The cart comes out when a new pitcher comes in. In days gone by the pitcher would actually ride the cart, but that’s rare nowadays.
Left off L, right off 10th, skeddale on K.
Easy as shelling peas.
Not in this town. The sparrows don’t fart before 10am in Washington.
By then I was well ensconced in Gettysburg.
22:00 Eastern Gettysburg Day21 enigma.crashing.equals
Moderately early start saw Rog, Katie and I reunited. If they were unappreciative of being locked away for a few days, they kept shtoom. Getting out of DC seemed much easier than getting in. The George Washington Parkway was a single lane for most of it’s duration. Felt like a bit of a turkey shoot but we cleared the capital and made good time without pushing.
As remarked on the way in, the countryside seems to encroach very close to Washington and soon we are traversing the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. We passed plenty of familiar placenames. I need to confess that most of my knowledge of Gettysburg has been gleaned through the prism of Ken Burns’ signature work.
So what’d we do today? First off was the Gettysburg: Beyond the Battle exhibition at the Adams County Historical Society. It was only opened in April 2023. Takes a different perspective of the conflict i.e. from the non-combatants. It’s a better than average display which leads up to the show piece, an immersive simulation of a family caught in the cellar of their home as Gettysburg is overrun by the Confederates.
Then we headed to the main Gettysburg Visitor Centre and a tour of the Cyclorama. I wasn’t aware of this artwork (all 22 feet (6.7 m) high and 279 feet (85 m) in circumference), which is a superb achievement in and of itself. But take that as the basis and overlay a well constructed sound and light show and you have an educational and entertaining attraction.
Then I hoofed it along the trail to Meade’s HQ on Cemetery Ridge and along Hancock Avenue festooned with markers of a great range of sizes and shaped denoting where various Union units were stationed at the start of July 3rd. There was a mad burst of rain part way through but it would have been disrespectful to stop because of it.
By the time I got back to the visitor centre I needed change of clothes as I was wet, drenched with sweat and footsore. But I judge it a successful day. I’m doing the bus tour of the battlefield sites tomorrow.
An item from yesterday I didn’t record. At the baseball I purchased a bottle of water. The label was an marvel of advertising.
There’s just a little ambiguity and misinformation there!
Dinner tonight was Borough BBQ where dry rub wings and pork spare ribs were washed down with a local beer called Blood Money from Conshohocken Brewing. Nice notes of blood orange in an IPA. Good stuff.
21:00 Eastern Gettysburg Day22 enigma.crashing.equals
Most of the day was taken up by a bus tour around the battlefield, which took a couple of hours and then I did the auto tour again, and more completely this time.
I’m guessing the well informed and contextual SDMB are rather familiar with events on those days. So rather than sing to the choir:
Some things I didn’t know or appreciate the significance.
- The why of Gettysburg was about logistics. Not shoes.
- Only one civilian was killed at Gettysburg during the battle
- Unexploded ordinance continued to kill Gettysburg residents for years.
- One civilian fought at Gettysburg. On the Union side. Wounded three times. Taken to hospital by the Confederates. Ended up meeting the President.
- The armies buried their dead soldiers, they left the dead horses for the citizens to dispose.
- All the buildings in Gettysburg are subject to overview in maintaining their facades in period fashion/style … except for Gettysburg College.
- Basil Biggs was a free black and tenant farmer whose livelihood was destroyed during the battle but he took a job reinterning Union dead in the National Cemetery and with the proceeds bought the farm.
- 50% of the shells fired on both sides did not explode.
- Due to the valley filling with smoke, both sides artillery overshot targets, elsewise the carnage would have been far worse.
- The Emittsburg Road is much closer to the Union lines than I thought.
- Dan Sickert nearly buggered the whole thing for the Union.
- There is a small creek/stream at the bottom of Little Roundtop.
- The battlefield is dotted with markers for Union unit positions, but there is only one marker for a Confederate unit position.
- The markers generally get larger and more elaborate the longer after the battle they were placed.
- The Peach Orchard still has peach trees.
- There’s no wheat planted in The Wheatfield.
- While the main battlefield is largely free of boulders the area around the Roundtops are granite extrusions.
- There may be as many as 1,00 bodies, mainly Confederate, still on the battlefield.
… and plenty of others
On more mundane things:
What is it with Americans taking their bloody pets on holiday with them? It’s usually dogs, not cats or hippos or budgies. Almost exclusively fucking yelping, yapping rodent sized lap dog canines. About 12 % of the guests in this hotel have brought a dog with them. Folks, if you are saving on having that extra child by getting a surrogate, you really should invest some of that spondule and stash Pluto in a kennel somewhere handy to home.
On a similar topic a lot of hotels include a breakfast in the tariff. Sometime basic, sometimes the full American buffet. So if you are going the full hog and offer grilled eggs, bacon, sausages, muffins, three types of bread to toast, danish pastries, bagels with smoked salmon and four different yoghurts and cereals could you put fresh milk out to maintain with the wholesome theme? Not dinky 4 oz packs of long-life UHT which taste like aging polyethylene plasticiser? Do the full 9 yards, not scrimp with 8 3/4.
Had dinner at the hole. Nice NY cut steak and a couple of IPA.
Tomorow, ducks all lining up it’s to Staten Island to park and then via ferry to Manhattan. Will chalk up 5,000 miles traveled during the stage.
21:30 Eastern New York City Day23 candle.corn.split
Mission half-accomplished. LA to NYC in 3 weeks and 8k km or 5k American.
An observation; in the past three weeks I’ve seen a lot of road signs. In particular bridges over varying scales of waterways. Usually the signage will tell you the name of the bridge. It’s uncommon to see signage of the name of the waterway. Is that the usual organisation or have I been missing things?
Made my usual 7:30am start which Kate said would get me into Staten Island just before noon. But this wasn’t going to work because my parking wasn’t available until 2pm.
So with 2 hours up my sleeve, through serendipity I found a park whose name I recognised and killed some time at Graeme Park at Horsham, PA. The park is the only surviving residence of a colonial governor of Pennsylvania Sir William Keith and dates back to 1722. Keith was of course a conniving Pommie bastard who to the property as payment for anothers debt. Keith was rarely resident and in 1939 sold the property to Dr Thomas Graeme who renamed the real estate.
The house and barn aren’t open on Thursdays, but in the well manicured pastoral surrounds with a sizable flock of Canada Geese watching on suspiciously I took a pleasant lunch break.
Resuming progress along the I-76 which is a good road to cruise along and then onto I-95. Serious aspersions have been cast by some on the adverse experience of driving I-95 but I found it a breeze. Rog was able to cruise on 65/70 mph. Traffic was moderate and considerate. Kate got me to the #13 exit with plenty of notice. then over the Goethals Bridge, under Bayonne Bridge then stopped by Richmond Terrace Park opposite Shooters Island with views over Kill Van Kull until 2pm ticked over. Not really sure what I expected Staten Island to look like, but I got it wrong. No high rise, sort of gentrified down market seaside town … with a large ferry terminal. Dropped Rog off without a problem. Hoping I can get him out again on Monday. Caught the 3pm ferry. The whole trip done without hassle, and to schedule.
Then I get the introduction to NYC traffic in a cab to the hotel. Holy shit. Yep, good decision not to drive into Lower East side. 
Room has a view straight down Manhattan Bridge.
Plan tomorrow is to wander around lower Manhattan and over to Dumbo. Brave the subway and see touristy things. Saturday evening am seeing Hamilton and Sunday afternoon it’s Yankees v Cubs.
They probably wanted your lunch.
That’s only part of the problem. Parking’s the other part.
Unless you’ve absolutely got to haul something that you can’t carry on public transit, leaving the car outside Manhattan is definitely the way to go.
Wandering around Manhattan can be a lot of fun.
23:30 Eastern New York City Day24 candle.corn.split
Wandered the streets of New York for about 12 hours. OK, in reality a couple of those I was on a ferry but hyperbole ain’t what it used to be.
With a 7am start Chinatown was much like every other Chinatown I’ve ever walked down. Little Italy was still asleep. Didn’t get much north of Canal St today but wandered the Lower East like a drunken sailor. Got down to the Staten Island ferry terminal and Battery Park via St Pauls, Tammany Hall, the NYSE, the Trump Building, the Bull of Wall Street, walked Brooklyn Bridge, got my photo from Dumbo on Washingto St of the Manhattan Bridge imitating “Once Upon A Time In America”. Took the South Brooklyn ferry as far south as Bay Ridge. The Cunards Queen Mary 2 is in dock at Red Hook.
Air quality was not the best. No problem with breathing myself but all the photos look like they have been taken through panes of window glass. There were far less people around than I imagined. Holidays?
Then I invested USD4 for a round trip on the SoundView ferry from Pier 11 (Wall Street) to Ferry Point Park (Throgs Neck) which would have to be the best value tourist trip available. Of particular interest for me was the Hell Gate Bridge which John Bradfield aspired/plagarised to build his Sydney Harbour Bridge. Was also impressed with the current flowing down the East River. I presume it’s influenced by the tide but it was ripping around Rikers Island
There is an old architecture meme that there are only two types of skyscrapers. Ones with flat roofs and ones with pointy roofs. A flat roof means “we were going to build it higher, but we ran out of money”. A pointy roof means “we were going to build it higher, but we thought it might fall over”. New York has several variations on those principles.
Dinner was a selection of fried and boiled Korean dumplings from Sanmigwago which were superb.
Hopefully there aging pins can continue to carry me tomorrow.
We recommend the “potted plant” at The Spot Dessert Bar, in Manhattan.
If you’re still in NY, check out the tenement museum.
It’s a fascinating re-creation of daily life in the 1890’s.
You feel the experience of the millions of poor immigrants who arrived in America, starting with nothing, working in sweatshops, and eventually shaping the country’s culture.
Diary not posted yesterday due to late return from “Hamilton”.
Looked at that option. Thank you.
Museum isn’t far from my digs but a tour wasn’t available until 11:30am and I wanted to be elsewhere by that time.
First day’s interaction with the NYC subway system which left it unmagnanimously victorious and myself bruised, battered, footsore and fiscally stung. Bought a weekly pass on Friday. Went to use it Saturday and there seemed to be no funds on the card. So I added USD20 cash because I found had the only teller machine in NYC which won’t recognise my card. Then the card readers at Canal St entrance gates wouldn’t read the Metrocard when swiped. Got on through and onto the Q line by swiping the credit card directly. Unequal battle with the system duly lost.
Got myself to 42nd St fine. Wandered around the precinct inc. Times Square and soaked up that atmosphere, though it seemed parallel to Beale St in Memphis, streetscape sweltering in the summer waiting for the lights to come on. Took my lunch at Patis Cafe, which was a good feed though USD35 is a fair bit of dosh for a toasted cheese sandwich. Due to familiarity, took my pre-show snack there as well.
The weather was hot and muggy, with unscheduled light bursts of rain to keep the humidity at the top of the dial. The occasional gust of wind was appreciated. The vendors with their street stalls and sweat boxes earned their living today.
Then proceeded north through Central Park, past scenes from “Hair” and onto the Guggenheim. Was sweating so profusely that I should have declared my shirt as a biological weapon. Sorta got the thermoregulation back under control with a slushie and then luxuriated in the museums aircon. Let it be written on my tombstone … “He went to the NYC Guggenheim and only spent 2 hours there”! Amazing building for it’s purpose. Give myself a bit of slack, the GEGO: Measuring Infinity retrospective was more of engineered installation art with geometric arrays of kinetic structures using string, wire and beads to this philistine. The Sarah Sze exhibition Timelapse was more to my thinking and habit. Her 2016 piece Timekeeper looked disturbing like several rooms in my house.
Picked up a nice selection of New Yorker prints and then headed back to hotels in preparation for the evening. My Metrocard worked, leading me into a sense of overconfidence. Washed the grime and sweat off, selected a new outfit then back out for the 8:00pm session of Hamiliton at Richard Rogers Theatre.
The show is patently lauded, long running and widely staged. You can even see it in Sydney. Still it was a full house with a queue of hopefuls outside for the chance of a cancellation. Alas, as an aging geezer Hip hop is not really my genre and I struggled with the lyrics. I kept thinking of similarities to the plot of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. “Not Throwing My Shot Away”. They put the boot into Thomas Jefferson, but as a sequel to my impressions at Monticello, that fitted some preformed notions well. “What’d I Miss?” Thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The trip home was tedious. Crowds pf people, a bit like I expected for the entire city. Horns blaring. Police, fire brigade, ambulances, taxis. The GPS seemed to get me to 42nd St via concentric circles. How that happens with sequential street numbers is beyond my ken. I’ll blame time delays on the GPS. Then I discover I found my way to the bus terminal. The subway entrance on 42nd is closed, entry is off 8th which took a while to navigate to. Q series trains were not running but eventually located a platform with a train heading south. The 15min wait were filled with “entertainment” a group for four who were screaming torrents of abuse back and forth. Nobody else seemed to give a toss. Then they got on the next train as meekly as lambs. Got home fairly late and took my third shower of the day. Summertime and the livin’ ain’t so easy.
Today is last full day in NYC. Have a baseball game and will see if the body can handle more excitement. The remaining question is getting Rog out of confinement.
I think I’m going to enjoy getting back on the road.
Yeah. Back when I was less crowd-phobic, I used to enjoy Manhattan a lot – for about three days at a time. More was too much.
Eventually my tolerance got down to more like three hours. As it takes more than three hours to get into and out of Manhattan, I quit going there. Mileage obviously varies a great deal – there are people who don’t want to live anywhere else.
21:30 Eastern New York City Day26 candle.corn.split
Last day in NYC.
Had thought about a helicopter tour this morning but they don’t operate on Sundays. Plan B was a wander around Chinatown and Little Italy.
Then for Round2 vs NYC Metro to get to Yankee Stadium.
Those in the know, know that the Green Line splits three ways. I know that too … now. By the time I had figured out what the GPS was telling me I was on the wrong line and way of course in Hunters Point, Queens. I popped up for a look and asked a traffic cop which was the best way to get to the Stadium. He said straight-faced that he didn’t know how to do it??? I presume he’s just fucking with a tourist?
Anyhow back to 125th St and across platforms onto a 4 'cause the 5s weren’t running and there we are nicely alighting on 161 St in good time. A big crowd of people getting in with long queues which move steadily. It was Hawaiian shirt theme day. The ball club were giving away 12,000 and I got one. They look more like a pastel blue pajama top but it’s a nice memento. All my interactions with stadium staff were polite, friendly and productive.
The experience was improved over the Washington game. Still not sold. I guess the key for me is how little involvement most of the playing team have. It’s a duel between two, which I guess is the game. I reckon I could have plotted the Yankee right fielder to the same What3words code for most of the game. Base hits seem to come predominantly from shanks into the outfield 'cause all batters are power swinging for the back fence. This comes from a guy who can watch cricket for 6 hours for 5 days.
The game itself was one of 2-1/3 with the Yankees playing literally like millionaires and looking home and hosed until the top of the 7th when leading 4-1. Then things went bung. They pulled the starting pitcher. The bullpen leaked runs. It started to belt rain and play was suspended for a while. In the stands, we got hosed, then they got hosed and they lost 4-7. That makes me 0-2 for career MBL home games. I’m Kiss-o’-Death, Baby! Am available for hire if required.
Trip back was largely uneventful, considering the train was filled with ticked of New York fans. Back to Sanmigwago for dinner and preparing to get my ass outa town.
The plan is to get to Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region for a winery/brewery based Dopefest.
Those in the know, know that nobody calls it the NYC Metro. The Metro is in DC. It’s the subway, even though much of it isn’t subterranean.
And nobody calls the different lines in NYC by their color–that’s in Boston or DC. In NYC they’re referred to by their numbers or letters, so it’s the 4-5 lines that you mean, not the Green.
As for the traffic cop not knowing how to get to Yankee Stadium by subway, he quite possibly wasn’t messing with you and just didn’t know. Many of them don’t live in the city; a large number live in the suburbs. They don’t take the subway.
And 2 pieces of anecdata here:
- my husband was born in NYC, and has lived there or in the suburbs just outside for all of his life. He’s been to Yankee Stadium only once, when he was 55 years old.
- Yes, the city is relatively empty in summer. Lots of people who live in the area go away in July/August, to the Hamptons or Montauk, upstate, the Jersey Shore, or further afield. My husband and I are in Maine, and my son just got back from Puerto Rico.
Also, count me in among those who haven’t seen Hamilton and don’t plan to. The concept sounds fascinating, but the music just isn’t my style.
Indeed, and this is a change that’s happened in the game over the last couple of decades.
Baseball managers and coaches now have access to a wealth of data about what works and what doesn’t, much more so than they had in the past. Generally speaking, they’ve determined that trying to hit the ball in the air (in hopes of a home run or an extra-base hit) has a better chance of producing runs than trying for ground-ball hits, and so, most batters are trained to do exactly this now.
There used to be a style of play in MLB which was often referred to as “small ball”: trying to produce runs through ground-ball hits, stolen bases, etc. It’s fallen out of favor; even though it’s exciting to watch, the stats show that it’s usually less likely to produce wins. So, modern baseball has low batting averages, and fewer attempts to “produce” runs on the basepaths; it’s a lot of station-to-station base movement, waiting for someone to crush the ball.
Just FYI, I’m not a big hiphop fan either, but that’s not the only musical genre in the score. I listened to the original B’way cast CD and quite liked it!
I’m not a hip-hop fan in the slightest, but I watched a recording of the original cast production of it (including Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton) on Disney+ in 2020, early on in the pandemic, and I really enjoyed it.
22:00 Eastern Watkins Glen Day27 minimum.precluded.long
The exit from NYC was performed with panache, almost as if it was planned. Started in good time, a cab from Chinatown to Battery Point. Take Staten Island Ferry. Collected vehicle. Rog and Kate didn’t seem to be holding grudges. Traffic flowed nicely and we were clear of the city by a bit after 9am. Simple as that!
Stopped at the New York State Visitor Centre off I-81 Kirkwood, NY for a break. Rather than a visitor centre it was more of a trade centre. Most of the stuff on display had a price tag on it. Not much in terms of maps, brochures or staff.
Anyhow the drama of the day was just after leaving there was a display message on the dash indicating that the boot door wasn’t secure. No problemo. So I pulled over on the shoulder, left Rog running and got out to quickly close the tail gate. Bzzzzz, Rog operates with a proximity key. Hence for some breached security protocol I couldn’t open or close the boot. OK, thinking through the issue I went to get the keys to unlock but now I couldn’t open the drivers door either. Nor the driverside rear door. At this point I was thinking of how I could break a window so I could get the keys out of the console. Then for some reason I was able to open the passenger side rear door. Relief unbounded.
After some cartographological difficulties in a one street town I found my hotel replete with panoramic views of Seneca Lake. Then made my way around to Burdett the other side and a dopefest at The Two Goats tap room. It was that appreciated that @thorny_locust was able to attend because to have just @Paintcharge and PT at 2 Goats was much too literal or apt for that matter, title for a dopefest.
Good selection of beers in a multiplicity of style on tap. Think I preferred their X-IPA.
An educational and wide ranging discussion ensued on a porch with salubrious background to the lake. Grand ending to a grand day.
Just a short run into Niagara tomorrow so might explore the region a bit more. The the question is whether I run the Canadian border or stay stateside through to Chicago.
If you have a chance, head north a few miles from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, to Niagara-on-the-Lake; it’s a charming little tourist town, located right where the Niagara River (downstream from the falls) empties into Lake Ontario. My wife and I spent a couple of days there during a vacation to Ontario a few years ago, and we’d happily go back for another visit.
I will second @kenobi_65 's suggestion. Niagara-on-the-Lake is a beautiful and historic little town, right in the heart of Ontario’s wine region. Fruit region too, and this time of year is close to where just about every farm will set up a stand to sell fresh produce. Either way, you can get some fine wines, maybe some fresh fruit, and learn a bit of American/Canadian history. Like that little time we got mad at each other (the War of 1812).
I’d suggest that you try the Canadian portion. Cross at Niagara Falls, and head north on the River Road to Niagara-on-the-Lake. From there, you can get on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) into Toronto. There are Toronto-area Dopers, if you want to see about a Toronto Dopefest (@RickJay and @Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela come to mind). and maybe take in a Toronto Blue Jays game—which would be your what? Third baseball game on this trip?
You don’t need to go to Toronto if you do not wish to, but at any rate, you will need to pick up Ontario Highway 401 westbound somewhere to head back to the US. That highway will take you right into Windsor, across the river from Detroit, and you can take either the Ambassador Bridge or the Detroit River Tunnel into Detroit. Follow the signs.
Or, if there is nothing in Detroit to attract you, you can avoid it totally. Cut off the 401 at about London, Ontario, and take the 402 to Sarnia, Ontario, where you can cross over to Port Huron, Michigan. From there, I believe (going on memory here) it’s I-94 to I-69, which will take you to I-80, which will shoot westward, just south of Chicago.
Whatever you decide to do, safe travels!
I’d suggest either Greenfield Village or a tour of the River Rouge Factory. The village takes at least half a day and is quite pleasant. The factory tour is a suprise to most people I’ve taken it to, its the a tour of the actual factory where they make the Ford F150 trucks and is very impressive.