Knowing and Using Your Resources

August 3, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 5 Comments

As the calendar pages turn from July to August, our days in Ocean City get down to a handful, and the start of our “Big Adventure” is just weeks away! Once we get back to Long Island next weekend, we’ll have a couple of weeks to get clothes together, schedule the car to be checked out, take care of visits to the Doctor and Dentist, take care of nail and hair appointments, and see our kids before we leave. Then on Sunday, August 21st, with the car loaded, off we will go. A combination of sadness (that we are leaving the life we love in Ocean City), excitement (that this trip we have so long dreamed about and planned is really here), and trepidation (are we nuts to embark on 2-3 months of driving around the United States????) is our current state of mind, but we know that once we get on the road, we’ll have a great time!

Recently, a friend who has been following along with this blog asked a question about where to get information. He too wants to embark on a retirement trip, but he just didn’t really know where to start. It started us thinking about what our process has been, and thought some might find it interesting to take a look at some of the tools we have used along the way. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but just some ideas we have used to get a handle on some of the places we want to visit and how to get there.

1 – The AAA. As long time members of the American Automobile Club, we have always used AAA Maps and Tour Books as our road trip bibles. If you are of a certain age, you will understand what we mean when we say there is just something about watching your progress on a paper map that seems to define a road trip. Luckily, some of the best paper maps you can get, are published by the AAA, and are a perk of your membership. In addition to the maps, the tour books have a wealth of knowledge about tourist destinations as well as hotel and restaurants listings in the area. If you are an AAA member, you can order maps, tour books and even triptiks (route directions) online. You can also just stop into a local AAA office (doesn’t have to be the state AAA you are affiliated with) and pick up maps, tour books, and even triptiks. Having a paper map in front of you so that you can check the location and relationships between places you want to visit is a must when planning a trip, and the tour books will give you valuable information about the places on your trip and be very helpful in deciding what you want to visit. If you are a member, stop in and pick up a couple of maps and tour books and start planning. If you are not a member, consider joining, as the price of your membership will be well worth it for the information you can get. (aaa.com….yearly membership $52)

2 – Atlas – Because many people would not consider a road trip without a comprehensive road atlas, we purchased a Rand McNally Road Atlas. This one volume contains maps of all 50 states and lower Canada and assures us that we will always have a map showing our location, wherever we are in the US. The scale is smaller than the AAA maps which sometimes makes it hard to figure out exactly what you’re looking at, but sometimes makes it easier to see the relationship between two destinations. While we’ve used this volume a lot in our planning, for our actual trip we think it will take a back up roll to the bigger scale AAA maps.

3 – Books – One of the things that you need to do when you are planning a road trip, is to decide what you want to see. If you have a “bucket list” of places that you want to include (like Frank wants to see Mt. Rushmore and Sue Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon), it will make your planning easier, as you already will have destinations in mind. If your “bucket list” is empty, or if you need more information about places, there are thousands of travel books you can purchase via Amazon or at a book store like Barnes and Noble that will help you flesh out an itinerary. Two that we have used are, “1,000 Places to See in the US and Canada Before You Die” (Workman Publishing, NY) and The New Roadside America (a Fireside Book published by Simon and Schuster, NY). The first covers everything from National Parks, historic sites, scenic byways, and the like, while the second will lead you to the odd things…like the biggest thermometer, ball of twine and those kind of offbeat attractions.

4 – Google and the Internet – We live in the age of information at our fingertips, and much of the info you’ll want to plan your trip is available via your computer, tablet, or even smart phone. Google will lead you to just about anything you have a question about, and virtually everything has a website these days. Want more info on the Grand Canyon? Type it into Google and go right to the Grand Canyon National Park’s website. While it’s nice to have books in hand, the reality is that you can find everything you need on the internet.

5 – Trip Advisor – While we are talking about web sites, we’d like to single out one that has provided us with lots of information and advice. Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com) is virtually a one stop destination for travel information. From hotel, restaurant, and attraction reviews, to information about the area, even to listings of hotel and apartment rentals, Trip Advisor is a great source for travel information. Just put in the area you are interested in visiting, and Trip Advisor will provide you a complete overview. In addition, hit the MORE button on the top of the page, highlight TRAVEL FORUM and it will open up the Travel Board where you can ask questions and get real advice from fellow travelers! From Cities and States, to National Parks and Historic Sites, to every kind of trip (like Road Trips), you can find a forum that covers exactly what you are looking for, populated with knowledgeable travelers looking to help their fellow travelers. A great resource.

6 – Google Maps – Looking at places on a map gives you an idea of where they are and the relationship of places to each other, but how do you know how long it will take you to get from say Chicago to the Black Hills? This was the position we were in when planning some sections of our trip, and we found an easy way to get a ball park estimate was to use Google Maps. Enter your starting point and your destination, ask for directions, and it will tell you not only the mileage but give you an idea of the driving time. Now, we know that it’s not fool proof, but we think it’s a good way to get an estimate so that you can make some decisions based on facts.

7 – Hotel Apps – If you have a smart phone or a tablet you can travel with, hotel apps are a great way to see what’s available and even to make reservations. At the present time, I have apps from Best Western, Hilton Honors, and Choice Hotels on my phone, but there are many others. If you’re going to be traveling a lot, not only do these apps help you find lodging, but by joining their programs, you may even get free stays!

6- GPS – While we like printed maps, we always travel with a Garmin GPS on our dash. It’s very handy when you are trying to find a hotel or site that you have an address for, and good to give you an idea exactly where you are. In addition, ours tells us what the local speed limit is, how fast we’re going, and also keeps us updated on traffic. We don’t depend on it totally, as we always try to have maps as a reference, and I’ve read on the internet that using a GPS in the American Southwest is iffy at best, as they are notoriously inaccurate there for some reason, but it’s a good tool to have in your tool box.

So there it is…some ideas from us, and how to go about planning and executing your trip of a lifetime…or perhaps just a trip down to Florida in the winter to avoid the January and February freeze! Probably the next time you hear from us, we will be on the road, but now we have to continue packing up the Ocean City house, and get ready for 2 weeks of trip preparation!

Our July Check in

July 20, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 3 Comments

So, the last time we checked in with a report on our beach bum life style we like to call retirement, was about a month ago. That was when we talked about the visit we had from Grandkids Layla and Henry, their Mom and Dad, and Aunt Krissi. We figured it was time to check in again and give you an idea what we’ve been up to.

We’ve been living the life we always hoped we would when we retired. Our daily routine is that we get up between 7:30 and 8 AM (without an alarm), check in on our iPads with mail, Facebook, and other happenings, and then get ready for the beach. We are definitely morning beach people, who like to hit the sand sometime between 9 and 10 AM when it’s still quiet and pretty empty. Our favorite place to park on the beach is as close to the water as we can so that the sound track of our beach time is nature’s best beach sound, that of the waves breaking on Pennlyn Place Beach! Most mornings Frank will remember to check the tide app on his iPhone so we can get exactly where we want to be and not have to move. We stay at the beach anywhere from 2 to 4 hours. Our length of stay usually depends on the weather (it’s been really hot and humid the last couple of days so shorter stays), what if anything we’ve got going later in the day, and how crowded the beach gets. On the 4th of July weekend, when a loud family plopped down 4 feet from our chairs, we decided we’d had enough! Our favorite thing is to be heading back home as the big crowds start coming to the beach. Often times we will pass neighbors and friends, just heading to the beach as we head home, and joke about Beach Sharing!

Once we are home and have hosed off the sand, it’s time for a cold one on our porch and a little relaxing time before lunch and a shower. We love sitting out there, watching the Pennlyn Place World pass by, having a drink, eating, or reading our Kindles. Speaking of our porch, we both agree that it is by far our favorite room of our Ocean City home…and to us, it is very much a room! This year Susie got a wish fulfilled she’s had for several years, when we bought a couch for the porch. The addition of this piece of furniture has really completed our outside living space and really cemented it as a room. Well, really two rooms…a living room and a dining room, as most of our meals are eaten out there too!

Our front porch is also the unofficial gathering spot for our Pennlyn Place Family. Be it planned gatherings or impromptu after-dinner get-togethers, our porch seems to be the venue of choice! For example, this past Friday, our good friend Sue joined us about 5:30 on our porch for Happy Hour. We met Sue a number of years ago at Charlie’s in Somers Point, and we are happy to say that Sue and her husband Jim have become good friends! After a couple of drinks, and an Italian dinner that Susie threw together, we were joined on the porch by our good friends Denise and Chris Maiden who were riding by on their bikes. A little later after Sue headed home, our neighbors Karen and Bob Byrne were walking their dog Abby past the house, when they were encouraged to come up and join us on the porch. This is the kind of thing that happens often, and the kind of thing that we love!! We always have a full beer cooler on the porch, and lots of other supplies on hand to take care of whatever drink folks might want. There is nothing we love better than a porch full of friends who think our porch is the perfect place to end an evening!

We are also lucky that we have so many great friends on our block and in the surrounding blocks that we think of more like our Ocean City Family. Be it a casual WAWA Hoagie dinner on the Somer’s Point Beach as we listen to 60s and 70s music, or a fun evening of just hanging out and ordering in, or a BBQ in someone’s back yard, a potluck supper, or a nice dinner in an off island BYOB restaurant, you can guarantee that every weekend our group will be doing something! Some weekends Frank will even go out on our friend Chris Maiden’s boat. This weekend was the Ocean City Night in Venice Saturday when there is a boat parade, decorated houses, and a fireworks display on the bay side of the Island. Chris and Frank, along with Karen and Bob ventured out late afternoon to check out the house decorations and the parties that had already started. Like we said, there is always something going on with our Ocean City Family!

So that’s what we’ve been up to. We leave in a little more than a month on our big trip, and trust us, we are excited about that, but at the same time a little sorry it’s happening. We’re sorry, because after 11 summers of being here for weekends and a couple of solid weeks, this 12th summer at our house is exactly what we hoped it would be. A little lazy, a little crazy, a lot of beach, a lot of bare feet, and a lot of feeling like it’s home and exactly where we belong. We have returned to Long Island every couple of weeks for important things like Nail Night, Doctor Appointments, and for Susie to check in on her Mom, but even when we are on the LIE, our minds are still at 854 Pennlyn Place in Ocean City. When some idiot Long Island driver cuts us off or speeds by us at 50 mph, we just look at each other and know we both want to be back on our island in the sun where the speed limit never gets over 35 mph. Even now, in the height of the summer, with all the tourists and weekly renters in town, there is no place we’d still rather be than right here on our island off the Jersey Coast with our Ocean City Family!

July 3rd, 1977

July 2, 2016July 3, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

This blog is called R New Adventures, and its purpose is to document our lives together as we move into our next chapter, retirement. That’s all well and good, but if something hadn’t happened 39 years ago today, there would have been no chapters in our life and no blog. That’s because July 3rd, 1977 was a monumental day is Susie and my life.

The summer of 1977 found me working as a Vacation Relief Engineer at ABC, but July 3rd found us in the middle of a 5 1/2 month strike by our union (NABET) against the American Broadcasting Company. That meant that rather than being in MUSICRADIO 77 WABC’s Studio 8A with the likes of Dan Ingram, George Michael, or Chuck Leonard or in 95.5 WPLJ’s Studio FM-1 with Pat St John, Tony Pigg or Carol Miller playing music, we were outside the ABC Building picketing 3 times a week! Meanwhile, Susie was working as an RN at Glen Cove Hospital, covering the evening charge shift in Pediatrics.

So, on Saturday July 3rd, 1977 we were both invited to an early July 4th BBQ at our friends’ Maryanne and Bill Epperhart’s house. I knew Bill from WCWP and Susie worked with Maryanne at Glen Cove Hospital. Years later, we discovered that the purpose of the whole party was to get the two of us together, but on that day 39 years ago, all I knew was that I was able to attend a Saturday summer party at a friend’s house, because we were on strike and I didn’t have to work!

I’ll tell you something that did work…getting the two of us together! Susie had some fireworks she’d brought back from a road trip visiting relatives, and I was designated to be the one to help her ignite the display. Something besides those fireworks ignited that night! Frankly, it was love at first sight and of course I wanted to see her again! The next weekend, we went out on our official “first date”. One of the elements of that date was dinner at a favorite Chinese Restaurant. My fortune cookie told it all that night. “You will marry your present lover and be happy”, was what the little slip in the cookie said, and it couldn’t have been more right!

So 39 years later, we still celebrate this day as a milestone in our life together, and every night I give thanks for meeting the most wonderful person, the love of my life, my best friend, and person that I have shared every adventure in this life with! Love you Susie and am so thankful that July 3rd, 1977 happened and gave me my life!!! You are the best and the key to our adventures!

Our Big Trip Update

June 20, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

So, the last time we talked about our “Big Trip”, we told you that because of a need to make certain reservations now or not be able to stay where we want to, our trip had taken on some real details. We will be leaving Long Island on August 21st…two months from tomorrow… and heading west, so this is becoming more and more real! Since our last update, some of our reservations have changed and more of the early part of our trek has been further fleshed out.

Originally, the only place we could originally get in the Grand Canyon was a room at the Yavapai Lodge, this was definitely not our first choice. While it is indeed located at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, it is not ON the South Rim, but is back about a 1/2 mile. As everything else at the Grand Canyon was already booked for our dates, we felt fortunate that we were at least in the Grand Canyon and not miles outside of the Park. Frank had read online advice from many folks that said to grab something, and just keep on checking back and see if something better opens up, and that’s exactly what we did. After checking back on almost a daily basis, we were rewarded with exactly what we wanted. We now have reserved a cabin at Bright Angel Lodge, which is literally feet away from the rim of the canyon! Sunrises and Sunsets will be much easier to enjoy from that location!

We’ve also fleshed out our stay at Yellowstone a bit and have booked one dinner at the Lake Yellowstone Lodge, a boat tour of Yellowstone Lake, and a Lake Butte Sunset Tour, the vehicles for which are classic Yellowstone “Yellow Buses” from the 20s and 30s. This along with exploring things like Old Faithful on our own, and seeing the varied wildlife in the park, should make for two unforgettable days in America’s First National Park!

We have also looked closer at the days leading up to our two night stay in Yellowstone. The amount of reading you have to do, the number of maps you need to consult, the websites you have to check, and the mileage and time calculations you have to do to have a successful trip can be mind boggling! But, when it’s a trip you have been dreaming and talking about for years, it all becomes worth it! One of the things that will be included on those days leading up to our Yellowstone visit will be one of Frank’s main Bucket List items on this trip, Mount Rushmore!

His desire to see Mt. Rushmore in the flesh, probably stems from seeing Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint climb across the faces of the presidents in the Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest. Frank found an interesting article recently dealing with what was actually filmed on site, and what was shot back at the studio. Of course, it would seem fairly obvious that someone like Cary Grant was not actually dangling from Lincoln’s nose on the real Mt. Rushmore, but apparently the head of the National Park Services was fearful that back in 1959, some folks might think he was! It seems that the permit that Hitchcock and the crew were given for the scenes they filmed at Mt. Rushmore contained specific language detailing what the film makers could do in scenes shot on site, or in the studio using mock-ups. The reason for this language lay in one simple fact: master film director Alfred Hitchcock had long wanted to film a movie involving the “Shrine of Democracy,” but the Park Service had concerns about the memorials potential “desecration.” After seeing a preview of the movie before it’s public release, the head of the service wrote, “The phony studio shots leave the average customer with the idea that the scenes of violence were staged on the memorial itself.” Kind of hard to understand that logic when 60 years later we have seen everything from the Empire State Building to the White House destroyed in movies, but the Park Service actually tried to have the release of the movie stopped…obviously that didn’t happen. You have to wonder how many of the tourists who have journeyed to Mt. Rushmore over the almost 60 years since the release of the movie, have done so for the same reason we are… because they saw North by Northwest. In hindsight, perhaps the movie they feared so much, was the best publicity a monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota could have gotten! As Cary Grant playing Roger Thornhill, the advertising executive protagonist in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest says, “Ah, Maggie, in the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie, there’s only the expedient exaggeration!”.

So, anyway, Mt. Rushmore is the first major stop of our adventure, and as we said, we have fleshed out some of the days leading up to our visit. Leaving NY on August 21st, we will journey out Interstate 80 to Chicago, then head slightly north until we join up with Interstate 90. Depending on weather, the road conditions, how we feel, and what we may want to stop and see along the way, we figure it will take us the better part of 4 days to reach South Dakota. We are planning our first stop in South Dakota to be in Murdo, and then the next morning, we expect to hit our first National Park of the trip, Badlands National Park, on our way to Mt. Rushmore. Next we reserved two nights in Keystone, South Dakota which is right in the heart of the area with easy access to Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, and the Black Hills National Forest. After our two nights in the area, we will head out, hopefully hitting Devils Tower National Monument and detouring north to pay a visit to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. We hope our stop that night will be in Sheridan, Wyoming and then the next day we will head into Yellowstone for our two days there.

To be honest, this kind of planning is definitely not our style. We are more the type of folks that get into the car, have a rough idea of where we’re going, a general idea of our time frame, and then take off, stopping each night in hotels we find along the way in the AAA Tour Books. What we have discovered though, is that when your trips include National Parks and Monuments, unless you want to drive around half the night looking for a place to stay, you really have to plan ahead. So at least on this first leg, we have been forced to make hotel reservations, figure out how much mileage we’ll cover each day, and what we’re going to see. Hopefully the next leg of the trip, will leave us a little more leeway to wander, but we will see when we soon take a closer look at the two weeks between Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. We’ve already looked at the maps and are thinking about the next leg taking us to the Rocky Mountains, Salt Lake City, Denver (perhaps a baseball game there), Pikes Peak, and maybe even Vegas. We don’t want to give away too much of the “adventure” of this trip, but just thought you might be interested in a bit of the planning we’ve put in. Only time will tell if our trek between leaving Yellowstone on August 30th, and checking into the Bright Angel Lodge in the Grand Canyon on September 14th will be as planned, or more free form. Only time will also tell if our plans will all work out, or if we will be doing some “flying by the seat of our pants”. Stay tuned!

Summers at the Beach

June 14, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 3 Comments

In 1955, when I was 5 years old, we first came to a Jersey Shore town I have come to think of as my home away from home, Ocean City, NJ. Growing up and still living on Long Island, over the past 61 years I have been asked time and time again, “You live on Long Island, and you go to a Jersey Shore beach?”. Well, the story is simple. In 1955, both my Mom and Dad were singers in New York’s Metropolitan Opera’s Chorus. In those days, the Met’s season was very short…something like 40 weeks including rehearsals and the spring tour. The rest of the year, they got by courtesy of New York State Unemployment Benefits. So, with all this time off in the summer, and having a 5 year old child, it was the Summer of 1955 that they took the advice of people they worked with in the Met Chorus, and the D’Elia Family journeyed to Ocean City.

Walter and Kathy were another married couple in the Met, and my Mom and Kathy had been friends in Chicago. Walter, on the other hand, was a Philly boy, and his family had a summer cottage on Asbury Avenue and 32 Street in Ocean City. They arranged for us to rent a room next door in Dorothy’s “boarding house”, and for the next 5 summers, Ocean City, NJ was our address! I grew up on the beach and boardwalk of Ocean City, forever forming in my mind the image of a beach town in Ocean City’s likeness.

The story of our connection to Ocean City picks up in the spring of 1980, shortly after Susie and I were married. After those first 5 years, my Mom and Dad started working more during the summer, and our trips to Ocean City were few and far between. After being away for years, in 1980, Susie and I came down to sample the new gambling Mecca, Atlantic City, and our trip included a wonderful trip down memory lane for me in Ocean City, wandering through town and on the boardwalk, and that was the beginning of an ongoing relationship between Ocean City and our family.

Every summer, since 33 year old Bill’s first in 1983, the D’Elia Family has spent part of every summer in Ocean City! When his younger sister and brother, Krissi and Kenny came along in 1986, we continued our tradition of having babies on the beach and boardwalk of this great town. Some years we were able to rent a house for a week or two, some years it was a couple of day’s stay in a motel, and other years we camped in our Pop-Up trailer just off the island on Route 9, and made day and night trips to our beach town. Then, 11 years ago, in January of 2005, something changed for us. Thanks to a fortuitous real estate deal in Las Vegas, Susie and I found ourselves in a position to live out our dream, and we did! For the past 11 years, we have been proud owners of our dream home, on Pennlyn Place in Ocean City, NJ. Since then, weekends, spring weeks, summer weeks, holiday vacations, and whatever time we could steal have been spent here.

Then something else changed for us on January 29th, 2016…I retired and joined Susie, who had already left the work world, and now our time was ours, and less others. Now, what would you do if you owned a beach house? Yep, spend as much time there as you could!! So the past 4 months have found us traveling as much time as possible to Ocean City. Our trip down to Florida in late February did take some time away, and unfortunately the rather cold spring we’ve suffered through, and some ongoing health issues with Susie’s Mom has prevented us from having the kind of first spring in Ocean City I dreamed about, but all in all, it has been great! We no longer have to travel back and forth on the weekend, the beach is still only 500 feet down the street, so we go whenever we want, our great neighbors and friends are still steps away, and our life is settling into the routine we’ve dreamed about for years. It’s mid June, our daily dress is shorts, T-shirts, and flip flops, and we’re already tan…what could be better!!

One of the best parts of having a place that you love is being able to share it with people you love, and this past weekend was a banner example of that! Early Saturday morning, our oldest son Bill, his wife Lori and our two beautiful grandkids Layla and Henry joined us at the shore. They brought with them our favorite daughter, Layla and Henry’s Aunt Krissi, and the family was almost complete!! (Just missing youngest son Kenny, who is presently performing on a cruise ship in the Caribbean…not a bad deal!) It was a great weekend!

We could get very use to having these little shoes in our house!

We could get very used to having these little shoes in our house!

Layla is a little over 2 years old and such a beautiful little person. Henry is just shy of 8 months and starting to crawl. What a wonderful continuation of family tradition to see these two beautiful children in a place that I still so remember their Dad in at their ages. After the excitement of Layla exploring the house, finding her room, and helping Daddy unload the car, it was time to get changed and get to the beach. First there was a trip down to the water, and although it was cold, Layla would have stood there all day. Each time the ripple of water would wash over her feet, she laughed and splashed and loved it. Then it was sand castle time. She and Daddy dug a big hole, Dad went and got the obligatory pails of water, and Layla had a great time dumping them into the hole. Then all thoughts of sand castles disappeared and Layla discovered it was more fun to stand in the hole and have Daddy bury her legs in the sand. Meanwhile, Henry was busy keeping Aunt Krissi, Mommy and Grandma on guard, as his real desire seemed to be to get down on his knees and crawl all over Pennlyn Place Beach! And what was I doing you may ask? Taking pictures, watching the unfolding family tableau, and smiling ear to ear!

By afternoon, it was time to get the kids back to the house and prepare everyone for a trip to the boardwalk. On Layla’s agenda was some french fries (perhaps this little girl’s favorite food), and rides! Sounded like a solid plan to me, so as soon as the 7 of us were changed, off we went! One of the great parts of the location of our house, is that we just need to walk down the block, get on the boardwalk, turn right and walk 6 blocks south, and we’re at the commercial part of the Ocean City Boardwalk! As we walked by Wonderland Pier, Goofy Golf, Johnson’s Pop Corn, and the Old Time Photo place, my son Bill’s plan became clear. “How ‘bout we head down to Hamburger Construction Company and then go next door to Playland?” Playland is one of the two large amusement park areas on our boardwalk and Hamburger Construction Company has been a favorite meal stop for the D’Elias since Bill was Layla’s age!

Memories!

The kids have a great stroller that both Henry and Layla can ride in, and that made the mile or so trip down the boardwalk easier, as it would have taken a toll on those little legs of our Granddaughter…lord knows it was taking enough of a toll on her Grandparents’ legs, but we did survive and landed at Hamburger Construction Company! As we sat down, stretching across 2 booths in the back, suddenly I was back in the early 90s, and was sitting there with my kids and not my grandkids! That’s the great thing about Ocean City…some things just never change! The cheese steaks, chicken cheese steaks, french fries, birch beer, and even Layla’s hot dog were exactly like I remember when it was our little kids ordering. Heck, the same guy is even still manning the grill…he’s no longer the young life guard looking stud I remember, but it’s him! About the only thing that seemed different was the Garbage Fries that Bill ordered. A paper plate of fries, cheese sauce on top, and then it’s topped with cheese steak meat and fried peppers! Looked good…but I didn’t try it!

Then it was time for the rides! First was the Merry-Go-Round, where Layla, Mom, Dad, and Aunt Krissi selected horses and enjoyed their ride, while Grandma and Grandpa watched a sleeping Henry. Layla’s next choice was the helicopter that Daddy went on with her. Luckily, there was a bigger seat in the back for Dad to sit in, and Layla loved going round and round, especially when Daddy showed her that if she pulled the handle back, the ship went up in the air! After that, she and Dad sat down at a water gun shooting game called Stinky Feet, and they won a stuffed tiger for Layla. Then Layla and Aunt Krissi went on a ride that spun and went up and down and Layla was all smiles…Aunt Krissi not so much! Next, Layla picked the surf buggy car ride, and everyone could go on this…even Henry. Layla liked it…no comment from Henry! (Grandma and Grandpa babysat the stroller!) After that it was a ride on the train, but as it only made a small circle, that didn’t seem to be a favorite….I think Henry slept through it! The last ride was another car ride that she wanted Aunt Krissi to go on with her. It looked harmless enough, but when it started up, we realized it was a new incarnation of a ride that her Dad loved when he was little that was called The Whip. Layla loved it as the ride “whipped” you around the corner and she laughed at every spin. The look on our daughter’s face when she got “whipped” around at every corner gave us the clear indication that Layla enjoyed it more than Aunt Krissi!!

The Merry D’Elia Family at Playland

Then it was inside to the arcade and a few games before we headed home. Daddy showed Layla one of his favorites that has not changed a bit since he was her age, the Shooting Gallery. Populated with tomb stones, crows, old bottles, rail road signs, and even a “green guy in a box” (a younger Billy’s description), the object is to hit the electronic bullseye with your rifle “shot” and make things move or make noise. While Daddy was transported back in time by taking his turn with the rifle, Layla didn’t seem to be thrilled and moved on to play some Skee Ball with Mommy and Aunt Krissi. Meanwhile, Grandpa decided to put a $10 bill in the coin changer…I’ve still got about $8.50 in quarters…anyone need change?

“Sit on the couch Grandma, next to me.”

The kids (and the old folks) were getting tired, so after a brief stop over at Kohr Brothers for some ice cream, it was back to the house. Why is it that when you are walking like this, the return trip always seems longer? Could it be that it was late afternoon and the temperature had been steadily rising and the sun was out in full force? Could it be that we’d just spent several hours walking all over the boardwalk and Playland? Could it be we’re not used to keeping up with a two year old? Well, whatever the reason, we all made it home in one piece, and everyone started showering and changing. Grandma was done first, and was sitting on the front porch couch when her favorite Grand Daughter came out all sparkly clean in her cute jammies and put her little chair right next to the couch so she could sit with Grandma. As the rest of us would come and go, Susie would occasionally get up to do something and Layla would say, “sit on the couch Grandma, next to me.”.

Layla had a little bagel with “dip dip” (cream cheese) and Henry had a bottle, and before long we had two pooped kids who were ready for bed. There were kisses and hugs all around, and the little guys went off to bed. Then it was time for the adults to decide what to eat for dinner (take-out seafood won out) and what card game to play (May I was the game of choice). Unfortunately, the day had taken it’s toll on us too, and we never got through the entire game before it became night-night for us too!

I woke up the next morning to the smell of coffee, and as I opened the bedroom door, Layla looked up from picking up her little shoes in the living room and said , “Grandpa’s up”. Just thinking back to that moment and hearing those words, I have a big smile on my face. You love your kids with all your heart, but there is just something about that little girl, her beautiful face, and adorable voice. She owns my heart!

Unfortunately, Henry hadn’t had a good night and was all stuffed up and on top of that, Daddy’s work phone had been exploding because of the Orlando shooting, so it looked like Sunday was going to have to be cut short, but in the end, that didn’t matter. We loved having two of our three kids and our daughter-in-law with us and we really loved seeing the littlest D’Elias on our beach and boardwalk, and seeing the D’Elia Family’s love of Ocean City continue for another generation! All around just a great time, but Susie and I both agreed that having children is definitely a young person’s game. We were exhausted, but as our summers at the beach go on, these kids (and hopefully more) will get older and they will love visiting Grandma and Grandpa at the beach as much as we love having them!! If our plans work out as we hope, by this time next year, this Ocean City house will be our permanent home, and there will be lots more visits in the future as we all grow older. Till then, we have great memories of a wonderful weekend to start off our first summer at the beach!

Our “Big Trip”

March 22, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

Our recent sojourn down to Florida was, if you will, just an appetizer to our retirement road trip; what we call “Our Big Trip.” We’ve been talking about this for years, and actually figuring dates out once the decision was made that I was going to retire at the end of this past January. The time line in our minds was to leave sometime mid August, and to return, at the very latest, in time for Thanksgiving. Our plan was to drive west, seeing some of the great sights this country has, and to check them off our bucket list. This would be a Bucket List trip for us.

We started by collecting AAA Tour Books for most of the states. We also have added a couple of books with listing of things you absolutely must see across the United States. Some are wacky, like the World’s Largest Ball of String, but many are just not to be missed attractions. Susie has been going through the books taking notes, and the last two days we have both been working diligently on the tour books, and putting together a list of MUSTS for the trip. We also figured that places like Chicago or Detroit were close enough to the East Coast to be other shorter trips, and our intention is to concentrate on more of the Western United States. We figured to head west on a northern route, and return east on a more southern route, hopefully keeping summer weather with us for most of the journey. The first “must” we planned on hitting was Mount Rushmore, to satisfy Frank’s long desire to see it in person (too many viewings of North by Northwest).

While our plan is to basically wander in the general direction of the west coast, we understand that to stay in some places that are on the “Must List” of ours, we were going to need reservations. Three of those places are Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Monument Valley. We’ve read online that reservations at these 3 places need to be made months in advance, but figured that as we were 5-6 months out from our dates, we were still within the window of opportunity. Yesterday afternoon, we discovered that we didn’t have all the time in the world, and that our window of opportunity was about to slam shut! So our trip, that before yesterday was still kind of in the imaginary stage, just moved into the realm of reality! We discovered that there were very few availabilities left, and that if we wanted to stay on-site in these three places, we needed to act ASAP. Needing to make those reservations meant that we had to really look at the trip in earnest, decide what we really wanted to see, and forced us to actually come up with a timeline, while still leaving lots of open time to just check out neat looking things and places along the way.

Our “real” trip will commence with us leaving Long Island on Saturday August 21st. Our first reservations are for the nights of August 28th and 29th when we are booked at the Lake Hotel Sandpiper Lodge in Yellowstone Park. From there we have 2 open weeks, as our next booking is the nights of September 14th and 15th at the Yavapai Lodge in the Grand Canyon. Then, on Friday the 16th, we have one night booked at the View Hotel in Monument Valley. The only other defined part of our trip is the October 2nd to 16th two week period when we will be cruising on the Liberty of the Seas out of Galveston, Texas, and visiting with Kenny and Chris and their shipboard family. We still have lots of open space on our calendar to do the wandering part of this trip, and even if we have had enough, and just return home after the cruise, we will be gone 2 months! We always had a plan, but now we really have a plan and the trip is much more of a reality than it was just 24 hours ago!

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Final Florida Recap

March 19, 2016August 12, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

Okay…this is our last look at our Florida trip…kind of like our road trip by the numbers. You may find some of this interesting, but honestly we are doing this as much for us, as you, so that we remember some of this information when we next venture out on the open road.

Miles Driven:

The one way distance from our home on Long Island to Walt Disney World is 1,126 miles. During our 11 days on the road we drove a total of 2439 miles, so did a little less than 200 additional miles during our trip. Some of those miles were spent driving to and from restaurants on our way up and down, and some were used in Walt Disney World. We drove to Epcot, the Magic Kingdom (2 days), and our spring training game at ESPN World. Yes, we know that WDW has a great transportation system, but a number of years ago we waited forever with tired kids for a bus at one of the water parks, and frankly, it’s just easier to do it on our own. Also, since one of Frank’s retirement perks is free parking, all we waste is time!

Days to Florida:

“Lets Drive RightThrough!” Ah, no, thank you! Yes, you can indeed get to Florida in less than 24 hours by driving straight through, but this was supposed to be a fun trip, so we left on day one, and arrived on day three. We did the same thing on the way back. Our daily mileage averaged around 400 more or less. We didn’t set alarm clocks, we left when we left (usually sometime around 9AM), but always tried to stop between 4:30 and 5:30. A long time ago, when Susie was pregnant with our oldest Billy, we drove to the midwest, and her doctor told her to stop every hour or so and get out of the car and walk around. Since then, that has been our MO on the road. One of us will drive an hour and/or 100 miles, we will stop, hit the bathroom, and then the other will take over.

Gas:

Gas prices have really dropped lately, and that makes a road trip even more affordable. As we said in an earlier post, the Sonata got great mileage (we regularly saw numbers in the low to mid 30 miles per gallon), so we stopped for gas about once a day. The lowest price we saw was on the New Jersey Turnpike on the way down, where it was $1.57 a gallon for regular. As soon as we crossed the bridge and entered Delaware, gas prices jumped 30 cents or more a gallon. The next cheapest state was Georgia, where it was in the $1.80 range. Around Disney World the prices were high (of course), but Frank just read on the internet of gas stations close to the Orlando Airport that change $5 and change a gallon to screw those folks looking to return their rental car full! Even with Frank’s Cleaning product purchase, we didn’t come close to that!! We only spent $146.98 for the total trip for gas, and we just drove down to Ocean City on that last tank we got on the New Jersey Turnpike on the way home!

Motels:

So, its been a number of years since we’ve taken a trip like this, and frankly, before we left, how much nightly accommodations were going to cost us was something we had no idea about. There are also a lot of new chains out there. Sleep Inn, Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, etc., so the landscape has changed since the last time we did this. One great new tool is to join hotel’s chains “frequent flyers” programs, and then load their app on your phone. Many different named chains operate under the same corporate flag, so having a couple of these apps on your phone really gives you a lot of choices. We spent 4 nights on the road, and our hotel costs ran from a low of $69.49, to a high of $94.75 . A lesson we quickly learned, however, was that the extra $20 we spent on our more expensive nights made a huge difference. Save the $20, get old 1970s motel type accommodations. Spend the $20 and get nice, clean, modern rooms, and even a full free breakfast. Our opinion, save $20 somewhere else and enjoy the night…your next day depends on it! We spent a total of $329.13 for our on-the-road accommodations. Even with Frank’s 50% Disney Discount, our 5 days in WDW cost us $753.75….but we loved it!! Our total was $1082.88 for the entire 11 days.

Food:

We’ve already talked about what we did for our lunches, and truly think that having the cooler and food in the car with us, is by far the best solution for lunches on a road trip. It saves you money, it saves you time, and keeps the journey focused on moving forward. Occasionally, we’d take advantage of the hotel’s breakfast offerings, but most days we opted to just hit the road and start driving. We did in an Applebees and a Dave’s Famous BBQ, but the two best meals we had on the road were in local, non-chain restaurants. On our way down, in Darien Georgia, we had a wonderful fried shrimp dinner (a pound of shrimp each) for $73.49 at B&J’s Steak and Seafood (thanks Abe Gorin for the tip!). Then on the way back up, in Ridgeland, South Carolina, we had an incredible southern meal at Jasper’s Back Porch. We sat on the back porch, overlooking a lake, and had a soup to nuts meal for $85.78. We had a couple of very nice, and pricey dinners in Disney World (like Wolfgang Pucks at Disney Springs that cost us $205 including Frank’s discount), but our on-the-road meals ran between $60 and $85.

Wolfgang Puck’s at Disney Springs

Walt Disney World:

Okay, so Frank gets a discount on hotels, food, and merchandise thanks to his Disney Retiree status, but even with that, it is not a cheap place. Every night, we ended our day at our resort’s Jazz Club (the Scat Cat’s Club), and spent around $100 for drinks and appetizers (the appetizers was our dinner several nights!), but we loved ending the day this way, and after a couple of days, became “regulars” to Laura the waitress. Breakfasts were about $20-$25 per day, but we figured if we were going to walk our asses off, we needed some sustenance! These 5 days were really our only breakfast expenses. Lunches, drinks (at Epcot’s World Showcase) cost us too, as did purchases we made (sweatshirts, little things for the Grandkids, etc), but that was the price of admission if you will. Not something we’re gonna do every day or every year. We figure we spent around $390 for Misc items, and those ran from a car wash for the Sonata to laundry we did at the WDW resort.

Keeping Track of it All:

We are only able to report most of these figures, because of a great app Susie has on her phone, called Trip Wallet. It was a very easy way to keep track of the $$$ we spent on everything from gas, to hotels, to food. It cost around $1.99 at the Apple Store, and will get a lot more use going forward. Much better than a pad and a pen, and as it was on her phone, she always had it with her.

What it Cost us to Drive Round Trip to Florida:

Our gas for the trip cost $146.98, our 4 hotel nights on the road cost $329.13, and for 4 road night dinners we spent $296.10. Lunches we had in the car, made up from stuff we brought from home, so maybe $30. The only other expense related to driving our own car, was $9 we spent for a car wash on the way home because the car was covered with Florida tree pollen. So, our grand total was $811.21. We went up on the Jet Blue site, and we’re sure you could get a round trip flight cheaper, but just doing a dummy booking from JFK to Orlando for 2 people for 7 days in Florida came out to about $895. We did the same thing at the Hertz site, and their cheapest car for week came to about $307. As we said, you could probably get both cheaper, but that’s probably in the neighborhood of what we would have spent, so flying and renting would come to about $1200. We spent almost $400 less than that, and had a great road trip on top of some savings. A win/win situation we think!

So that’s it, our last look at our 11 days on the road that included 5 days at Walt Disney World, two Spring Training Mets’ games, and a visit with Frank’s cousin Jeanne and her husband Walt in Bare Foot Bay, Florida. See you on the road again, or on our next adventure real soon!

A Good Idea We’d Like to Share

March 15, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

One of the things that we did differently on this past trip, that we will probably do on every future road trip, had to do with our pillows. Frank has long complained about the fact that some hotels have great pillows, while others have the worst. Some are like a lump of concrete, some are as flat as a pancake, and occasionally, not to sound like Goldilocks, some are just right! In fact, a couple of years ago, Frank did find one of the 5 pillows on our king sized bed at the Rio in Vegas that was just right. The problem was that every night he had to figure out which one it was! Now, Sue is not as pillow conscious on the road, but as she does have pillow likes and dislikes, she agreed to Frank’s plan.

Now I know a lot of you do this, but the plan was to take 2 of our favorite pillows with us. That way, whatever we were thrown in terms of beds and pillow comfort, we always had our own pillows to ease our heads to sleep after a busy day. Well, it worked out incredibly well, and probably led to some of the best travel nights’ sleep we have ever had. Now, my thought was just that we’d throw the pillows into some kind of a bag, and throw it in the trunk of the car, but Sue came up with such an elegant and all encompassing solution, that we just had to share it with you.

Behold, Pillow Bag 101!

What we started with was a multi pocket duffle bag measuring approximately 26X15X12 inches.

The main compartment held our two pillows.

Below the pillows we stashed our PJs.

In one side pocket, Frank’s underwear lived.

While Sue’s were stored in the front pocket.

In the left side pocket was our toiletries bag.

And in the back pocket, our two Kindles.

Every night we’d grab this bag out of the trunk and in one place we had everything we needed for our stay. It made it so much easier than dragging in our big suitcase and rummaging through it, looking for what we needed. In fact, with the exception of the 5 nights we stayed in Disney World, the big suitcase lived in the trunk. It was easy enough to open the bag and exchange a shirt or pants and we never had to remove it from the Sonata’s trunk.

A simple but elegant solution to being on the road and staying in different motels nightly!

Looking Back

March 14, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

Now that our Florida trip is over, we have to get on the stick and start planning for our big USA trip that we hope to start in August. We’ve got Tour Books from the AAA, maps of all kinds, and we’re making lists of places we don’t want to miss. But before we get hot and heavy into research and planning for that trip, we figured it might be good to take a look back at our recently completed 11 day trip, and see what worked, and how that info can be transferred to our future road trips.

The first thing we clearly found out was that our Hyundai Sonata Limited is a great car for our travels. The car has a good sized trunk, so there is lots of room for all kinds of stuff that we wanted to have with us. From a case of water, to our large suitcase, to even an emergency jump starter, we had no shortage of space. The back seat is an added space benefit, and gave us a place for our cooler but also an easy place to throw sweatshirts and jackets. The front seats are very comfortable, it’s an easy car to drive, and has plenty of power to go as fast as you want on the Interstates. It also gets great gas mileage, so that every tank got 400 miles or better before we had to refill, meaning that even on travel days, we bought only one tank of gas a day. She will make a very good companion for us on our long trip!

We traveled with our GPS, even if we didn’t always follow her advice, as we were also following AAA Triptiks. There was a lot of “recalculating” done by her in the course of the week, and we still wonder if the couple of times we did follow her directions, she wasn’t getting back at us, as some directions seemed a little off. One thing that we did this trip was not mount the GPS on the windshield. Always seems like a reach to us to hit the buttons, and we’re not really thrilled that when it’s mounted on the windshield it blocks our view to the right. So Frank found this “sticky” pad for the dashboard. It mounted in a great place just above the radio, was easy to see and operate, and didn’t block our view. We will be getting a lot of use out of this!

Speaking about the radio, we were very happy to be able to listen to the same thing all up and down the coast courtesy of our Sirius/XM Satellite subscription. Considering that Frank made his living for 43 years working in AM radio, that may seem strange, but the radio landscape in America has changed, and the days of enjoying listening to multiple stations as you go up and down the coast is gone. Signals are weak and fading, all the radio stations tend to sound the same, and finding something you want to listen to can be a pain, so we were very happy to have the company of Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville for the entire 11 days. We never changed the station!

And the last thing we got for this trip and we loved, was the new Coleman cooler we bought for the back seat. It was just the right size (45 quart) for all that we wanted to keep cold, had a drain in the back (and not a lot of coolers seem to have one these days), and wheels that made it easy to roll into our motel rooms. The one problem is that the telescoping handle (kind of like a rolling suitcase) does not lock into position, so if you are pulling it the handle is fine, but if you try to push it, the handle un-telescopes. It needs to lock into position, and we’ll be working on a solution to that issue down the road. We ordered a seat cover that is designed to go under a kid’s car seat, so the back seat was kept clean, and we strapped it in each morning with the seat belt and a bungie cord, and it was super stable. The cooler made it easy for us to do one of our favorite things, and that is have lunch along the way. Some days it was at a picnic table at a rest stop (once we were in warmer states), and other days it was in the front seat of our car, but either way we like this a lot better than buying lunch. Something that I guess we both did when we were on trips with our parents, something we did for the first time on our honeymoon, and definitely something we did with our three kids when they were growing up, and we were on the road.

So some successful items that enhanced our road trip and that we will definitely be using again in the summer, and for all our future travels, as this adventure of ours continues.

Our Trip is Over

March 13, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

Welcome home to the LIE

At 4:10 PM Daylight Savings Time, we pulled into our driveway in Mineola, and officially ended our 11 day road trip to Florida and back. It was a wonderful trip, as you know, if you have been following along, and while it’s good to be home, we’re both a little sad that it’s over! There was a lot of traffic today as we skirted Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and got into the Philly/New York area, but it moved, so it wasn’t bad at all. Frankly, once we hit exit 11 on the NJ Turnpike, we were in familiar territory from 4 or 5 hundred weekend trips back from Ocean City, and we have had a lot worse traffic than we had today!

If you remember, our big plan today was a slight detour to Total Wine in Claymont, Delaware to see if the stories our friends told us about the great wine prices were true. Well, they were definitely true, as we saw and bought a lot of great deals! For example, we found 14 Hands Cabernet that Krissi and Kenny like for $8.97, when the best prices we find for that locally is $13.99. Also, their Red Blend for $7.47, when we think $9.99 is a good price here. It’s only about an hour and a half trip from Ocean City, so we definitely will be heading there again. I’d say we got about $400 of wine for $225! Thanks to our OC Family members Doc and Denise for telling us about it. Can we get you anything there?

So we pulled into the driveway, having traveled 2439.2 miles since we pulled out of the same driveway on Thursday morning, March 3rd. We had lots of fun along the way, loved being in Florida spring weather for a week, and verified that we do love road trips and all that’s involved in them. It’s fine to hop on a plane and rent a car at the other end, but there is something so connected about driving from place to place, sampling local customs, foods, and scenery, and the thrill of reaching your destination is great. Perhaps Frank has read John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie too many times, or perhaps Mr. Steinbeck was right when he talked about the wanderlust that exists in all Americans. Like those who went before us on the Oregon Trail, perhaps its our destiny as Americans to explore our country.

So, we are home, we are unpacked, we have started on our “Welcome Home” Martinis, and the Chinese food has been ordered and is on it’s way! What a wonderful way to end a wonderful vacation. Back to work tomorrow…well, yes and no…that means we have laundry to do, bills to pay, and need to get back to Ocean City! Great work, if you can get it!!

R New Adventures

Come with us as we journey through our next chapter

Author: Sue and Frank D'Elia