On The Road To Atlantic City

It seems like I was just writing about Vienna the other day but it's been a month since we got home from Europe. I guess we have the travel bug for sure because we decided while we were on the cruise that we wanted to travel for Marilyn's birthday. Originally, it was going to be Cleveland but that turned into Tennessee after we met some new friends who live in Knoxville. Then we figured the Tennessee/Kentucky trip needed to be longer so that we could fully appreciate all the bbq, bourbon and quilts that are apparently in that part of the USA. As a result, it was moved to September and will be our first day of school trip. We decided to go to Atlantic City for Marilyn's birthday and then hit Philadelphia on the way home for a couple of days. 

Our first stop this afternoon was Corning, NY. Many years ago, Marilyn's family went there, and also to Hershey (the chocolate place), on a summer trip. So, we're kind of recreating that trip minus the sleeping in a camper part! I thought the Corning place would be a Corningware store, but no! It was a really interesing glass museum.  

The first thing that we did was to watch a glass blowing demo where the artist made a vase out of a blob of glass. I've seen the process before but it's always fascinating.

Then we watched as another artist who used a different kind of glass to make a little fish. This was even more amazing as we were talked through each step with detailed explanations. This glass needs 3000 degrees F to melt. I imagined how many trips to the emergency room would be required if I worked with this stuff!

We also looked at the galleries with both ancient and modern glass pieces. We both learned quite a bit about how ancient civilizations made beautiful glass ornaments without the aid of modern technology.

This modern piece is made with highly reflective glass and was mesmerizing to look at.

After Corning, it was about 3 hours to Harrisburg, where we had planned to spend the night. We drove through some treed, hilly stretches and then followed the Susquehanna River into the city. That was after our stop at Costco where we found, to our dismay, that Pennsylvania Costcos do not carry wine. Luckily, there are other wine and spirits stores that have pretty great prices for things that we like!

We got settled at our hotel and headed off into Harrisburg to find what was described as the "trendy dining street". The first place the gps sent us to was in a not so nice part of town where there were no restaurants and lots of broken down industrial buildings. We drove back towards the river and found the trendy part which was not trendy at all. There were some restaurants but the streets were mostly empty and I was reminded of The Walking Dead once again! We passed this cool looking diner but it was closed. Might go there for breakfast.

In the end, we discovered that all the good restaurants were within a couple of kilometres of our hotel in what are basically the suburbs of Harrisburg. And this is the capital city of Pennsylvania! We think we might hit Scranton on the way home and see how that compares. 

Our restaurant choice was Joe K's Brew House and it worked out well. They had a good range of craft beers and something called steam pots. They were sort of like crab boils or clam bakes I'd say. We got one that pretty much had everything in it including a whole lobster, a bunch of snow crab, clams, shrimp, potatoes and corn on the cob. 

After we'd finished off the lobster and most of the shrimp and clams, there was still quite a bit left.

As you can imagine, the table looked like a war zone, at least on my side. And somehow, despite having about 6 napkins on my lap, I managed to get stuff on my pants. At least I got to try out the Tide spot remover stick when we got back!

Tomorrow, we'll start off with a visit to the Hershey Chocolate World. I expect that there will be some chocolate eating. Then, we plan to check out Cape May before heading into Atlantic City. It's a seaside resort town that a number of people have recommended.