Tag Archives: Colonial America

My Colonial States Trip~Part 9

14 Jan

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill Small Red Plane

After looking over the P-61 restoration project and talking to one of the museum’s volunteers, I decided not to try to visit the Golden Age Air Museum in Bethel, PA or Jerry’s Classic Cars in Pottsville, PA since I needed to be heading south and not north. So, my next stop was to visit the Choo Choo Barn model train museum in Strasburg, PA which has a large model train display that features over 150 hand-built animated figures and vehicles and 22 operating trains. This display includes miniature replicas of such Lancaster county places as The Willows Restaurant, the Dutch Wonderland amusement park, and the Strasburg Railroad.

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As it turned out, and since I was in the middle of Dutch country, Isaac’s Famous Grilled Sandwiches restaurant was right next door to the Choo Choo Barn, so I stopped in and had one of their hot Reuben sandwiches for lunch. Yumm, was that ever good!

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Then I slid over to the Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster, PA where I discovered a small living history village, depicting the early 1740s German culture in that part of Pennsylvania. There was a large Mennonite cemetery adjacent to the village and I wasn’t sure if it was associated with the museum or not.

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Next it was over to take a look at the Haines Shoe House located in Hallam, PA that sits all by itself, out in the middle of a field, just off Shoe House Road. Built by shoe salesman, Mahlon Haines in 1948 as a form of advertisement, Haines gave the architect a boot and said, “Build me a house like this.” And he did. Mahlon claimed that his boots were all-inclusive, or what he called from “Hoof-to-Hoof” because the company did all of the boot making process starting with the raising of the cattle to the finished product.

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Then another few miles down the road I visited the Golden Plough Tavern in York, PA, but it was closed, so I worked my way back to the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA. As I walked up to the museum from the parking lot, there was a guy sitting under a tree, all by himself, playing a clarinet.   The museum’s exhibition covers the period from 1850 to 1876, with the major focus being on the Civil War years of 1861-1865. The collection has over 24,000 artifacts, photographs, documents and manuscripts related to those historic years in our history. When I exited the museum to look out over the scenic Susquehanna River valley, not far from where the 1863 Sporting Hill skirmish took place during the Gettysburg campaign, the guy was still playing. His music was enchanting and very restful and it really set the stage for the view from the top of the Prospect Hill where the museum is located.

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—–To Be Continued—–

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My Colonial States Trip~Part 1

19 Nov

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Bill Red Spot Plane

 

Since I always wanted to visit the northeastern U.S. Colonial States during the fall foliage color change, I decided to give late September and early October a try this year. My primary museum resource was, of course, my “Guide to Over 900 Aircraft Museums – USA & Canada,” which gave me an approximate route for my trip. Next came the airline and rental car research. One friend, who had lived in the Boston area and still had relatives living there, recommended the Providence, RI airport for two reasons. One, because Southwest Airlines (I could fly free with points) had non-stop flights from Orlando to the T.F. Green airport in Warwick, RI; and two, because it was a smaller airport with much less hassle than JFK or LaGuardia.   When I checked out the rental car prices, I found I could save over $250 by renting the same car at a downtown Providence location instead of at the airport. That savings would go a long way toward paying for my gas on this trip. Here again my Boston friend was able to assist me with Rapid Transit information to and from the airport to Providence. On most of my trips I find that talking to friends who have lived in the areas I plan to visit is a great source of valuable information. Next, I researched the Internet for “Things to do” and “Points of Interest” in the major cities of the states where my initial route seemed to be taking me. This narrowed the route down to more specific locations along the way. Then I approximated the distances between museums or attractions (including time at the museum/attraction) along my route to look for motel locations and rates (nights for the lowest points) so that hours on the road per day were reasonable. All this makes for a very time consuming process, but I enjoy the research and thinking about all the fun places and things I am going to be seeing.

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I had planned to start my first day (flight day) after arriving in the Providence area, to pick up my rental car, and then visiting a museum and a memorial park before checking into the motel for the night. I was a little concerned about the timing of all this because my flight was scheduled to arrive at the T. F. Green Airport at 12:50 pm and the commuter train left the airport stop for Providence at 1:25 pm. If the plane was late, it would mess up my whole evening as the next commuter train would not leave the airport until 3:55 pm. My Boston friend assured me that I would have plenty of time to make the 1:25 train and not to worry. Right, easy for him to say! Well, as it turned out, the flight was early getting into the T.F. Green Airport, and I got to the train stop in plenty of time. Interestingly, there was a young man waiting for the same train I was, and I asked him about how to know which train was my train. He kindly explained and come to find out he was from Melbourne, FL (about 40 miles from Titusville, FL where I live) and had been on the same flight that I was on from Orlando. He was there to visit relatives and was very helpful with information about the commuter train system.

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—–To Be Continued—–

 

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