Family Reunion - New Bern NC

Not too many weeks ago, the subject of my blog was my Mother and Grandmother, who not surprisingly were very influential in my life.

Next week we go south to New Bern, NC for our annual family reunion. As family reunions goes, this reunion is modest, in that includes only descendants of our Mother and started fairly recent .

After my Mother passed away in 1997, some of us were concerned that since our matriarch was no longer with us that we would stop getting together as a family. We made a vow to continue getting together as a family at least once a year and I’m happy to say that this year event will be our 12th reunion.

As i pack to go down, I thought it would be nice to include some pictures from our past reunions.

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The beginning - Al & Jennie - Pine Level - 1998

Eating time again - Richmond, VA - 2008

Hot day! Time to cool off - Richmond, VA - 2008

Cousins playing poker! - Richmond, Va - 2008

Cousins enjoying food and photos - Lake Gaston, NC - 2007.

A big part of the reunion: eating - Pine Level - 2005

Sisters sharing a moment - Pine Level 2005.

Favorite activity - looking at old family photos - 2007.

A little relaxing time - Lake Gaston - 2007.

Getting refreshments before hitting the beach - Pawleys Island - 2006

The Family in front of Uncle Tony & Nobie's house - 2005.

Some of the great-grand kids - Pawleys Island - 2006.

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New York City Trip - May 2009

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Peggy called a couple of weeks ago and said she had to be in NYC for a Stationery Convention Show and wanted to know if we would like to meet her there. Of course we are always looking for an excuse to go to NYC.

We do love the City; but don’t want to live there! Although we did live there for a month in the early ’90’s when Peggy worked one summer as an intern for a graphic design company.

This trip we went to NYC Museum; our first visit there. It was a very interesting especially the early history of New Amsterdam. They also had an exhibition on Henry Hudson trips in and around the Hudson River looking for a shortcut to the Far East. He didn’t find one but he is credited with discovering the Hudson River, although certainly not the first to see the Hudson River.

Besides eating in some very good food at some very expensive restaurants, Jenny and I walked from NYC Museum at 103rd street and Fifth Avenue back to our hotel on 7th Avenue at 53rd Street. The next day we walked all around SOHO, China Town, Little Italy and across the Brooklyn Bridged. Yeah, I was hurting at the end of the day.

Mother’s Day - Troy, New York

Jenny decided she wanted to go to Troy for Mother’s day, primarily to see all of the Tiffany Windows in the City. But as luck would have it, all of the churches and the Bush Memorial Center at Russell Sage College were closed. But We had a good time anyway!

Trivia Questions:

Where was the poem “Twas the night before Christmas” written and published?

Where did “Uncle Sam” live? (You know Uncle Sam as in the US Government)

Which city has the most Tiffany Windows per square mile in the USA?

What USA city is also called the “Collar City”?

Answer of course is Troy, New York

Troy is located just a few mile Northeast of Albany along the beautiful Hudson River. Troy began to be settled somewhere around the late 17th century and as such it is a very old and beautiful city with a population of about 50,000. Unfortunately because many of the industries have moved out of the area, today the city has deteriorated somewhat.

When we first arrived in Troy we parked the car to visit the Tourist Center, but unfortunately it was closed! Guess they were not expecting us or any visitors to the city. Anyway we did what we always do when we are touring a city: start walking!

The first order of business was to find something to eat! We had looked up this nice Pakistani/Indian Restaurant but unfortunately it was close. Now what? Everything seemed to be closed and the places that weren’t closed didn’t look very good.

But as serendipity would have it we found the Lo Porto Ristorante Caffe that was fantastic. It reminded me of a New York City restaurant.

The bottom line, we had a great time looking at all of the beautiful buildings and Jenny saw some dogwood trees!

Bobby’s Favorite Places Visited

Well, since this blog is mostly about my past and future travels (although I did get off the subject in the past few postings); I do want to get back to that by listing what I consider to be some of the most interesting places in the world to visit. Mind you, these are just a few places I have visited over the past forty plus years and there are still many more places I would like to visit (that list I might post later!).

Here is the list; I plan to be posting something about each of these in the future (of course you will note that I have posted something on the first six places):

Manchu Picchu; Peru, South America
Stonehenge, England
Khmer Temples; Siem Reap, Cambodia
Iguaçu Falls, Brazil-Argentina Border, South America
Hong Kong SAR; China
Nanyue Mausoleum; Guangzhou, China
The Great Wall; Northern Part of China
The Great Pyramid of Khufu; Giza, Egypt
Yosemite National Park; Sierra Nevada, California
Grand Canyon; Northwest Corner, Nevada
The Forbidden City; Beijing, China
Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province, China
The Silk Road – Dunghaung Grottos; Dunghaung, China
Three Dam Gorges – Yangtze River; Yichang, China
York Minster; York, England
Vatican – Rome, Italy
The Parthenon on the Acropolis; Athens Greece
The Ruins of Pompeii; Pompeii, Italy
The Duomo; Florence, Italy
Museum of Terra Cotta Warriors; Xian, China
Canal Cities; Venice, Italy; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Brugge, Belgium
Ayers Rock/ Uluru; Alice Spring, Australia
The Great Barrier Reef; East Coast of Australia
Sydney Harbor; Sydney, Australia
Niagara Falls, Niagara, New York
New York City, New York
Los Angeles, California
Banff National Park; Canada
Neuschwanstein Castle; Bavaria, Germany