Large Scale Railway Society

One of my mom's neighbors is a member of the Large Scale Railway Society and has a huge train layout in his back yard. They open it up to the public twice a year. We were fortunate to be able to be here the day they did.

The boys really enjoyed watching the trains (what kid doesn't?). Mom and I were amazed at the amount of detail in the landscaping. There were lots of plants, scrubs, and even water features.

The group has a website here:

http://www.cnylsrs.com/


They also have a permanent display set up in Drivers Village in Cicero, New York. Enjoy the photos and the video!

Table set up for donations... admission is free,

but it was amazing and I definitely would pay to see it!

The layout

(This one is for you dad....)

Firestation

The logging train

Sky and Liam getting a closeup view.

Dover AFB

I have to say I was a bit disappointed in the base in Dover. It is one of the smallest bases I have been on. The base is split... one side of the highway has the housing area, the other has the rest of the base. There is one main road that has most of the buildings on it. There is a shopette, bowling alley, movie theater, commissary, and BX.

The base has a Family camp. It has only 10 sites, 3 are electric and water, 7 are full hookups. It is way at the end of base... after you go past the archery range, and firing range. It sits right on the end of the runway. Where we were staying we could look out our window and see the huge planes sitting right next to us. There was also an aero-club that has small planes. It sat next to the campground as well.

When we were there, the weather hovered at around 95 degrees... with about 95% humidity. The campground had a couple of trees, but for the most part there wasn't much shade. We ran the air conditioning in the motor home constantly, and it wasn't much help. The sun beat down on the motorhome and it got so hot! UGH!

The one saving grace was the pool on the housing side of base. There was a pool for the housing itself, but you had to be living in housing to swim. The other pool cost $3 per person per day, but it was open to anyone who had access to base. The pool was huge and had a great big water slide. We went there 3 times during the week we stayed in Dover.

Sky in line for the slide

Sky ready to jump in the 5' area

Splash!

Skyler and Liam's swimming got so much better this summer. They both basically got over their fear of the water and actually started to swim, tread water, and float. The slide dumped into the 5 ' part of the pool, so Liam chose to wear a lifejacket while going down it... but he would take it off and actually swim as well.

Liam giving me the thumbs up

from the top of the slide

Liam hitting the water

"That was AWESOME!"

I loved that every 45 minutes they had an adult swim! They made all the kids get out of the water, and no-one under 18 was allowed in the pool. It was great because I got a chance to swim and go down the slide. The kids didn't think it was that great... but they made the best of it by playing in the kiddie pool.

I know we will find cool things to do while in Delaware, when we are there. I have always found good things about every state we have visited or lived in. So... goodbye Delaware for now. We'll be back to explore!

Bowers Beach, Delaware

After spending the day at Rehobeth beach, we decided to try one that was closer and maybe less crowded. We went to Bowers Beach which is about 6 miles from Dover AFB. Not being an "ocean" beach kinda girl, I forgot to check the tides. The beach was at low tide... so much for SWIMMING! We could have walked out a mile and it still would have been knee deep.


Bowers Beach at low tide

Even at low tide, the kids enjoyed the beach. We were talking to a guy that had a camp on the beach. We learned all about the beach. The beach is a mating beach for horseshoe crabs. About 5 weeks previous he said there were about 2,000 horseshoe crabs up on the beach! I wish I could have seen that! The kids found some of the crabs that didn't make it. They carried them up onto the beach and had a horseshoe crab display set up for us.

The boys and a new friend

with their horseshoe crab display

Huge horseshoe crab shells

Smaller horseshoe crab shells

One lady was out walking on the beach and found that some of the horseshoe crabs had started to hatch. If you look closely at this photo, she is holding a baby horseshoe crab. It was small than her fingernail! The kids were amazed that something so small grew to be so big!

Baby horseshoe crab

It was a fun morning at the beach even though we didn't get to swim. The kids saw jellyfish, and lots and lots of snails. They built a sand castle and gathered shells and rocks. Then we drove back to the base and cooled off in the pool.

Rehobeth Beach, Delaware

We decided to check out the famous Rehobeth Beach and board walk while we were visiting Delaware. I was so glad that I went online and checked it out first! It was a nice drive down to the lower part of Delaware; the beach is located where the bay empties out into the ocean.

The entire beach and boardwalk area is lined with parking spots all with parking meters. The areas of town that don't have parking meters, you need to go and get a parking pass (which costs money, of course) to park. We didn't park on the main street... because I got tired of driving around and around waiting for an open spot. The place we found to park was fairly close to the beach so we didn't have far to walk. I had come prepared with a roll of quarters!

When we came up to the beach, all I saw was wall to wall umbrellas! It was early afternoon and the beach was full of people. The photos that are shown here were taken later in the day when the beach cleared out a little....

I let the kids splash in the waves but, because they are not strong swimmers, I wouldn't let them actually swim. I was watching the water and there was a pretty good undertow and current. There were lifeguards every 20 feet or so along the beach.

Sky and Liam checking out the waves

Building a sandcastle -

next time we need to bring shovels and pails!


After enjoying the afternoon in the scorching hot sun and getting sunburned, we decided to go check out some of the shops and walk on the boardwalk.

Liam and Sky with candy filled stomachs

enjoying a fresh squeezed lemonade

Posing for a photo on the boardwalk

We stopped at the candy store and bought some fresh made candy. Then we had fresh squeezed lemonade. We bought some shovels, beach mats, and a castle making mold for the next trip to the beach.

It was getting late, it was SO hot, and we were all getting irritable. It was time to get in the air-conditioned car and drive back to Dover. It was a fun trip. Next time we will stay later into the evening and hit the carnival on the boardwalk!

Responsible for the future......

"The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future."

~ Gifford Pinchot (1865 - 1946) ~

One thing that I have been learning a lot about on this trip is environmental science. In fact, it is one of the classes that I just finished for my associates degree. I was excited to visit Grey Towers National Historic Site in Milford, Pennsylvania.

http://www.fs.fed.us/na/gt/index.shtml

Besides being a beautiful old historic mansion with lovely gardens and landscaping, it was owned by an amazing man who was a pioneer in conservation. We took the tour through the mansion. I was disappointed that it only showed the three downstairs rooms and the grounds. From what I understand, the first tour of the day on Saturday does a complete mansion tour and if we were staying in the area, I would definitely do that tour.

A view of the hills

Tower

A view of the back of the mansion

The guide had a scavenger hunt book for the kids to do while on the tour. They really enjoyed that. They got to get a prize at the end of the tour for completing it.

Sky and Liam with the scavenger book

The great hall had a lot of furniture that the Pinchots had collected on their travels. This was their summer home.

The building itself was based on a French chateau design. In France, the home owners were taxed by the amount of closets they had... so people used wardrobes instead of closets. The Pinchots followed this tradition in the mansion.

A corner of the library

The library was immense and very impressive. There was a set of hand tinted books on New York that were appraised at $10,000 for the set.

The last room of the tour was painted with "trump de l'oeil" paintings throughout. This room and fireplace were painted with a nautical theme.

The grounds had some interesting buildings and walkways. Everything was done in stone. We really enjoyed walking the grounds and learning about the Pinchot family.

The reflecting pool

Stone walkway

The baitbox - a "playhouse"

Row, row, row the boat... out on Lewey Lake!

Before we left the Adirondacks, I wanted to stay in one of the state parks we saw while driving around. I thought it would be a good time to test the motorhome while "dry camping". Since we had problems with the battery keeping a charge, I wanted to make sure it was fixed and that the battery would provide enough power to dry camp.

(For those of you who do not camp, dry camping is when you camp with no water, electric, or sewer hookups.)

We decided to stay at Lewey Lake State Park. It is between Indian Lake and Speculator. What a great campground! Originally I had just thought we would stay one night, but we had so much fun we stayed two. The first night we stayed at a spot on the river off of the lake. It was gorgeous but pretty close to the road. For the second night, I moved us to the next spot over. It still had the great beach access but was a bit further away from the road.


Campsites on the water

Since we were dry camping, I decided we had to at least make ONE of our meals over the fire. Here is the meal... corn on the cob, rice, steak and foil chicken. It was good (if I do say so myself) and the kids even ate the food.


Cooking over the fire

There is a beach at the campground (with a life guard). The water was nice and clear. The swimming area had a nice sandy bottom... although it didn't get very deep. We enjoyed swimming both days we were there.


Obviously the ducks think they are above following the rules!



Making friends wherever they go

The campground rents out canoes, kayaks, and row boats. . The boys wanted to rent a canoe, but I thought a row boat would be better. I remembering a certain canoe trip, in the rain, when we were going around in circles because I couldn't paddle well enough to keep up. (SORRY DAD!) We took the boat out to a little island and around the lake. We docked it at our campsite and later rowed it back to the beach and went swimming.

Skyler did a good job rowing

Liam - "this is harder than it looks!"

Docking the boat at our campsite

The ducks came into the weeds near our site to look for bugs. The boys wanted to feed them, so I let them. Obviously they are used to humans feeding them, because within seconds we were over-run with ducks!

What do you feed the ducks? Quackers of course!

Rascal didn't mind the ducks coming up to the campsite. He did, however, have an issue with the bull frogs. He really didn't know what to make of them! It was so funny watching him. He would hear them and he would whip his head around and look... then he would run to the end of his leash and stand there staring at the water.

Rascal trying to figure out where all the noise was coming from

The only complaint I had about the campground was that the available shower house was out near some of the campsites that lined the road and not in the main section of the campground. Other than that, it was really nice. I would recommend it and would go back again!

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24475.html

I will close the blog with some pictures I took through the time we were there. Enjoy the view... we did!