I Love New York Travel

For such a run-down little city, Utica has an exquisite train station. The Department of Motor Vehicles and many small shops are in the station, too. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad and Amtrak use the station. We visited it to ride on the lovely ADK Scenic Railroad. What a trip! The entire entourage is made up of volunteers from the area. There’s a distinctly fun and whimsical atmosphere, largely cultivated by the volunteers who obviously love their work here. I am actually surprised that it’s a volunteer crew — there’s SO much work involved. No pay. The work must be tough sometimes and there’s definitely danger involved. Most who volunteer (those who I saw) were older than 55, so they were all retirement age or more.

But they all were AMAZING. I think a volunteer force is better than a paid-for work force. These people WANT to be a part of the ADK RR. And their enthusiasm is very contagious. What a gem for the area, indeed.

I LOVE Washington Heights. LOVE IT. I would love to have a little townhouse there. It’s such a wonderful place, with parks and shops and activities. And the Hudson is right there. I was very impressed with the area.

This photo was taken from the bus as we rode by. We were on Broadway then, but I do not know exactly where. Maybe 165th street?

Very nice area. I hope to return again soon.

Well, the travel season has begun. I have plans for some real exciting excursions this year, Lord willing. A number of them include seeing New York City again. It’s such a wonderful place for sightseeing, really. There are scads and scads of museums and historic sites. LOVE it. And the public transportation is great, so I don’t have to drive through the city (thank God). I don’t know what I’d do without the metro, believe me. I still can’t understand how people can even DRIVE through those skinny streets. Talk about getting a loaded Wholesaleinsurance.net policy, yikes.

Anyway, hopefully we’ll also be traveling further out across the state this year, and perhaps we’ll do one out-of-state trip. We’ll see. I’m so excited that the season has begun so early! Usually we have to wait until late May and early June, but with such an early spring the roads are wide open!

Isn’t that a beauty?

We visited the Douglas MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, in May. Wow, was it really that long ago? The city is lovely. Clean as a whistle (the side we saw, anyway), peppered with domed crown steel buildings, smooth and straight concrete sidewalks and streets colored with trolley tracks.

The car was just one of the many exquisite things we saw at the memorial. I have yet to process the hundreds of photos and blog about our week-long adventures in Virginia. It doesn’t help that I am crazy busy. :-p

Anyway, this was the car MacArthur used in Japan. I think I remember seeing a similar car in the movie “MacArthur”– Gregory Peck sat in it, engaging in a barbed repartee with the Russian ambassador. Boy, that was a great movie.

So, it was a wonderful visit. *sigh* I’m ready to go back.

with LOADS of photos from my recent trip.

We went to Geneva and Seneca Falls, NY. It was so wonderful to get out! I missed my kids and my kitty something terrible, though.

But I took hundreds of the coolest photos!! I’d probably go through a dozen epson printers to print them all… and I’m not even HALFWAY through editing them and uploading them, even though I’ve been back for a week. :S I admit, I love taking the photos, but the editing and uploading is so tedious. I often put it off.

So this photo here is the dining room of the bed and breakfast we stayed at. I’ll have a full-fledged review very soon on my blog New York Traveler.net. I’m looking forward to it!

But first… I have to edit all the photos. UGH.