Hi everybody!
So here we are at the end of our 2007 summer vacation, and we've decided now's a good time to start writing our blog! We've just been too busy up till now to take the time to jot anything down. So here comes a very long entry!

PENNSYLVANIA:

Well actually, let's start with trying to leave Toronto. Throughout our trip we read Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix, mostly read by Aviva complete with accurate and detailed British, Scottish, and Irish accents. Aviva quote (and we all agree): "My best ones are Snape, Hermione, Luna, Cho, and Ron."
It took us all weekend and most of Monday July 30th to get our acts together (including purchasing clip on fans for our un-air conditioned car) and get on the road, but we finally did it by about mid-day...only to find ourselves stuck in terrible traffic around Oakville. So we got off the road and found this little hole in the wall Korean bbq and had a really nice lunch for ourselves (although Rob and Aviva ate subs just next door). Then we drove and we drove and we drove and we drove, and we still didn't make it to our destination: Lancaster county PA. But we did make it to PA: Williamsport, where we spent the night.
The next morning we headed straight to....Starbucks (a typical morning on vacation) and then hit the road and drove and drove and drove till we got to our final destination by late afternoon: Gifford Pinchot State Park (oh, but first we had to drive past the entrance three times and take about 1 hour trying to find it). The park was gorgeous and our site was amazing: tons of trees, spacious, and direct access from our site to the lake (although the actual beach was about 8 sites over). This year setting up camp went so well, as the kids were really able to actually help (as opposed to thinking that they were helping). We had a swim in the lake just before sunset, and it was so lovely and warm and fun. The evening was spent at various stores, completing our preparations for our trip...as if we hadn't spent enough time on that in Toronto.
The next day we hit Amish Country. First we went to an Amish market where we bought: Apple butter, Pickled bean salad, fresh produce, and shoe fly pie (which was delicious the first time-on an empty stomach, good the second time we ate it, and actually mediocre the third time we ate it). Next we went to this Amish centre where we saw a movie about the Amish people (called "Jacob's Choice"- when the Amish are teens, they are allowed to go hang with the "English" and then they have to chose whether they want to remain Amish. It is only then that they get baptized into the faith). Then at the same centre, we went to a replicated Amish house. The guide was in his 60's, but could apply for a job as a rap singer 'cause he rattled off the information about their clothing and habits at 90 words per second (probably memorized from a book). Then we later that evening did a tour of three actual Amish families. First we went to a dairy farmer's house at milking time. Everything is automated since they use propane. They just don't want electricity coming into their homes from the English (non-Amish). Next we went to see a quilter, at quilting time (LOL). Actually it was her daughter, who was about 20 and had been a teacher for three years prior. We learned a lot about their schooling from her. They only have to go to school till grade 8 and it's all done in one room school houses, of which there are many in the area. They do not learn science. The teachers take a couple of courses over the summer before they start teaching. Finally, and this was the highlight of the day, we went into the actual home of an Amish family, and talked. We talked about school systems, marriage, holidays, church, eating habits, jobs, and about technology. It was fascinating, but at the beginning, a bit awkward because no one had much to say, but soon we were all chatting away. We found out that their kids spend a lot of time playing vollyball 'till all hours of the night. In addition, we found out that if they quit being Amish after they are baptized, they are shunned. But if they decide not to be baptized, then they can always continue to have a relationship with their families.
While visiting one of the Amish farms, Aaron found some "All-Bran" in his pocket, or at least that's what Rob thought it was, when Aaron offered it to him as a present. Rob popped it in his mouth, and then asked what it was. Aaron stopped in his tracks and said, "Hey that was the goat food from the farm we visited on my sleepover with Jesse and Anna." To which Rob didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But he thought in the end, that it tasted not too bad, and actually, a lot like All-Bran.
The next day we went to Hershey. There we went on a goofy ride where we they showed the process of making milk chocolate, complete with dancing cows with purple bows around their necks doing the can-can, and taking pictures. But it also gave us some information about how the chocolate is made. Then we went on the "chocolate experience," which was a chocolate tasting where we got to taste their more common varieties (the original Hershey's recipe), down to more pure forms of chocolate, including their more expensive brands and more pure dark chocolates. Interestingly, we found out that Hershey failed three or four times before meeting success with chocolate. They were huge philanthropists, giving many millions to start a local school for orphans and poor children. Finally, we went on a bus tour of the town of Hershey, which would be great, if you were 7 years old. Actually it was quite entertaining and they plied us with lots of chocolate samples throughout.
Later that evening we went to try Amish food, which we never need to try again. It was like going to Nanna's house for sunday dinner. The next day we packed up the campside had one last dip in the lake poured gallon bottles of water over our heads and headed for Phily. That evening we went to General Lafayette restaurant, which is the longest continuesly running restaurant in the region (dating back to the 1700s). Rob had one of the best beers he (or the kids) ever had (a dark chocolatey taste). Incidenataly we all hated the expencive local specialty crabcakes. The next day on our quest for the other local specialty, phily cheese steak sandwitches, we got directions from a cop who seemed to have dificulty discerning here left from right, but nor can anyone in Philidelphia, but they like virtually everyone that we met on this vacation were extremely friendly and helpful and sweet. We went to the reading terminal market where we had multiple outstanding phily cheese steaks (like seriously they're amazing). Oh and by the way it's not the Philidelphians who are famous for cheescake no that's cheese steak. something we found out in the not so cheesecake capitol, Philidelphia. Then we took the hop on hop off bus tour of Phili and we hopped off at the Rodin museum and when we hopped back on we got a guide who seemed more of a standup comedian than a guide, and made reference to almost every movie ever made in th 70s, but we managed to still learn a bit from him. Anyways back to the Rodin museum, we saw all these famous sculptures that are original bronze casts (including the thinker). We found out all these different funfacts about his life (he was visually impaired people didn't believe he was actually sculpting the sculptures because the work was so good etc. etc.). For dinner that night we went to the Continental, which is a totally funky fusion tapas restaurant. Which had the coolest seating plan with floating ok fine hanging chairs and wrap around benches. The food was great especially the deserts. Oh by the way we did see the liberty bell... It's a bell... with a crack.

WASHINGTON DC:

We made our way to DC and on our way there, there was horible traffic folowed by horrible rain, so the whole thing took us twice as long. (still no A.C.). In D.C. we stayed in an amazing hotel that was two weeks old. The first day of touring we took a tour called "Bike the Sites". We went to various monuments (WW II, Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Vietnam, Korean, and Einstein) in the monument neighbourhood, as well as seeing the state capitol and white house. The guide was excellent, giving neat anecdotes and history about each of the monuments. Near the end, Noah was changing gears and didn't notice a pedestrian, so he smashed into him. The pedestrian wasn't hurt at all, but Noah's elbow was badly scraped and bleeding all over the place. But Noah did not feel any pain, because he felt so ashamed that he had hit a pedestrian. The guide traded front wheels with Noah ('cause Noah's was warped from the accident) and headed us back to the bike shop. On the way there the guide was hit by a bus!! Seriously. He was very slightly outside of the pedestrian cross lane (probably in the bike lane) and this city bus came barrelling along and side swiped him, knocking him over. Luckily he was OK, but he and the rest of us on the tour were very shaken from the whole thing. That evening we had another outstanding meal, at a restaurant called something like Zeitanias but we can't remember exactly. It was a mediteranean tapas bar, also very funky.
The next day we went to the holocaust museum, we spent many hours there and it was very moving and interesting. There was an exhibit about the children in the Lodz ghetto which was particularly touching to us one story in particular about a boy who recieved half a loaf of bread for his Bar Mitzvah. The museum was very well done in terms of lighting and architecture, really setting a tone in keeping with the seriousness of the material. Oh by the way we had our butter knife stolen by security just in case, you know, we decided to attack someone, maybe spread butter on them.
The next day Diane left for a mini visit with her parents back in TO. Rob and the kids spent that day at the air and space museum. Noah quote: This is the best museum in D.C. We saw the Wright brothers exhibit, and we learned about their family history. We saw airplanes, learned about early and late world records, saw a planetarium show which was about the formation of earth and the universe, and we saw a 3-D movie (narrated by Tom Cruise) about the space station. It showed about life in space, experiments that they are doing at zero gravity, such as growing huge crystals in space, and growing onions very quickly. The second day that Diane was was away, Rob and the kids did an amazing bike ride along the Potomac river (just at the Virginia side of D.C.). It started to shower just as we began along the river, and we took refuge first under a clump of three big trees, and then under a bridge. We biked for about 8 miles, stopped at a small town, Alexandria, and ate and drank them out of house and home. Rob got into a bit of a tif with a grouchy man who yelled at him because the kids were riding their bikes on the sidewalk. When Rob pointed out that we just saw a bicyclist get his by a bus in Washington, he said, "I would have a bus hit all you bicyclists, to which Rob told him to go
F-*&@ himself. Both nights that Diane was away, Rob and the kids ate Indian and Mexican food in Georgetown.

VIRGINIA BEACH

Diane returned and we headed for Viginia Beach. Just after arriving, she noticed that Rob had a brown spot on his nose, perhaps a bruise, but it bugged Rob who was convinced it was cancer. Later that day, we were in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway yet again in boiling heat with no A.C., bored to tears despite Aviva's brillian reading of Harry Potter. At one point, Rob was looking at his "cancer" in the rear-view mirror, when he failed to notice the truck in front coming to an abrupt stop. Luckily, the fellow was nice enough to let us go without even wanting our insurance info. "I trust you," he said, accepting only Rob's business card, in case he needed to contact us to pay for any body work. But his truck looked pretty good. Our van, unfortunately, did not fair nearly as well. We lost our front license plate, crunched our bumper, and the hood looks pretty sorry.
Our campsite was a KOA, and was quite nice, with a large refreshing pool. We were a 20-minute bike ride to the beach, which was fabulous. We would bike practically every day from our campsite to the beach; on one of those times, we, again saw a bicyclist get hit by a vehicle, this time an S.U.V., but he also was okay. We spent two different days at the beach playing in the waves. Aaron was in 7th heaven playing on the beach in the waves, especially on the second day when Rob got him a boogie board. Unfortunately, Rob first got a skim board which we all tried, but failed miserably at. On three different nights we ate amazing seafood and hush puppies. Diane got to have her crabs legs three times, which she loves. And the boys overcame their fear of creepy looking crabs, because the taste won out over the look. Noah actually ended up dissecting a crab claw to figure out how it works.
We also visited Jamestown and Williamsburg.
Jamestown was the first English settlement in the Americas. We saw the replica village which also had replicas of a Powahatan Indian village as well as the three original ships on which the settlers came over. At the end of the day, Rob and Aaron spent a while doing an imaginary game on one of the boats, pretending they were two settlers coming over to the new world on a boat, discussing what they were planning to do in the new world. Diane and Aviva were back in the settlement village. And Noah....was lost (Rob thought he was with Diane, and Diane thought he was with Rob). Eventually, Noah got help from a staff member and was reunited with Diane. It was a bit scary for him.
In Williamsburg, Diane asked for directions to the parking lot from two working guys who were very excited to tell her about where to park for free. Rob later pointed out that one of them was oggling her; perhaps that helped in getting us free parking for the day. Continuing on the free theme, once we realized how much the entrance fee was, we decided to proceed without paying, managing to get into several of the exhibits animated by actors playing the part of colonial Americans of the late 1700's. The town itself was terrific; and we learned a lot, and the actors were highly entertaining. One of whom pretended to marry Aviva, through a ceremony called "setting the broom," (jumping over a broomstick together) which was practiced by the slaves who were not allowed to marry legally.

WEST VIRGINIA

For this part of the trip we decided to let the road lead us to where it would, and this time it led us to ACE adventure tours. Along the way, however, we encountered the most stunning electrical storm we've ever seen. There was literally no break in the lightening for three hours. Although it was night, the sky would turn bright every few seconds. The rain deluged down on us, and we had such poor visibility, we had to pull to the side of the road for 45 minutes, during which we ate cereal and cheese in the car. After getting back on the road (following dinner at the Olive Garden), we tried to get back on the highway, only to discover that the entrance was blocked by a tree. In the pouring rain, we tried to get the people behind us to back up, but there was one woman who refused to budge; in fact, even refusing to roll down her window and talk with Diane who was trying to reason with her while standing in the pouring rain.
For our first day at ACE, we played in the water at the lake, which included ziplining, water slides, and playing on these huge plastic inflated water toys like an enormous water trampoline.
It was a blast, although on the last day, when we returned to play on them again, we endured a couple of injuries: Aaron jarred his back jumping off of this tower thing, and Diane jammed a toe on the same dumb tower thing. Before that, though, the kids were all having fun on it, since it works like a catapult, with one person's jump causing the other person to go flying.
The second day there, we went whitewater rafting. We took a trip that included class two to five rapids. The positive highlites from the trip were getting to ride the rapids, swim some of the easier rapids, and general thrilling excitement. Our tour guide, Cassey, was quite funny, throwing the kids overboard and looking a bit like a cave-man/Moses mixture. An unwelcome highlite of the trip was Aaron's falling overboard on a class five rapid, which freaked both Aviva and Noah out, considering he went under the boat; within about 10 seconds Aaron was bobbing up beside the boat, and Rob hauled him in. Aaron quote: "My hero." Aaron was scraped and bruised, but mostly just shook up from the experience. However, he handled himself really well and by the book.
The next day, we went on an awesome bike ride along a different part of the same river, the New River Gorge. The first half was 95% downhill and really fun, although a bit of a challenge for Rob to negotiate the rocks on his racing bike. At the midpoint, we saw a beautiful waterfall, and went to a ghost town called Thurmond where 5 people currently live. In its day, it was a thriving coal-mining town. On the way back, it was, of course, 95% uphill; one of the most challenging bike rides we've had, especially in the heat. We were all soaked by the time we got back. So the boys jumped in a lake, and the girls jumped in the showers. An unfortunate ending to a great day, was our discovery of having been robbed (of our Coleman stove and one lantern --odd things to steal, not worth very much) while we were on our ride.
Of note was hearing from two different servers of the poverty of West Virginia. At the IHOP a couple days earler, one waiter told us of how the education system is about two grades behind at each level, and how he plans to get out for college. On the last night, our waitress told us how there is no middle class, and tried to solicit us to use her as a tour guide should we return to the area. It reminded us a bit of being in developing courtries we've been to. Consistent with that was frequently seeing houses that looked quite dilapidated, littered with old vehicles or parts of vehicles, garbage, broken toys, dogs off-leash, and the occasional child roaming in only a diaper.

Currently, we are on our last day, just outside Pittsburgh, en-route to Toronto.

RANAD

So RANAD is off on another adventure. This time RANAD is on an "Historical America Tour". We will give you more details shortly, we hope!
Love,
RANAD