When we finally got through the slow Dollar Line, the girl
informed me that they had already cancelled our
reservation since they had our arrival marked as 10:30 am instead
of pm. The girl finally got us a full size car, but booked it through
Fox Rental who were in the same building. We picked a Chevrolet
Impala from the cars parked there and loaded our luggage in the
truk. When I started the engine it showed maintenance required, ie
the wiper fluid was out. So I asked the attendants there to get someone
to fill it so we could leave. After about 20 minutes of no action,
we decided to move our luggage to the car next to it.
The attendants "forgot" to call someone because they were busy with
some paperwork issue of someone else and seemed a bit purturbed that
we switched cars and headed off to Atlantic City. When I got to the
freeway I noticed my side view mirrors were not allowing me to see
the side lanes for swithching lanes. It turned out the
mirrors weren’t locked in place so when we drove off the wind blew
them against the car. Enventually we
found our way to the Wyndham ok and checked in very late.
I went to the boardwalk
and got regular cheese steak sandwich for
Remy and a lamb cheese steak for me from one of the vendors. At least
that turned out fine.
Sunday - 6/12/2016
We found St. Nicholas of Tolentine church on Pacific Avenue pretty
easily which should not have been surprising since it was only a
couple of blocks from the Wyndham. The service was good and the
church has a pretty altar. After the Mass we went through the
gift shop where Remy found a nice photo album and picture canvas
to give for anniversary presents to Tess and Bert. She also got
me a golf shirt.
We had planned to meet Alice at the Resorts Casino for lunch,
but she was late getting there because of traffic congestion, so
we decided to leave for the Galloping Hills Caterers in Union, NJ
for Tess and Bert's 50 Anniversary Party. We grabbed a snack on
the way. My map got blown away at the stop, but Alice had another
descripiton of how to find the venue. It turned out the traffic
tie up was only slowing down the traffic going to Atlantic City and
we had no problems traveling out of town. In addition we found
the venue right away so we were quite early arriving there.
The venue planners weren't very well organized. They had an event
that finished at 4 and didn’t have enough staff available to clear
out the room and get it ready for next event at 4:30. They were
still getting the tables ready at 6:00. Dinner wasn’t started
until around 7:00, and then they only had one line and called two
tables at a time so the first tables were done eating before the
last ones were even called. Other than that the party went pretty
good. There were an unusally large number of dancers in the family.
The DJ was excellent and added a lot to the fun that every one was
having. We had to leave a bit early for our long drive back. We
brought Alice home and returned our room a bit late.
Monday - 6/13/2016
In spite of my better knowledge I somehow agreed to a "Time Share
Owners Update" discussion that lasted all Morning. Somehow they
convinced us to purchase additional upgrade, reluctantly signed up.
Later we withdrew purchase.
After that I went to the Resort casino to get bus tickets for the
show we had planned in New York. The girl behind the counter there
wasn’t helpful so I went to the bus station and bought the
greyhound tickets to New York for Wednesday.
Later I got on the internet and changed our Southwest return
tickets to bring us back to San Antonio. Remy went to sleep, I
went to the pool. There were oodles of kids there so I couldn’t
do laps.
Later I went back to the Boardwalk to oogle the food choices.
Remy had requested a pizza and the stuffed spinach pizza that I
selected for me looked a lot better than it was. It needed cheese
or butter or something to make it easier for me to eat.
Tuesday - 6/14/2016
We started driving around 8:30 for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Our plan was to do the "Amish Experience" trip that I had researched.
My navigator wasn't that much into reading the directions I had
printed off, so after we had traveled way to far north after exit 238
I pulled over and read the directions We should have turned south
instead of the north turn that I had asked her to verify.
This cost us about an hour since it was all red lights through
town with 35 mph speed limits. We enventually found our way to the
destination, but arrived there around one versus the published
need to be before noon to get the total trip in for the package
bundle I had planned. Fortunately the ticket girl was able to
shuffle the order of the parts and send immediately the movie
part that was starting in a couple minutes. We then proceeded
to the van ride. Next we moved right over to the the house tour
then we caught one of last cart rides. So we completed
all the parts of the ticket bundle as planned.
We also had an Amish dinner at the restaurant before heading back
to New Jersey.
I had their chicken pot pie with mashed potatoes. Their pot pie is
crust-less and rather plain. I'm not sure the term "pie" is
appropriate.
The apple dumplings we had for dessert was pretty good.
Some of the key things I learned include that they have no
churches. Instead there is a coffin like container that contains
all the supplies needed for a family to sponsor the service that
week. This container is moved to different families who sponsor
the worship services that week.
The yards are all well manicured include various flower beds.
Only women tend the gardens, while the men work the farm.
Their tractors are fitted with steel wheels to limit their
mobility so that they are not used for field work or transportation
so that limits their usefullness for transportation from the home.
You see a lot of scooters instead of bikes to also limit
the potential to travel far and thus keep them close to home.
Electricity is allowed, but the houses use batteries instead
of utility connections to limit the access to internet and TV, etc.
This leads to the stoves, etc being powered by propane, so their
houses have propane tanks evident.
They use phones to able to conduct business, but the phone is
in a booth outside the house to limit the propensity to interfere
with family time.
The crops we saw were corn, alfalfa, strawberries, rhubarb,
tomatoes, potatoes. We also fruit orchards of apples and peaches.
There were some homes that had very high fences where reindeer are
raised for market and we saw a lot of milk cows.
Our ride back to Atlantic City was quite slow through
Philadelphia due to so many merging lanes and road construction.
Eventually we got back to our room. The trip proved a lot longer
time then we planned.
Wednesday - 6/15/2016
Ate leftovers for breakfast. Caught the bus at Bally’s to NY at
10 am for an on schedule arrival at 12:25. We ate a quick snack at
burger king, then hailed a taxi to the Broadway Theatre where we
saw "Fiedler on the Roof". A different interpretation than the show
we saw many years ago that tended to make your cry. This one is
quite lively and more upbeat, yet still very moving.
The theatre was packed and included plenty of little kids on a
school trip. I'm not sure actors are used to getting cheers
versus claps, but they seemed to appreciate it.
Afterwards we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant, Azalea, on the
walk back to the station. I had the scallops on a bed of spinach.
It was quite good. We caught the 8:00 bus to Atlantic City, which
got us to Caesars around 10:30.
Remy needed her gambling fix so we steyed ther until 2:00am.
I lost $120, it was raining when I walked to Bally’s and got the
car. I picked Remy up at Caesars and returned to Wyndham. A long day.
Thursday - 6/16/2016
We met Alice for lunch at the Resorts Casino. After an hour or so of
losing, I went back to the Wyndham and swam in the crowded pool
amonst all the kids.
Friday - 6/17/2016
Dropped Remy off at the Resorts Casino where she went to a spa to
get her hair colored. I proceeded down Pacific Avenue to check out a
lighthouse you could see
from the street outside the Wyndham. It cost $7 to climb the 228 steps
to the top of the Absecon Lighthouse. At the top of each flight of
stairs is different view of the town. A volunteer at the top
informs you of the history of the light house. From there you get a
view of a First-Order Fresnel lens, the original for the lighthouse.
The lens is now powered with electric lights instead of mineral oil
lamps.
Saturday - 6/18/2016
Checked out early and headed to the Philadelphia airport. We got
there a little early and the flight was delayed in Denver so we
were a little late arriving in LA. I took the window seat this
time and was able to get some
pretty good pictures from the plane .
We found Bert and Tess then headed for the car rental.
The rental place was a mess. We finally got our car and loaded all
the luggage in the trunk, but got a maintenance required flag when
I started the car. I asked the attendents to get someone to add
water to the windshield reservoir, but with no progress and not much
interest in correcting the problem from them we moved all our luggage
to another car all our bags to another car and headed off.
Highway 60 leaving LA had lots of construction going on so the
trip took about 4 hours Instead of the two I expected.
Continue with California Week of this Vacation
Links:
Wyndham Skyline Tower
Galloping Hill Caterers
The Amish Experience
