The Museum of the City of New York

Today I went on another day trip to Manhattan with a group of 48 from the Bronx. We then went to lunch at The Sea Shore Restaurant in City Island.
Who even knew there was a museum called the "Museum of The City of New York?" Not me.

Its a really nice little museum that on Fifth Ave and 103rd St. that has exhibits about the history and culture of NY City. http://www.mcny.org/

Since this group was a church affiliated senior group, the exhibit we went to see was called "Catholics in NY," but there are several other exhibits that were even more appealing to me if not to these very Catholic ladies.

There is an exhibit about shows on Broadway, the history of NY Firefighters, and a few others, but the one that was a favorite was the toy and dollhouse exhibit. There were lots of antique toys and amazing dollhouses. Almost everyone saw a toy displayed that she had as a child, including me!

My San Francisco/ITMI Album

I finally finished putting my San Francisco/ITMI photos into an album presentation.
To view it, go here http://www.mypublisher.com/
Click in the upper right on "mybookshelf"
The order # is M826391 The password is 1308096

Go look.

Week Two, Day Seven..the Finish Line in Sight

Last day, we are off to Newport, Rhode Island and then thru Connecticut to JFK. We're not going to the casino this time but instead to the Tanger Outlets in Westbrook CT. It seems the Brits like shopping more than gambling.
Yesterday David (driver) asked me to change the departure time from 9:00 to 8:45 if possible, so I tried to reach as many group members as I could and ask them to come down to board the bus earlier than originally planned, if possible. So David and I went to the bus to get ourselves organized, plan our route, timing, lunchtime, biological reststops, and were about to bring the bus to the hotel entrance to pick up the group when David said, in his thick Puerto Rican accent, "Oh no, I hab to go to my ruum, I hab diareah!" So David goes waddling back to the hotel, he was literally taking baby steps thru the crowd of 50 people who were waiting to board the bus early, and he disappeared into the elevator. Everyone looked at me, understandably confused. So then I had to circulate thru the group and explain why I made them come down earlier than planned but now am making them wait to board the bus LATER than planned. Did I mention before that you can't make this stuff up?
One of my ladies, Constance Cullingford, is a retired history teacher in the UK. Great name for a history teacher, no? So she is obviously extremely interested in all things historical. Here's where serendipity makes an appearance again. She was touring the Mayflower II when she heard someone calling out..."Mrs. Cullingford, is that you...?"
She turned and saw someone she didn't completely recognize but who touched a familiar memory. It was one of her students from about 20 years ago! Amazing!!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Trouble in Paradise...resolved

Everything worked out fine. All the refugees were returned to this hotel for breakfast and they said they were treated very well, had a good dinner and they all got deluxe accomodations in this hotel for the remainder of our stay. Naturally I told them it was all at my insistence that they were compensated just so.
Mr. & Mrs. Roberts said their new room with the bed was more than satisfactory and the the whole episode was well worth the laughs they got out of it. Love them!
Tomorrow we are on to Plymouth, Plimoth Plantation and Hyannis. I can't believe the week is almost over. I have really grown attached to group 2.
I shot photos of each of them in David's (the driver) hat, that he wears when the sun is facing him. Everyone has commented about it so I thought it would be a good theme for the trip.

Trouble in Paradise

So we get to the hotel in Nantasket Beach after dark, but as it turns out that is the least of my worries. I get my stack of envelopes with room keys and begin to distribute to my group on the bus and it turns out that there is a key for a couple, the Lucas's who are not in my group. Not so bad, right?
Well the rest of the problem is that there are 4 couples and a single gent in my group who have no room assignments. The hotel is full so they need to transfer them to another hotel. They promise to have them back here by 7:00 AM for breakfast so we can then go on our guided city tour of Boston. They also promise to buy them dinner and drinks and give them delux rooms with a view tomorrow and Monday nights when they come back here.
So we get that all squared away and pack 9 people and their luggage in a van and send them off to the other hotel and I believe everything is now ok. So I go to my room and then decide to go down to the restaurant to make sure everyone is satisfied with their accomodations and I find Mr. and Mrs. Roberts at the front desk talking to the staff. I ask them what the problem is and they tell me that when they got to their room there was no bed in it! They called down to the front desk and reported the problem so the staff sent a bellman up with a bed and Mrs. Roberts had to supervise the assembly of the bed until the bellman gave up and they went back down to the desk and that's when I came upon the scene. As it turned out there was one room left ( the one that was assigned to a couple who was not in my group) and so the Roberts' are now in the Lucas's room, I don't know where the Lucas's are but they are not in my group so i really don't care about them.
Hopefully I will gather all my chicks tomorrow morning and we will procede to Boston. Who knows what evil lurks there.

A Round of Applause

Whenever we get off the bus I give the group a time that they must return and board the bus for the next leg of our journey. And when they come back I have to count everyone before we can leave. I have started a procedure whereby all of the people on the bus clap when the last person gets on the bus. Then we can begin. If the last person on the bus is late the applause is louder and more vigorous and sometimes is accompanied by verbal outbursts, everyone laughs and the last person on the bus is slightly embarassed, just enough to try to not be the last person on the bus the next time.

So tonight I made a "trophy" which I will have printed tomorrow. The person who gets recognized as the last person on the bus will take posession of the medallion until the next last one earns it.

Group 2 Does NY

So again we surprised them with a whirlwind visit to Manhattan. They took pictures furiously, shopped intensly, and met a horse in the Big Apple. Better than a worm, I guess.
They also saw The Naked Cowboy....I was so proud of my country at that moment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Cowboy

One guy in the group asked me where he could get peanut butter m&m's, he needed to bring them home for a friend. I told him I never knew of them but I was sure he meant Reese's Pieces.
So when I got off the bus I found a Duane Reade Drug store in Times Square, (not hard to do), and bought a bag of Reese's Pieces. When we got back on the bus I gave him the package, and he promptly showed me what he found...a bag of PEANUT BUTTER M&M's! Son-of-a-gun, you really DO learn something new everyday, don't you?!!

We traveled up the thruway to Vermont, and the colors in the Catskills and north were truly spectacular. No idea what Vermont looks like because, needless to say we arrived after dark, because of ridiculous traffic in NY City and beyond.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Picked up my second group at JFK and arrived at the NJ hotel earlier than we did last week, so things are looking good.
I was concerned that I might not like group 2 as much as group one but I think I was wrong. These are lovely people too, in fact I hardly remember group one!
Tomorrow...Manhattan. We are going to leave early and hope we get there in time to set them loose in Times Square again.
My objective this week is to iron out the kinks from last week, there weren't many but we can always do better, no?
Tomorrow I will shoot some pictures and post tomorrow night at the VT hotel.

Wrapping it Up

Here is about half of my group on the beach in Hyannis, a short way from the JFK Memorial.
After that we went to Plymouth and Plimoth Plantation. They really enjoyed that and I really enjoyed watching and hearing them interact with the characters because they actually knew the places in England that were spoken about and there was certainly no language barrier.

We leave tomorrow at 9:00 AM to head for the Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island http://www.cliffwalk.com/ and then just in case they have any money left, as a surprise finale to the trip I am taking them to the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

Abbreviated blog tonight...have to finish up paperwork for this tour and pack and get ready to begin the next tour.

I Think....

this could be the best job in the world!


Yesterday we traveled across MA, visiting Williams College in Williamstown where we saw original copies of the founding documents---the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the British reply to the Declaration which, as you can imagine was very interesting to my group. What a treat it was to hear it read by one of my British ladies in her very British accent.
We came across the Mohawk Trail stopping at Shelburne Falls for lunch, visited the Yankee Candle Factory which has way too many candles for anyone to look at or smell. Then we drove the rest of the way to the coast and arrived at this beautiful hotel, the Nantasket Beach Hotel, which is in Hull, MA. We did arrive after dark but that just made everyone's first look at their surroundings more impressive this morning. The hotel is situated on the Massachusetts Bay just southeast of Boston. My room has a balcony facing the Atlantic Ocean. I have a working fireplace, a jacuzzi tub, microwave, coffee pot, and refridgerator. No one else is complaining about their rooms either.


Today we took a guided tour of Boston and then spent free time exploring the city and shopping.

Here are two of my favorite new expressions that I learned from my group:
One lady, commenting on how thin the pillows were in a hotel she once stayed in said she had to "stuff her jumpers" in the pillowcase. I am still laughing about this. (jumpers are sweaters).
Another lady said it was so hot she was "sweating her what-nots off!" I am still trying to determine what "what-nots" are or what "what-nots" are not.

I play music on the bus and award prizes for the correct answers to questions I pose about what we have seen or heard. Today, David our driver commented on how many Dunkin Donuts there are in this area...he LOVES Dunkin Donuts. So I promised a prize to the first person who spotted the next Dunkin Donuts and shouted it out. (I had secretly bought a bucket of Munchkins while in Boston) and when someone shouted out "Dunkin Donuts!" I walked thru the bus and gave everyone a Munchkin. It's really true that "little things mean a lot".

Why are Covered Bridges Covered?

On Friday touring thru Vermont we stopped at a few of the 104 covered bridges that still exist in that state. OK, so the first question I get is the obvious one...Why are they covered? Do I actually know this? No. I actually never thought to ask that question myself! So I give it my best guess....they were covered to protect the bridge floor and the people crossing it, from the elements.

When I got back to my room I googled "why are wooden covered bridges covered?" Turns out they are not covered to protect the people or the flooring. The people would get rained on or snowed on before and after the bridge so that doesn't make sense, and the floor is relatively inexpensive to replace when needed and in fact the bridge tender would usually keep the floor of the bridge covered with snow to allow sleighs to get accross.

They were covered to protect the structural components-the trusses- which were made of heavy timbers and much more expensive to replace. If the trusses fell apart the bridge would fall. An unprotected wooden bridge would last maybe 10 years, a covered one will last for centuries.

Timothy Palmer built the first one in Philadelphia between 1800-1804. Over time there have been something like 10,000 covered wooden bridges built but today fewer than 800 still stand.

The dwindling number is not due to weather conditions but to "progress"....heavy traffic and heavy trucks, and also to teenagers burning them down for fun.

So that's the long and short of it. I took my newly acquired information onto the bus this morning and explained why indeed covered bridges are covered.

I can't wait till next week when they ask me the same question, I'll be ready....of course they probably won't ask. But I will tell them anyway.

Promises Made, Promises Kept

After the harrowing day we had yesterday, my main objective today was to get back to the hotel before dark. I knew this is what the group needed and it was definitely what I needed. Our day was nicely laid out and turned out to be a very managable schedule. We went to the Vermont Country Store which was a big shopping and food tasting hit. We saw a beautiful waterfall and I took a group picture in a great settng...
We traveled on to Woodstock where we happened upon a bar-b-q on the village green. I think I spotted the ghost of Norman Rockwell. We then saw the Quechee Gorge and had ice cream at some picnic tables before we boarded the bus and went on to Hogback Mountain for a spectacular scenic view. My ducklings are very happy and I am certainly not quacking up. We got back to the hotel at 6:30 with daylight to spare. Some went into town to explore and some stayed at the hotel to unwind and prepare for tomorrow's journey into Massachusetts which will be an intense travel day with a stop at Williams College to see America's founding documents such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and The Articles of Confederation. Then it's on to Shelburne Falls and finally the Yankee Candle Factory before we head across the state to end up at the Nantasket Beach Hotel in Hull, MA for three nights.
PS...the meds arrived from London. So all-in-all a good day...no getting lost, no late arrivals and no passenger strokes.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly....and the Scary

The Good: We left the NJ hotel at 7:45 to allow for traffic into Manhattan for our scheduled 9:30 3-hour guided tour. Call it serendipity or whatever but we arrived in the Big Apple with one hour to spare so I set the group free in Times Square for 45 minutes. The were so thrilled at this bonus excursion that I think nothing for the rest of the day could mar their spirits. The guided tour was even more excellent and when I played my cd of Ella and Louis singing "Autumn in NY" and Billy Joel's "NY State of Mind" on the way out of the city up Madison Ave., they would have been happy even if I took them back to the airport at that moment.

The Bad: One of the gentlemen lost his dental bridge down the drain. He's cute without that tooth.

The Other Bad: At breakfast in the NJ hotel one of the men told me that his wife left her "blood-thinning" meds home and had enough for one more day and so the possibility of her having a heart attack or stroke was an issue. He called her doctor, he said they may need to see a doctor here to get a prescription. My solution was...forget that noise, I don't feature finding a doctor and then telling 49 other people that we need to go to doctor and then a pharmacy so how about you call your son in the UK and have him FedEx her meds to the Vermont Hotel. They were thrilled with that solution and the meds will be here tomorrow. I also bought her an entire bottle of aspirin and told her to take all of them immediately upon the onset of a stroke or heart attack! LOL

The Ugly: see picture on right side.....

The Scary: was trying to find the Stratton Mountain Inn in the dark on winding hilly roads with minimal signage (Vermont allows no billboards or advertising signs so there are no landmarks other than red barns and trees), and do it in time to be able to get 51 hungry people to dinner at the restaurant that closes at 9:00. Got there about 7:45. Wheww!

Tomorrow we leave a 8:30 to go to the Vermont Country Store http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/Shop, Woodstock, Quechee Gorge, Hogback Mountain http://www.flickr.com/photos/62463008@N00/2699507535/and whatever else we see when we see it.

As for tonight...I am one happy TD!

I survived Day #1

The flight was about a half hour late, the "meet & greet" went well. Two passengers were not on the flight. But at least I didn't lose them. We made good time to the hotel in NJ but still didn't arrive till 10:15 or so.
We have a 9:30 am Manhattan City tour so we have to leave here at 7:45 and hope we make it in time.
After the city tour I take my "leaf-peepers" up thru the NYS Thruway and into Vermont.
I suspect I will be spending most of tomorrow learning the "English" language. Very nice people but they talk funny. ;-)
No pictures yet. Tomorrow I will take some.

The Real Deal...

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 8th, I am off to New England for the real, as opposed to the practice, Fall Foliage Tour with real UK Tourists, as opposed to Peter, and real hotels, as opposed to Walmart parking lots.
I have driven myself crazy researching and planning and routing and re-routing so I am almost ready. I will have more to say about that in a few days.
I have two one-week tours, Oct 8-14 and Oct 15-21. Each group has 53 people, all approximately my age so I should be able to keep up with them.
I will sleep when I can, blog when I can't sleep, and collapse when I can't blog.
Wish me luck and stay tuned...I am once again...
On The Move!