Travel – Page 31 – JAMSquared

James’ First Camping Trip – Garner State Park

Posted on December 29, 2008 by Jennifer

Can you believe that my husband had never been camping prior to 2 months ago? We camped at Garner State Park with our friends Aric and Kristy and their dog Dalton, and our friend Ranger the last weekend in October. On the way there Saturday morning, we stopped at Lone Star Motorcycle Museum and Ace Cafe. This was really a neat place to stop and eat lunch. You can check out the classic and modern motorcycles while you wait for your burger or Australian meat pie to cook up. It also gave us perfect timing to arrive at Garner State Park about 1:30 and get our campsite so we could set up our tents.

James, Ranger, and Aric

Jennifer, Kristy and Dalton

We hiked the Bridges trail where the view from the scenic overlook at the top was worth the steep climb. I was the self-proclaimed camp cook for the weekend and dinner Saturday was delicious Camp Chicken Cordon Blue cooked over our campfire grill.

James on the Bridges Trail

View from the Scenic Overlook

Dinner Cooking Over the Campfire

Sunday morning, we walked by the river near our campsite and played some cards. After a tasty lunch of grilled ham/turkey and cheese sandwiches, we hiked the trail along Horseshoe Canyon. Unfortunately, the rockiness of the trails was hard on poor Dalton’s feet and he and Kristy turned back and just hung out while we went up to the Crystal Cave. On the return hike, we saw the cutest little armadillo.

James and Ranger in Front of Our Campsite Number

Along the Frio River

Kristy and Dalton

Jennifer and James at the Crystal Cave

Armadillo

Sunday night was a lot more quiet as there were only a handful of campsites occupied compared to the handful that were unoccupied Saturday night. We ate chicken fajitas for dinner, roasted marshmallows over the campfire for smores and had to shoo a skunk away from our campsite by hissing at it.

Monday morning, we packed up and headed to nearby Lost Maples State Natural Area where we hiked the Maple Trail and a portion of the East trail.

Fall Foliage

Dalton, Ranger, James and Aric

Over all, our camping trip was a lot of fun and I think we’re going to have to plan another one or two for the spring.

Trip to Vermont

Posted on November 10, 2008 by Jennifer

The last weekend of September was a long weekend for me that started on Thursday. My brother (Jason) and his wife (Julia), my husband (James) and I flew up to Albany, NY where we met up with my parents (John and Mary Ann), my sister (Sarah) and her husband (Brian) and sweet baby Cameron. It was our yearly family trip. We stayed at the Hill Farm Inn just south of Manchester, Vermont. We filled up almost all of the main house of the bed and breakfast. The owners and staff at the inn were fabulous and breakfast every morning we were there was delicious, partly because of the free-range chicken eggs plucked from nests in the hen house out back of the inn.

Unfortunately, it was kinda dreary weather-wise the entire trip due to a hurricane off the Atlantic coast, but it was still a lot of fun and very relaxing. Thursday night dinner was at Mulligan’s Pub & Restaurant, where the inn owner had secured a reservation for us as we were a large party of 8 plus baby. The food was pretty good, but the service wasn’t weren’t we southerners were accustomed to. On Friday morning, we (minus my Mom, Sarah and Cameron) hiked the trail around the inn near the river. Then we ate lunch at Maxwell’s Flat Road Grill where we had some tasty buffalo burgers and browsed some shops in Manchester. We also drove and visited Chiselville, one of the area’s covered bridges. We at dinner at the Sirloin Saloon Steakhouse & Bar, which was okay.

Inn's Pasture

Jason and Julia

James in front of the Chiselville Covered Bridge

Saturday, we drove to Peru and attended their yearly festival to raise money for their schools. The festival is known for it’s roasted pig and artisan-run booths. We watched clog dancing and a magic show and really enjoyed ourselves. Afterward, we went to Bromley Mountain and did the alpine slide followed by a scenic drive up to Weston where we visited the Vermont Country Store and enjoyed some locally brewed root beer. Dinner was at The Perfect Wife where the turkey schnitzel was to die for followed by some ice cream sundaes at Friendly’s since the little Ben & Jerry’s stand in Manchester closed too early.

John and Mary Ann under the Peru Fair Banner

Riding the Chair Lift up to Beginning of Alpine Slide

Jason About to Fly Down the Alpine Slide

Cameron in the Pumpkin Pickup outside of the Vermont Country Store

Cameron in the Pumpkin Filled Pickup outside of the Vermont Country Store

Sunday, my Dad, Jason, and Brian went fly fishing with guide Peter. The rest of us who find that kind of thing not so interesting relaxed at the inn for a little while, took a slightly different hiking trail around the inn, and then shopped at some of the outlet stores in Manchester followed by lunch at Zoey’s Del & Bakery where they had some unusual sandwich combinations. Then we met up with the rest of the gang to drive back to Albany, NY to be able to catch our early-Monday morning flight home.

Gizmo, the baby goat, and James

Inn's Pasture

Mary Ann, Cameron and Sarah

Church near the Inn

Pink Flower

Philadelphia

Posted on May 3, 2008 by Jennifer

James, my Mom, and I went to Philadelphia about a week ago. My Dad was originally supposed to go with us also, but he had jury duty and couldn’t come. In addition to visiting Philly, we went to New Jersey, but I will leave that to a later post. None of us had ever been to Philly before and it was a lot of fun.

We arrived a little before lunch on Thursday. After arriving, we went to Bartram’s Garden. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was beautiful none the less.

Carolina Silverbells

Yellow Flower

Then we headed to the museum district and checked out the Academy of Natural Sciences. We chose it over the Franklin Institute, because of the temporary Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins exhibit. On hindsight, we might should have visited the Franklin Institute instead, but we can go there if we ever visit Philly again. My favorite exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences was the Butterflies! exhibit.

Butterfly

We ate dinner at DiNardo’s. It was very tasty and only a few short blocks from our hotel. In fact, our hotel was at perfect location. It was at Arch and 4th Street in old city and was close to everything. After dinner we saw Look Mom, I’m Swell! at the Arden Theatre Co. It was an excellent show, a funny biographical one-man show.

The next day, we took a free self-guided tour of the US Mint. Tip: you can’t bring any cameras on the tour. We were lucky that our hotel was basically across the street and I could go put my camera in the hotel room. This was an activity my Dad would have really enjoyed since he is an avid coin collector.

We then visited the Betsy Ross House. This was pretty neat since you got to see how small people were back then. All of us are tall and we had to duck a few times to keep from bumping our heads. The lady acting as Betsy Ross took her job very seriously. She showed us why “she” made the flag with 5-pointed stars instead of 6-pointed stars.

Betsy Ross House

After a lunch of Philly cheesesteaks at Old City Pizza at the corner of 3rd and Arch streets, we visited the Philadelphia Zoo. Initially, I hadn’t put the zoo on our itinerary, because James thinks I like to go to too many zoos. How is that possible? But after we saw a spot on the news the day before about all the zoo babies, we decided we had to go (basically my Mom and I convinced him). The Philadelphia Zoo is the oldest zoo in the United States. It wasn’t my favorite zoo out of the many I’ve been to, but I really liked it, especially seeing the babies.

Peacock

Cheetah

Squirrel Monkey and Baby

Orangutans Playing Hide and Seek

Gorilla

Saturday morning, we toured Indendence Hall and took a gander at the Liberty Bell. It was really interesting to be in the same room that the US Declaration of Independence was signed in over 200 years ago.

Independence Hall

Liberty Bell

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