Bill's Trips 2021

Seneca Knitting Mill Building:  Women's Hall of Fame With pickleball and various writing and quilting projects, our schedule has been a bit hectic the last month.  We decided it would be good to take a short break somewhere we had never been.  It is not completely accurate to say we had never been to Seneca Falls.  We had been through it a hand full of times and Bill had worked with St. Patrick's Parish during his time at the Diocese of Rochester.  However, neither of us had ever taken the time to visit and learn the history of Seneca Falls.  Hence it seemed a perfect place to spend two overnights.  This decision was confirmed when we found a wonderful Bed & Breakfast, Barristers.   Barristers Bed & Breakfast The house began life in 1860 and was a residence for several generations of only two families until 2001 when it was converted into a bed and breakfast inn.  Ken and Diane, our innkeepers, purchased the house in 2007 an...

  Manhattan Sunset I have a good friend who is from Brooklyn.  I called him from Brooklyn as we were enjoying the above  Manhattan sunset from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.  He gave me some Brooklyn wisdom, "Manhattan may have everything but Brooklyn has the view!"  And what a view.  We have driven to Brooklyn for the wedding of Marilyn's niece, Marina Seitz, to Matt Ford.  We arrived late Friday afternoon after a harrowing transit through the city.  I had anticipated managing my way over bridges but instead, I was subjected to the challenges of not one but two tunnels:  Holland Tunnel from New Jersey to Downtown Manhattan and then the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to Red Hook. The wedding was in Williamsburg in a small and very trendy hotel.  Most out-of-town guests stayed at the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge which was right on Brooklyn Bridge Blvd less than two blocks from the beginning of the walkway over the bridge.  After we settled in,...

View from Liberty Memorial with Union Station in foreground and downtown beyond I was born and raised in Kansas City MO along with my five siblings and five cousins.  I left in 1973 to move to Denver, then Detroit, then San Diego, and finally Rochester where I have lived for the past 35 years.  I have lived longer in Rochester than I did in Kansas City but the place where you grew up and especially learned to drive will always be home.  For most of those 35 years, I have traveled back to KC to visit my family.  Mom and Dad and my three sisters stayed in KC while my two brothers and I left. This trip was special because I hadn't been home since January 2019 for the funeral of our baby sister, Louisa, and because all five of us were there at the same time.  Along with four spouses--Peter, Johnny, Sarah and Marilyn--we spent five days doing fun things and seeing new places and plenty of old haunts.  Typically we travel by car covering the 1,000 miles in two da...

We left Virginia and traveled about three hours north passing through Maryland into Delaware and then Pennsylvania.  It was Sunday which meant that the traffic was light although it seemed busy to this Rochester driver.  We drove through downtown Wilmington on the way to our hotel in Glen Mills PA at the intersection of the Baltimore Pike (US 1) and the Wilmington Pike (US 202.)  Happily enough our hotel was a stone's throw from a Wegman's where we did some travel shopping. Over the next three days, we visited five gardens in the area.  That seems like a lot but then the Greater Philadephia area is called the Garden Capital of America .  There are 36 public gardens within a 30-mile radius of the city.  We found ourselves in the area around Wilmington DE.  Below are some photos, a video and some descriptions of five of those 36 gardens.  We certainly got an early taste of spring after what seemed like a long, even endless winter. Longwood Gardens T...