Labor Day Vacation

Saturday we headed away for the weekend. The original plan was to stay at a bed and breakfast near Lambertville, and go kayaking. Because of the hurricane that passed through the east coast last week, the waterways were very high and fast, so no kayaking was going on. So we had to find other activities in the area - the main goal of the weekend was relaxing family time.



45 minutes into a 2 hour drive, Rudy was fast asleep in the back. (He insisted he had to bring 5 of his friends with him, so they all napped, too.)


We arrived at our bed and breakfast and headed out to Lambertville and New Hope for dinner. This is the bridge that crosses the river. We walked across it to get from one town to the other.

Paul took this picture for Renee, apparently the quote underneath is a line from a song. Enjoy, Renee!

Rudy enjoyed walking through this yard and playing with and talking to all these windsocks.

We visited the train station in New Hope - not an actual commuter train, but one to ride for fun.

After dinner and walking around, we got dessert. We stopped at this store that sold flavored popcorn and gelato. Rudy picked out his gelato, then looked at the popcorn as if it were toppings for the gelato. I told him it was just popcorn, but the owner said she often puts popcorn as a topping, and she stuck a few pieces of caramel corn popcorn in his mint chocolate gelato. Rudy enjoyed it.

Heading back across the bridge.

On Sunday we went to Ringing Rocks State Park. This is just the beginning of the rocks.

Some of the rocks, when hit with a hammer or another rock, make a ringing sound, rather than a dull sound rocks usually make when hit. It was cool to climb around on the rocks and try to find ones that rang.

Before venturing all the way out on the rocks, we took a little walk down the path.

I wanted Rudy to pretend to hold this rock up on the other side, but there were spiders there, so that wasn't happening.

The waterfall at the end of the path. We didn't get any pictures, but the surface at the top of this waterfall was completely slanted, and created a very surreal feeling when you looked at it.

Back at the rocks.

From here, to the other side, is at least as long as a football field.

Checking to see which ones ring.

Yes, we climbed and climbed the rocks.

After going all the way across the rocks, we assumed that the path at the other end would probably lead out to the parking lot or at least back to the waterfall. That ended up not being the case. As far as we could tell, after taking a walk down the mountain some, the only way out was the way we came - back across the rocks. So we headed back - hot, tired and hungry at this point.

Finally we made it back to the path. And headed to our car for lunch.

After lunch the adventure continued. Our plan was to head south to Bowman's Tower in Washington Crossing Park. Since we were on the NJ side, and our end point was on the NJ side, we decided to stay on the NJ side, even though we had heard that some roads were closed because of flooding and bridges being out. So we followed the map and drove and encountered our first closed road. The detour signs weren't great, but we had a map, so we found ways around the detour. Only to encounter another road closed and another and another. Our map wasn't very extensive, and the other maps we had were too large to give much detail in our area. We drove for about 2 hours trying to find a way through. (All the while my car's temperature gauge would rise and then drop some, then rise and drop. AND we had no cell signal most of the time.) So we finally decided to completely back track to near Ringing Rocks, cross into PA and go that way. Only the roads, and our memory of the roads, didn't match the map and the street signs.

We finally stopped at a little creek to stretch our legs and figure out our next move. Rudy explored the edge of the water, while we stopped a nice couple to ask for help. They had a map in their vehicle and we told them we didn't care if they got us up where we started or down towards New Hope, we just needed to get somewhere. Turns out we were only a mile or so from a main road that took us down to New Hope. Between the hilly roads and the lack of side roads and alternate routes, this is definitely not an area I would want to live in!

So about 2 1/2 hours after leaving Ringing Rocks (what would have been about a 30 minute ride), we finally made it to New Hope where we got a snack at the train station and Paul and Rudy waited for their train ride.

Here they are leaving.

Scenes from the ride.

When they arrived back at the train station, Vincie, Andy and the boys were there. Since they don't live far from New Hope, they arranged to meet us.

We had dinner with them and ice cream and then headed back. Here sit the kids on a step at the restaurant. You know if we had told them to go and sit together, it never would have happened!

The next morning we headed for home, but not without some more excitement. At breakfast we were talking to the owner of the bed and breakfast and one of the guests, both of whom worked on cars. Paul told them about the trouble we'd had with my carand they agreed to look at it. It was decided that we could use some coolant, although it wasn't completely empty, and that maybe there was something wrong with one of the hoses to the radiator. They didn't have any anti-freeze, so they added some water, with the warning that when we got home we needed to take the car to our garage and have it flushed out since it was just water in there.

Driving home, the indicator rose again, and dropped less often. Then as we got on I-95, the engine light came on. We got off the exit coming up and went directly to a gas station where the garage was closed for the day. We purchased some coolant (and after a quick call to the owner of the b and b to make sure it was okay to add coolant to the water, added coolant in the radiator.) Then we sat and waited a few minutes for the engine to cool. Then we turned the key - and nothing. We tried again - and nothing.

At this point we were about an hour and a half from home. So I called my dad to see if he was around and if we needed him, could he come pick us up. Fortunately, he was free. Then I called AAA. They told me they'd probably have to tow us and did I have an idea where to go or want a recommendation. I said I'd take the recommednation, and it was the garage where our car was currently stalled. So instead of having AAA come out, we called my dad to come get us, arranged with the gas stsation attendants to leave the car and fill out the needed paperwork to have it looked at in the morning, and took a walk to find someplace for lunch while waiting for my dad.

Dad came and brought us home. Today we got the good news that the garage was able to do minor work on the radiator but in a while we would probably need to have it repaired - a much bigger cost, but not something we needed to do immediately.

As we waited for my dad, Paul and I kept saying, it could have been worse. We could have gotten stuck on the highway, or not been near a garage. Or had to have kept Rudy sitting in the car for the hours until my dad came, so we were thankful it happened the way it did, and that we made it home safely.