed to rise above the waterfall over which it is built.

  
Quarried native sandstone and other local materials from the property were used in the construction of the main house, guest house, and service wing.  Fallingwater is surrounded by 5,100 acres of natural land, streams and trails known as the Bear Run Nature Reserve.

It remains a part of history named the 'best all-time work of American architecture"  On July 10, 2019, UNESCO inscribed the Fallingwater building to the World Heritage List.  It is a National Historic Landmark.

                                               As we travel we realize: 

                       "America's Landmarks will change the way we all see the world."

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Lido Beach, New York Nickerson Beach Camp Ground 10/12 - 10/16 Travel Tour

                                                From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com                                                                                                              Tim and Linda Bunyan

Checked in to NY Nickerson Beach Campground in Lido Beach.  It borders the Atlantic Ocean with a 121-acre park with beaches, swimming, and fun for the family.  3 Nights $216.00.


Jones Beach Theater is an outdoor amphitheater at Jones Beach State Park.  Jimmy Buffet performed here many times.  

Fire Island National Seashore is a 32-mile-long and a mile-wide center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island.  

The Fire Island Light House is a landmark on the Great South Bay.  It is an important and historic landmark for transatlantic ships entering New York Harbor at the turn of the last century.   For many European immigrants, the Fire Island Light was their first sight of land upon arrival in America.

Edward J. Riegelmann played a leading role in the creation of the long boardwalk as part of an ambitious plan to rejuvenate Coney Island and the beach.  The Riegelmann  Boardwalk is a 2.7-mile long boardwalk along the southern shore of the Coney Island peninsula in the NY City borough of Brooklyn, facing the Atlantic Ocean.

this is an 8-mile-long parkway on Long Island.  It is named for the master builder and urban planner Robert Moses.  

Coney Island Beach and Boardwalk is an ideal summer respite.  3 miles of sandy beaches and summertime sunny and ocean waves make for the perfect getaway.  Off-season we gaze up at the iconic Parachute Jump at the NY Aquarium, The Abe Stark Ice Skating Rink

Nathan's Famous, Inc. This is the original Nathan's restaurant at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Founded: 1916.l  It began as a nickel hot dog stand and bears the name of its co-founder Nathan Handwerker who started the business with his wife, Ida.  Ida created the hot dog recipe and the secret spice recipe.  The Coney Island Hot Dog is topped with meat sauce with mustard and chopped onions.  The Major League Baseball named Nathans as an official hot dog sponsor.


The Queens Museum at Flushing Meadows Corona Park
 in Queens, NY.   An educational center

 founded in 1972 and  A room-sized scale model of the five boroughs.has permanent exhibitions. A room-sized scale model of the five boroughs built for the 1964 NY World's Fair and repeatedly updated since then. The Panorama of the City of New York.  


Tiffany Exhibit



Flushing Meadows: The NY City Pavilion
 stands near the Trylon and Perisphere.  The Unisphere still stands today.

We strolled the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park manicured lawn and benches.

Grandstand Stadium for the US Open Tennis competition.  It is situated in the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, New York.  The stadium can seat 8,000 people, owned by the United States Tennis Association.

Tim has mapped out our route (with RV in tow) through NY on our way to Harrisburg, PA to stay at the Elks Lodge.  We stop at the :

Washington's Headquarters Museum in Morristown, New Jersey.  In 1776, Washington's officers had used Jacob Arnold's Tavern located on the Morristown Green in the urban center as the army's headquarters; Washington himself stayed in nearby Ford Mansion.  


George Washinton, Circa 1791 oil /  Attributed to Edward Savage (1761-1817).  A multi-talented artist who, though initially self-taught, studied in England before
 establishing himself in New York.

Commemorating the sites of General Washinton and the Continental Army's winter encampment of December 1779 to June 1780 where they survived the coldest winter on record.