I Want to be a Travel Writer When I Grow Up

I had the most fabulous time this weekend at Dover Downs Hotel and Casino! I was there on a research trip--I have to write an article about gambling on both sides of the Delaware Bay and other interesting things to do in and around the casinos. Atlantic City is easy. I've been there plenty of times and it's about an hour from home. But Delaware would be all new. I chose Dover Downs to explore although there are a couple of other places. Well...

They treated me like a queen! I was able to set up a comp night at the posh hotel and I had a great tour with Lisa from their PR department. she showed me all around the "property" as they call it, including the casino, the grandstand (by the NASCAR and harness racing tracks), the year-'round simulcast area, the dozen or so restaurants and bars, the beautiful new Colonnade with its retail shops, the spa (they gave me some free goodies), and last but not least, the swanky upscale restaurant, Michele's. The whole tour took about ninety minutes, and then...

Bob at Michele's offered to feed me and I had a wonderful dinner. Minestrone soup, warm bread, filet wrapped in bacon with a herb demiglaze and four-cheese sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh vegetables, and ultimately the ultimate warm chocolate lava cake with a side of raspberry gelato. After that meal, I was ready to crash, but I really wanted to explore the casino late night. I didn't make it, but a surprise was in store : Chef Tara from Michele's sent up to my room a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries and brownies. What a decadent late-night treat!

I finally hit the casino the next morning and signed up for my gold card. Slot machines are a lot different now from the last time I played. Everything is digital. The machine reads your cards and keeps track of your winnings and points towards bonuses. The machine is operated by buttons rather than the arm of "one-arm bandit" fame. Machines have diverse themes from all areas of human existence including Ebay, Tabasco, Mona Lisa, and my favorite, Moolah Rouge. My best winnings came from the Tabasco machine. I had only planned on losing ten dollars at the most (this was research after all), but I walked out of there with TWO THOUSAND cents. Yeah, I won a cool twenty dollars at the Tabasco machine.

What a great time I had at Dover Downs. It's only about an hour from the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, so it's within reason to go there for races or shows (Jimmy Dorsey's, Glenn Miller's, and Harry James's bands are all scheduled to appear this summer!!!), or just for dinner and some slots.

Cape May Poetry & Prose Getaway

It's snowing! For Cape May, at least when I'm in town, this is rare. This has been a wonderful weekend of writing and writers at the Grand Hotel, and the snow is just an additional joy. I brought a bagful of folders each containing an idea, and another bagful of books to consult. I'm leaving with an essay that has evolved over the two days into something really interesting. It's not what I had planned but it is better and fuller thanks to the helpful critiques of the members of my group, Jan, Sheila, Dave, Janet, and John, and our insightful teacher, Thomas Peele. We still have tomorrow morning's session, but i'm already looking forward to next year.

I loved my hotel room--an efficiency, really, with a microwave, fridge, electric burners and dishes, flatware, and cookware. This could be my permanent office. I can sit and work at the table and see the ocean OR close the drapes and immerse myself in total seclusion. I will have to do this again next year. (The organizer, Peter Murphy, is also running an event in Wales. Ooh.)

Tonight I attended the Getaway Cafe: participant and teacher book sale and signing, poetry reading by Pulitzer-Prize-Winning poet Stephen Dunn, songs by Nancy Falkow, and DIY ice cream sundaes. I bought one of Stephen Dunn's books and got it signed--in it are poems featuring various long-gone authors visiting contemporary New Jersey shore towns. His poems can make you laugh or rip your heart out--so much meaning in just a few words. I also picked out Robbie Clipper Sethi's The Bride Wore Red: tales of a cross-cultural family. Ms. Sethi and I chatted at the first evening's program. She teaches English at Rider University and got me interested in reading her own work.

All-in-all, it has been a wonderful, productive weekend, and now it's snowing!

Railroads

How cool is that--my first in-flight magazine article is in the issue with Alicia Keys on the cover! This article in Go (AirTran Airways magazine) is about Strasburg in Lancaster County, PA, an area I visit frequently for shopping and a phenomenal selection of quilt supplies. Focusing on the railroad destinations was fun: I spent the weekend and stayed one night in the Red Caboose Motel (in a real mail car), and the second night in the Rose Garden B&B. Strasburg seems to be a popular destination for families containing train buffs as I was seeing some of the same people at the various destinations.

Anyhow, there's another post with photos further down this list, and the link to the actual article is in the list to the left. (Click on "Rail Life".) This online version is a bit edited--I'm hoping to score a copy of the print version which will feature a sidebar on the Red Caboose Motel and maybe more photos.

Mummers 2009

I think I may have done permanent damage to my extremities and nervous system by standing out in the freezing cold for four hours watching Mummers strut up Broad Street. I only caught parts of the Comics, the Fancies, and the first few string bands. There was a huge gap in the entertainment before the string bands, and this is when my toes stopped being numb and started hurting in a strange way. I was determined to see some string bands, though, so I stayed strong. I made it through three before I decided the people who came to stand in front of the barricade and in front of my Nikon lens would ruin all my photos. The train station was cold and the train was cold, and of course my car was cold, but my house is warm. I have spent lots of times on the photos I took--it's practically a no-brainer to get colorful unique shots at the Mummers Parade.

In spite of the cold, I had a ball. I stood on the same corner where I used to stand over twenty (!!!) years ago when I lived in Philadelphia and came out to see the string bands. Lucky for me I lived at Broad & Locust, and that is one of the "performance" spots. I even scored two strings of Mummer (Mardi Gras) beads and shared one with Gladys the Sheltie Puppy tonight until I heard this odd crunching sound...

Here are some of my favorite shots:

Christmas in New York

One of my favorite places to visit during the holiday season is New York City. I never get tired of the holiday decorations and store windows. This year we stopped for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square and shopped at the M&M's store.

We bought some great scarves from a vendor and walked all around Midtown. We battled the crowds at Rockefeller Center to see this year's tree which came from Hamilton Township, NJ! Here are my versions of the classic holiday in NYC shots:

Sherlock Holmes Weekend

It has been so long I actually forgot my Blogger password! But with the Lyme Disease finally under control I am feeling more like writing now. Long story short, Gladys the Sheltie Puppy was acting very lazy and holding her little pointy paw up when she walked, so I took her to the vet. We had a Lyme Disease confirmation in eight minutes, and the vet wisely suggested I get tested, too. The human test takes more like eight days, especially when the doctor mails the results to you via Pony Express. (In the meantime, I treated a case of bronchitis!) Gladys was fine after a few potent antibiotics, and I am entering my last week of the giant blue capsules.



But rather than get stuck on a ticky subject, I'll write about one of the interesting things I managed to do this month. I had been looking forward to this year's Sherlock Holmes Weekend in Cape May, and there was no way I was going to miss it because of that silly Lyme Disease and annoying bronchitis. I had been working on a new costume so that I could have a slightly different Victorian look each day. This is a weekend-long event, starting on Friday night with the revelation of a murder or two. The event takes place in the Victorian Inn of Cape May.





Professional actors portray the characters including Holmes and Watson. Participants are encouraged to dress Victorian, but few do. I was happy to see about eight women dressed on the first night. Saturday's events include the Search for Clues Tour where participants get to investigate a half-dozen Victorian inns for clues to the mystery. Knowing Sherlock Holmes, most of these would end up as red herrings (totally unrelated to the mystery's solution), but it is great fun to see the insides of the inns. This year I decided to skip the walking around on a cold, rainy afternoon because my bronchitis would have most certainly turned to pneumonia. I joined the group for the next part of the mystery at the Inn of Cape May immediately after the clues tour. Four of us were dressed up and got our picture in the local paper:
Sunday's installment includes a delicious lunch and the solution to the mystery. There's no way I'd ever solve these mysteries and win the prize--they are multi-faceted and convoluted. We're not just looking for whodunit; we are also attempting to figure out why and who the accomplices are. But isn't that the fun of Sherlock Holmes? Cape May's MAC keeps everyone interested, though, with prizes for best costumes, Clueless Wonder, and the amateur detective who comes closest to solving the mystery.

Strasburg, PA

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a weekend in Lancaster County, PA. I go there often, but rarely stay over. This was a treat. I was working on an article about the railroad destinations in Strasburg, but I found time to hit my favorite quilt fabric stores and I dropped a little cash at the outlets, too.

I drove out Friday evening and checked into the Red Caboose Motel. I've always wanted to stay at this motel where you get to sleep in a real caboose. I was actually in a part of the mail car and it was very comfy. I had French toast the next morning in the Victorian dining car which was doing a brisk business. There's a button behind the hostess station that makes the car feel like it's moving. With my camera I walked around the motel's grounds to check out all the clever activities for kids. There's a petting zoo and buggy rides around Amish country, and a 72-step viewing tower that used to be a silo. I got some great shots of the surrounding Amish farmland from the top.

I also visited the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania just down the road. This huge museum features huge locomotives and "rolling stock" representing the railroad history of Pennsylvania. This photo was taken from the bridge over the display. Out in the restoration yard I got a couple of photos of some old rusty cabooses waiting to be restored. Although I was supposed to be learning about railroads in Pennsylvania, I bought a book on New Jersey railroads in the bookstore.

Right next door to the Red Caboose Motel is the National Toy Train Museum. This place has displays of antique and contemporary American and European toy trains and three huge layouts. Each of these has buttons visitors can push to operate the trains and accessories. There is even a display of toys other than trains made by the famous toy train maker, Lionel: a little electric stove and and airport among other things.

The Choo Choo Barn is another attraction just down the street. It started as a display in Mr. Groff's basement, and has grown to a huge layout featuring scenes of Lancaster County. Periodically, the lights go down and it's all lit up with twinking stars above. There's a house that catches on fire, a fire engine that drives over, a ski lift, and a tiny Strasburg Rail Road. This display is in a large room at one end of this mini-complex with train-related stores featuring books, videos, and Thomas merchandise.

I stayed at the Rose Garden Bed and Breakfast in Strasburg Saturday night (the Red Caboose was booked solid!) and then went for my ride on the Strasburg Rail Road. This is the attraction that was here first: it's America's oldest-running short-line railroad. All of the cars are restored (beautifully) to be correct to the 1930s even if the car is actually older. I road in a coach car, but for a little more $$ I could have ridden in the posh first-class car or the fancy dining car for a meal. I'd ridden this train before, but I hadn't noticed that the locomotive pulls the train backwards for the first half of the 45-minute ride, then pulls around the train on a different track to the other end of the train. Now it pulls the train frontwards back to the Strasburg station. It has always done it this way. Huh. Even though this wasn't one of the weekends that the famous Thomas the Tank Engine visits Strasburg, the place was packed! I noticed other people visiting multiple train destinations, too.