Poconos, Pennsylvania. July 25 - August 1 & Washington DC, August 3 - 5, 2021.

We enjoyed our week in the Poconos last year, so decided to give it a go again this year.  The place we rented last summer was not available by the time we decided to do this, and it is difficult to find a house large enough for the 12 of us, especially one with a swimming pool.  Joe did manage to find a place through VRBO in Cresco, PA, not cheap though.

For our 2020 trip we wanted to minimize contact with the outside world, so we packed as much food as we could.  After that trip we realized there are stores around this area that we would feel comfortable to shop in, but old habits (kind of) die hard, so we still brought a lot of stuff along.

Sunday 7/25.  Ellie was the first one to arrive, Joe second, and Anne and I (with Harrison) the last.  By the time we showed up, Kuau was bringing back pizzas from a nearby store.

The house has five bedrooms, can sleep a lot more than 12.  In addition to the pool, it has a game room (think air hockey and foosball), billiard table, and pin pong table.  There is also a sauna and a hot tub.  All that, utile is a better adjective than luxurious.  Which servers our purpose well.

Accommodations (7 nights).  131 Williams Road, Cresco, PA.

Monday 7/26.  By the time I woke up a lot of people were in the pool already, they would stay there until around 2 pm.  One fear with six children (five of them have strong opinions, the other is not yet one) there may be a lot of fighting.  So far, so good.

Thursday 7/29.  All of us walked the Kurmes Paradise Creek Nature Trail, about 1.7 miles, took about an hour.

Friday 7/30.  Anne and I checked out a couple of kayak rental places and decided on the Yeti Rentals at Harmony Lake.  Kuau didn't go on a kayak as he was watching Everly.  I didn't go either.  The kids had fun.

Saturday 7/31.  We bought an ice-cream cake to celebrate Jess's birthday.

Sunday 8/1.  Time to pack up and go home.  Cleaners showed up at 11 am sharp; they had to get the place ready for the next guests checking in at 4 pm.

Anne and I stopped by Yaraku in Edison to pick up lunch.

Some photos from the trip.  Many of them taken by Anne.

There are quite a few trails of varying degrees of difficulty in the area.  Kurmes trail is an easy trail.

As displayed by the Alltrails APP.

Jess's birthday was marked with an ice cream cake.

Enoying breakfast at the house.

Another trail, this one next to the Mt. Airy Casino.

A short distance away from where we stay is this road.  Wonder if it is the official name.

The girls were all given this dress.  Emmie a bit too "old" to join in the fun.

There is a game room in the house.

Reid and I are evenly matched.

This boat cost all of $5 (if memory serves).  A rather good investment.

With a roof-top luggage carrier, Big Blue has a lot of room for Ruby.

The kids arranged for a photographer to come take some family photographs after we returned to NJ.

For quite a while Harrison has been into trains.  His dad therefore booked a short trip to Washington DC, goin on the Acela.  When Harrison suggested that I join them, I was happy to oblige and make it one for three generations of Cheung men.

August 3.  Anne dropped us off at Metropark.  The train was quite full, but we had an empty seat at our table.  The hotel is less than a five-minute walk from the Union Station, even with our not sure of our bearings.

Union Station was very quiet, but a few businesses remained open, including a Shake Shack and a Chipotle.  We would end up getting takeout from these two places.

Today we toured the National Gallery of Art.  The collection is quite impressive, and I venture to guess little to none of which are the spoils of war.

Joe Jr managed to snag a one-bedroom suite with an adjoining bedroom, so thing were great on that front.

Accommodation: Hyatt Regency Capital Hill (2 nights).

Tuesday August 4.  The seating for the cafe at the hotel was closed, but one could still order hot breakfast from the limited menu, with some items (omlets and waffles, for example) prepared fresh.  We would end up ordering a dinner from the hotel kitchen also.

The museum we visited was Natural History.  We ended up spending very little time inside, much of that on the evolution story.  Using my standard of "do I know/understand the subject a bit better after the tour," it was a failure.

Wednesday August 5.  Today's target museums are the Air & Space and the American Indian.  The line to the A&S was very long - when we joined the queue, it wrapped around to the back.  And forget about social distancing inside.  It's always a popular museum.  Somehow the elevators were not working (the escalators were, as far as I could tell), so they closed down the entire second floor, ostensibly to accommodate those with physical disabilities.  I am loss for words.  We ended up spending very little time inside, much of that on the evolution story.  Using my standard of "do I know/understand the subject a bit better after the tour," it was a failure.

The American Indian museum disappointed last time I visited.  It disappointed again this time.  Of the usual three floors accessible to the public, one was closed off.  That I don't understand.

I did find out there were boarding schools just like they did in Canada.  Another painful page in American history.

To add to the surreal feeling I got, here many signs are in English and Spanish.  Signs at the other two museums I visited were predominantly (if not exclusively in English).  I don't know who decided it would be necessary to be helpful to Spanish-speaking folks at this museum, but not the others.  For the American Indian, it must be more puzzling.

We had a late check-out of 4 pm, and it was a short walk to Union Station.  Actually I took advantage of the hotel's proximity to the Mall and did a lot of walking there.  And it was great to be able to spend some time with Harrison and Joe.

While the Cheung men are away, these kids went on a bike/scooter ride (Anne's photo).

We had a lot of room at the Hyatt Regency Capital Hill.  This is the living room of a 1-bedroom suite.

In addition to this bedroom, we also had an adjoining bedroom.

No in-person dining at the hotel.  One could order items from their breakfast and dinner menu.  Prices are surprisingly reasonable, and some items (eggs, waffles) are cooked on the spot.

For dinner, food is picked up at the bar.

National Gallery of Art.  No idea what this message is.  However, I am sure of the world's museum, the Smithsonian holds the least amount of looted goods.

This veil looks as if it's draped over the sculpture.  It is actually part of it.

Reminds one of the dome in the Pantheon in Rome.  This one, however, is covered.

Never seen/heard of Thomas Cole's Voyage of Life series of four paintings.  Message may be interesting, not sure the art work is all that exquisite.

Collection of works by Pointillist Georges Seurat (well, he was more than just a pointillist).

Aphrodite, the Greek version of Venus.  This one dates back to 150/200 BC.

Father and son in front of the Washington Monument.

The starlings here has a somewhat different look from ones we see in NJ.

The evolutionary tree leading to homo sapiens.

This is particularly poignant in light of all the bodies discovered in Kamloops in Canada.

Three generations inside an Acela.

Massachusetts and Maine, June 17-29, 2021.

For a rather modest trip, we decided to visit Maine, specifically the Boothbay Harbor area.  We first visited this area in 2015, and have come back several times.  Both the puffins and the lobsters are a big draw for us.  Practically, the costs of airfare and rental car are relatively high, and our desire to visit Joe’s family also make it unwieldy to plan an itinerary using flights and rental cars, so we decided to take the VW Tiguan, and this will be its first long road trip.

June 17, Thursday.  We drove up to Somerville in the afternoon, traffic was such we ended up taking the northern route via Danbury and Route 84.  Picked up some food from Kebab Corner in Medford before arriving at Putnam Road.

Accommodations.  Putnam Road, Somerville.  (4 nights).

June 18-20, Friday to Sunday.  Basically spending time with family.  Sunday was Father’s Day, and we went over the Tsai’s for BBQ in their backyard.

Anne and I did venture out to Belle Isle, where we also went (with Joe’s family) last time we visited.  We were going to stop by Belle Isle Seafood, but service was slow, so we had Burger King instead.  When we got to Belle Isle, we walked perhaps 50 yards before biting insects began aggressively “attacking” us, so we fled.  (A family trying to picnic but quickly leaving should have been a clue!)

A successful breeding season for the resident Canada geese.  They congregate along Shore Drive, and the parents are still very protective of their offspring.

BBQ at the Tsai's on Fathers' Day.

June 21, Monday.  Emmie and Harrison went off to rock-climbing school, and CC to Daycare.  Anne and I had lunch at Legal Mystic with Jess and Joe (we ate outside, it was pleasant), after which we started our trip up north.

First stop: Erica’s Seafood.  Softshells were not in season, so we got a couple of hardshell lobsters instead.  A bit difficult to crack, but still tasted good.  That was supplemented with cole slaw and fish chowder.  Prices have gone up a little: for softshells it is $6.50 per pound.  The cooking fee used to be $1 per lobster, now it is $1 per pound.  All in all still a great experience.

Our route took us through the town of Wiscasset, so we passed by Red's Eats.  It was around 5 pm, and there was a line waiting to order food.

After checking into the hotel, we walked across the harbor (over the walkway) and had pizza and ice cream (one slice each, and sharing one small dish).  The evening was overcast so we didn’t get to see some of the nice sunset colors we saw on prior trips.  We still have a few days to go.

At Erica's Seafood, Harpswell, ME.

View from Erica's Seafood.

Erica Jade.  Is this the Erica?

The building at the bottom houses the lobster tank, and lobsters are cooked there.  One can order other items (soups, other seafood, etc) at the white building with red trim.

Working on the lobster.

The clouds rolled in this evening.  This is a shot of the footbridge at sunset.  The lights are new.  The house mid-bridge seems to be occupied.

Accommodations.  Boothbay Harbor Inn.  (4 nights)

June 22, Tuesday.  The hotel is offering "reduced contact" services, so breakfast (of pastries) was "grab and go."  Even though mask requirements are (mostly) dropped, I suspect the hotel just couldn't hire enough help for the season, and appreciate the cost savings from reduction of staff.  Customers are conditioned to expect less, for now anyway. After breakfast, Anne walked over to Cap'n Fish Puffin Cruise and found out the sailing this morning was completed booked, and there was a long line of people waiting to get on.  I was still at the hotel, so I booked the 12 noon Hardy Boat cruise leaving Bristol (about 45 minutes away).  While the Hardy Boat tour is 90 minutes, and the Cap'n Fish 150 minutes, the extra time is to get to/from Eastern Egg Rock.  The seas were rough today, so the reduced travel time was quite acceptable.

We saw the "usual" puffins, guillemots, eider ducks, common terns, and sea gulls.  We might have caught sight of some porpoises, but the swells made it difficult to tell.  It was a nice outing, and many of those around us (we were in the bow seats) were from out of state: NH, VA, and TX.

Shaw's Restaurant was too crowded, so we decided we would drive to Wiscasset to see if we could get something from Red's Eats.  The line was quite long, so we settled for its competition across the street.  Sprague's was doing reasonable business, and it took us over 45 minutes from parking to getting our food.  The food was okay, but frankly the experience wasn't as good as what I remember of eating at Red's.

It started to rain when we were about done, so we decided to call it a day.  We picked up some food at Hannaford to tide us over the evening.

We attended Pastor Chang's lecture on OT Theology.  This was the last session for Part I.  Part II will start in September.

The boat departs from New Harbor, Bristol.

Eastern Egg Rock in the distance.  It is a 30 minute trip to get to the island from New Harbor.

Puffins perched on the rocks in front of the Eastern Egg Rock Hilton.  The flying birds are gulls and terns.

A cormorant spreading its wings.

We saw quite a few puffins.  When a group is swimming in the water, it is called a "raft."  When on land, it's a "circus."

Some overflow parking at Sprague's is paid.  Of course anyone can put up this sign.  We did put $2 in the box.

Plenty of seating at this location, and there are more seats by the river.

Lobster Roll ($25.65) and Crab Cake Basket ($13.99).  I stacked the two crab cakes together so I could put ketchup on the fries.

June 23, Wednesday.  Today was going to be a "lighthouse" day.  We ended up visiting three lighthouses, two in the Rockland area.

Before we got to our first lighthouse, we drove by this Hazel's Takeout a couple of miles from our destination.  We stopped to have a lobster roll, a crab roll, and a fish soup.  The place was busy, the service was friendly, and the food was okay, although we were somewhat let down when we saw a truck stopped by delivering frozen supplies.

The Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse is located at the end of a (you guessed it) breakwater, a rather long one at about 0.8 miles (per my Apple Watch).  The plaque provides more specifies.  The top of the breakwater is quite smooth.  However, when one walks fast, the unevenness (both height and size of the granite blocks) would mean additional stress to one's knee: so I had to be careful with how fast I walked.  Anne also managed to make it both ways.  If I remember correctly, the lobster boat tour where we were brought to various lobster trap locations stopped by this breakwater to haul up one of the traps.

The next lighthouse is Owl's Head, located a few miles from Rockland Breakwater.  The passage down below can be treacherous, especially on a foggy day.

The third one we saw was Marshall's Point Lighthouse.

We have been having late lunches the last few days, and therefore simple dinners.  Tonight's was a slice of pepperoni pizza.  Of course we have a lot of snacks in the room.

Hazel's Takeout in Rockland.  Doing good business, food was okay.

Looking from land I couldn't tell how long the breakwater was.  The lighthouse can be made out in the background.

At the start of the Breakwater.

Taken from the vantage point provided by a floating dock.

The plaque mentions it took 18 years to complete this lighthouse and the breakwater.

Looking from the lighthouse along the breakwater.

Owl's Head Lighthouse was easy to get to.

This passage certainly could use some navigational aids.

St. George evidently was also patron of seamen.

Marshall Point Lighthouse.

This location across the Harbor from our hotel provides a good view of MacFarland Island.

Still amazes me how the iPhone (even the 12 Pro Max) can make out the structure on the moon.

Colors at sunset were more subdue today.

June 24, Thursday.  Today was spent mostly in Camden and the surrounding areas.  We went on another Lighthouse and Lobster Cruise, and saw a couple of additional lighthouses.

Lobster Roll, Crab Roll, Clam Chowder at Camden Deli.  The lobster roll, while good, didn't measure up to the ones we have had so far (including the one this evening).

Many of the building along the main street in Camden have parts over the Megunticook River (name from Google Maps) which flows through town.

Riverhouse Bridge, a quaint bridge maintained by a nearby motel.

Camden Harbor has a certain commercial feel to it.

This pair of Canada geese is looking after 11 goslings.  Quite successful.  We also saw many adult geese without any young ones trailing.

One cannot tell from this photo, but the River is quite dirty.

Camden Hills State Park is only a couple of miles from town.

This structure on Mount Battie is what's left of some rich family's summer home.

Lively Lady would take about 20 guests on an one-hour Lobster and Lighthouse Cruise.

Curtis Island Lighthouse is just outside of the harbor.

Indian Head Lighthouse is no longer in use.  The Island was bought for $1000 during the depression.  The same family still owns it.  The guide/stern(wo)man didn't know much about the current situation.

The second trap hauled during this trip had a lobster in it.  It was just shy of legal size, and was thus released.

McLoon's on Sprucehead Island was quite busy when we showed up at around 5:30 pm.  We were done a bit after 6, and that was quite efficient.

A working dock right next to McLoon's.

Prices are not cheap.  Lobsters cost around $24 for one (1 1/4 lb) or $35 for two, if memory serves.  We decided to skip the lobsters.

Just before sunset at Boothbay Harbor.

Nice sunset colors.

There is a tall ship festival this weekend, and some have already pulled into port.  The one on the left is from Bermuda (!), and the one on the right is from Nantucket.  We also saw one called "Nao Santa Maria."

This was taken at 9:08 pm, more than 30 minutes after sunset.

June 25, Friday.  It was raining quite heavily while we were checking out, which made us appreciate the good weather we had for the last few days.  We had a few options: wait in town for an hour for a local "lobster shack" to open, go back to Erica's for lunch, or check out this random place called "Five Islands Lobsters that we randomly found on the map.  We decided on the third option.

We got there about 15 minutes before the place opened, and used the time to check out the rather scenic area.  It is a working dock, and we see lobster being dropped off and weighed.

Prices were slightly higher than Erica's, but still very reasonable.  We got soft shells at $8.50/pound, which came with butter (Erica's charges $0.75).  Traffic back to Somerville was busy but not too bad.

Five Islands Lobster Company is located on an island (Georgetown Island).  There are a few islands from this small enclave on the eastern edge of the island.

It's a working dock.  Fishermen were bringing in their catch.

You throw a few canoes together and you get a nice photo spot.

For comparison, soft shells are $6 or so at Erica's.  There cooking adds $1 per pound, and butter costs $0.75.

Three young men working away at lobster meat.

These two were to become our lunch.

Together with a pound of steamed clams.

Accommodations: Putnam Road, Somerville.  (4 nights).

June 26, Saturday.  We had lunch with ACCESS board members.

In the afternoon we decided to go canoeing at Mystic River.  The folks there said it was quite windy so gave us two single-person kayak instead (we weren't charged additional).  The two grandchildren could sit in front of us: Emmie with Anne and Harrison with me.  We did a bit more than 30 minutes of rowing and saw the same waterfowls: Mallards with ducklings, Canada geese with goslings, a cormorant and a couple of swans.  A occasional swallow would fly by.

Lunch with ACCESS colleagues at Mulan in Waltham.

Emmie and Anne shared a Kayak on the Mystic River.

June 27-29, Sunday - Tuesday.  On Sunday we visited Anny W who moved to the Boston area to be with her daughter's family.  Walked around the Minuteman Commuter Trail near the Arlington Mall.  Spy Pond provides a quiet picnic spot.  Took DD to South Station on Monday to see the trains.  The engineer on an Amtrak train invited us to take a look at the cockpit - that made DD's day.  We did an early celebration of the upcoming DD birthday.  After dinner and ice cream cake, we said goodbye and left a bit before 8 pm.  Even though thunderstorms were in the area, we managed to thread the needle and avoided the heavy downpours.  We got home at around 12:30 am.

We put about 1,400 miles on the VW.