Spoffords Travel

September 27, 2022 Day 4 around Princeton New Jersey 114.8 miles

Today is partly cloudy again but with more wind. We ate breakfast in the room rather than waiting to eat in the hotel crestaurant. The drivers meeting is 30 minutes later this morning so we got there before they started. One of the roads they had planned to use is closed for some kind of repairs so we got handouts on the new route. Our first stop is the Van Sant Historic Airfield. The drive took about two hours from the hotel but a lot of that was waiting on traffic lights to get out of Princeton. We guessed one of those lines was at least a mile long and only a few cars got through the traffic light at a time. Several cars owned by locals turned around and went another way. Once that was cleared the remainder of the trip was much better. We did see a dead fox on the road. Deer must be a real issue here because several of the fences are really tall. A few houses are decorated for Halloween. Since many of the yards are large the decorations are too. The airport has a grass landing strip. Most of the planes stored there are antiques. Several different kinds from one that looked like a tandem bike with wings to a sleek glider. Our coffee break was scheduled for here as well. Today they served a delicious cinnamon coffee cake. The next stop was at the Washington Crossing Museum. They showed a short video about the crossing and the area. We didn’t look at much of the museum. The river looks so peaceful at this time of the year. Hard to imagine what it was like at the time of the crossing. Every year a reenactment is done on Christmas Day just like in 1776. Well somewhat like it. Now they cross during the day rather than at night when Washington and the troops crossed. We crossed a couple of the covered bridges from yesterday and a couple of the narrow metal bed bridges that make the car shake. It’s a short drive from the museum to the Washington Crossing State Park. We had box lunches from Jersey Mike’s here for lunch. After most people had lunch a historian from the park gave a short lecture about the events and conditions at the time. He was dressed in reproduction period clothing and carried a musket. He told us how to load and fire the gun and then actually did fire it. As we were pulling out of the parking area we heard the ice cream truck would be back in about 10 minutes but we didn’t stay. On the way back to the hotel we saw a doe in someone’s yard and a squirrel dart across the road. Not much in the way of wild life. We turned in our paperwork for the day at the host hotel and then went for fuel and food. Grocery stores are not in the area of the hotel so we had a 3-4 mile drive to one. Really nice store but prices are higher than at home. We bought salad for supper and turnovers and yoghurt for breakfast tomorrow. Then it was off to the gas station. We took a wrong turn somehow and went to a different station than we thought but that is just the way it goes. When we got back to our hotel the lobby was crowded with people from some convention. Rob worked on the car for a little bit before it got dark. I wish I could better describe some of the roads. They are very narrow, rough and winding. The shoulders don’t exist. The side of the road drops off significantly most of the time. Then throw in an occasional hill either up or down. At the foot of the hill is often a stop sign. Roads come together at many different angles and may consist of five or six roads. If you are lucky the view is clear but there are a lot of overgrown trees and bushes blocking the view of oncoming traffic. The stop signs are hidden too so its a good thing a warning sign proceeds them. There are so many signs for hidden driveway that you begin to wonder. I am really glad I don’t have to drive these roads and driveways in the winter.

September 26, 2022 Day 3 around Princeton New Jersey 133 mile

Continue reading “Glidden Tour”

September 25, 2022 Day 2 Philadelphia Pennsylvania to Princeton New Jersey 75 miles

Today is mostly cloudy with a high in the lower 70s. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then got an Uber from the hotel to the storage place. We arrived about 9:15 but they don’t open until 9:30 so we had to wait a few minutes. We opened up the unit and loaded the bags in the car. Hallelujah the car started on the first try. All Rob’s worrying for the last few days were not necessary. We decided to head directly to the lunch location for the Glidden Tour rather than going to the hotel. The GPS said about 2 hours without freeways. So off we went. Now no freeways means you go right through downtown Philadelphia. We went through housing, theater, Chinese, church and Jewish districts. We stopped at too many stop lights to count. A couple of sections had banners on the street lights with large letter T’s. We eventually learned this was Temple University. Not the prettiest campus we have seen. The roads have some nasty pot holes and man hole covers. In the housing areas people park their cars on the side of the road and all down the turning lane. If nothing is parked along the side, drivers use the parking lane as a passing lane. It took us an hour to go about 10 miles. In that distance we never got out of city surroundings. We went through several small towns but they all blended together. When that finally ended, the houses became much larger with lush large lawns. Some ranch land was scattered here and there. In the distance were small hills by western standards. They are covered in trees. Most of those have not started to turn colors yet. Just before arriving at the lunch stop we saw two small fawns. The roads have gotten very narrow and the lines are nonexistent. We arrived at Woods Edge Farm a little after 12:00. Lunch isn’t until 1:30 so we had time to look around. They raise llamas and alpacas. They also sell products made from their hair. They also had a few yaks. We parked near the main road and rode up to the top on a golf cart. The grounds are beautifully maintained and the big barn had plenty of room for us to eat. Lunch was a catered BBQ with hot dogs, hamburgers, pulled pork and chicken. The sides included baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, mac and cheese, and pasta salad. Dessert was cookies. Then it was off to Strober’s Car Collection. They have a beautiful place about 10 miles from the lunch spot. Their cars are real show cars. They provided cookies, coffee, tea, water and ice cream bars. The ice cream bars came from the Good Humor Truck. (A classic aged pickup with an ice cream body.) It rained for a little bit on the way over. After enjoying this location we went to the hotel and checked in. It’s and early start tomorrow so its early to bed.

September 24, 2022 Day 1 Boise to Philadelphia

We did not drive the Woodie on this leg of the journey. We flew here with a departure from the Boise airport at 5:45 am. Thus a short night followed by a long day. Both of our checked bags have spare car parts for the drive home. While waiting to board the plane Rob realized he forgot the Garmin Tracker. Therefore this week we won’t have any Internet record of where we went. The car is still in storage because we got in later in the evening and chose to stay close to the airport and storage unit. We will get the car in the morning and drive to Princeton New Jersey. That is the home base for the Glidden Tour. For those that don’t know this is a tour for cars built before 1940. It goes for a week on day trips around the base city. This will be our fourth Glidden tour. Hopefully the car will start without a tow. Some really beautiful cars come and some more plain. No judging takes place just driving. AAA helps sponsor the event and sends an escort tow truck wherever we go.

Chester Pennsylvania 31.7 miles

This is the last posting for this part of the trip. Tomorrow we fly back to Boise for a couple of weeks. This was our first day off on the trip. It seemed strange to not be loading the car and enduring a 250 mile drive. Today was dedicated to finding a storage space for the woodie while we are gone. Finding the spot was the easy part. Getting there was a whole other story. We forgot to say no highways on the GPS so the route took us on freeway 95. That road was terrible. Hopefully they are prepping it to resurface soon. It had patches all over and then it was grooved. The woodie goes all over with that type of road. The locals are going at least 80 miles per hour in a marked 55 limit and they don’t let you change lanes. This caused us to miss two exits. One of those misses required a two mile drive across a very big bridge then a u-turn and back over the bridge. However, it was a nice view from the top of the bridge and we got to see it twice. We were almost to the storage place when it told us to turn just past the light. Well that was a CVS pharmacy. We turned sooner which was also wrong and required another u-turn. Lots of u-turn practice today. That would have been fine except a wreck occurred at that intersection so traffic was all mixed up. We turned into the CVS to see if an alternate route was there. No such luck. A fire truck was in the parking lot so we got directions from them. Seems the GPS systems have problems with the Public Storage address. Well we rented the unit and will take the car there tomorrow. Next stop is a grocery store. The closest one is a meat market that also sells some groceries. We found what we were looking for and returned to the hotel. This time no freeways. The roads were much better and not much slower. After lunch Rob did maintenance on the car and Connie worked on laundry. The woodie got greased and the brakes adjusted. The front desk of the hotel does not have change. She suggested the bank just down the street. Well they closed 30 minutes before Connie got there. The Best Western next to it had no one in the lobby. The university shop next to that is closed on Saturday. Ended up at a restaurant that had some change. We learned a new trick for getting quarters. You put a dollar bill in a vending machine and then ask for your change back. It comes out in quarters. Later in the afternoon we drove to a do it yourself car wash. The hose on the water sprung a leak on top so everything gets wet. Rob had two showers today. The place was very busy. Vehicles were lined up at all the bays. The “white walls” may never be white again. One of the roads today was as if a vehicle with traction tread had driven on it when the asphalt was hot. It had lots of evenly spaced grooves that made the drive extremely rough. After supper it’s time to pack.

Kingston New York to Chester Pennsylvania 184 miles

We stayed in a Super 8 last night. They have a continental breakfast and that is what it was. Frozen orange juice, fruit cups, blueberry muffins, granola bars, tea and coffee. It’s another sunny that is predicted to be in the 80s. Very little humidity so after a rubber hammer hit on the carburetor the car started right up. The state of New York is very different from the city of New York. We wound our way through forest, farms and small towns. They all have the typical New England look and feel. Even the back roads have a lot of traffic. We crossed over the Appalachian Trail in one spot and in another we passed the location where it first began. Another part of the road took us past Angry Orchard Farms which produces Angry Orchard hard cider. More evidence of horses. We saw some in the fields and some going down a trail with riders attached. One corral had jumps for horses and another farm advertised 25 years of polo. We followed along a river on a very narrow road. There was no shoulder and Connie could have touched the mountain out the window. Somewhere we crossed the state line into Pennsylvania. No sign marked the spot. Lots of small farm stands are all along the way. They also sell lots of camp wood. We have not seen many campers today. We ate lunch in a parking lot because we couldn’t find a picnic area. Several of the small communities are advertising some kind of fall festival. Schools have started here as well. Some towns have celebrations for Labor Day. Many have American flags on poles lining Main Street. The hanging baskets and potted flowers are gorgeous. Nurseries are adverting fall mums.The roads are getting wider and the traffic is increasing. They drive fast and cut in quickly. Repair shops must love doing all the brake work. When we get within 30 miles of Chester (a suburb of Philadelphia) the route puts us on a freeway. Then the pace really picks up. Then again it comes to a stop. We got off the freeway for part of the distance but that had lots of traffic lights. Most of those we had to stop. Construction was on part of it and the road was really rough. The manholes in particular were terrible. Those 30 miles took us over an hour to drive. We are staying in a Comfort Inn for the next couple of days while we find a storage space for the car and get to the airport. No rain and no wind so all is good. Rob put off car maintenance until tomorrow.

Concord New Hampshire to Kingston New York 208 miles

The skies today are mostly blue which is sure nice from all the grey skies. The humidity here is much less too. In fact the state is in severe drought conditions and has implemented water saving measures. That explains the low water pressure in the shower. One of the streams we drove along today really didn’t have much water. Rob loaded the car and it started without a pull. It likes the weather better also. We traveled through parts of New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. We went through forest, farmland and small towns. We did come into a cloudy area and the wind really picked up. The temperature dropped and we fully expected rain. Luckily it never came. These are mostly back roads again so very few turnouts. We found one to pull over for lunch but no table. While in New Hampshire we drove past Camp Spofford and Spofford Lake. We had visited there a few years ago. When we got to Vermont we traveled some of the same roads we had traveled last year on the Glidden Tour. Lots of signs now for maple syrup and candy. The restaurant tonight was in a house built around 1711. Rob is thinking of changing our plans slightly. We will now most likely go to Philadelphia and leave the car there. Connecting flights to Boise are much better from there rather than New Jersey.