So I am back from my vacation! From the traffic statistics, it looks like a fair number of people enjoyed reading some of the back catalog of posts to which I provided links. My travels this year took me and my friends back to the East Coast to visit the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (access is regrettably much more restricted since 2001 than when I was growing up); Niagara Falls (I may actually be in a video promoting Ontario); the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg; Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and New York City, which included visits to some Broadway shows and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

One of the centerpieces of the trip and something many readers may not be familiar with, was taking a canal boat on the Erie Canal.

Admittedly, the coolest part was going through the locks.  Fortunately for me, the diesel engine drown out my singing of the Erie Canal Song or I am sure my friends would have tossed me overboard.

Another place we went early on in the trip was Storm King Art Center, a 500 acre sculpture park just north of NYC. I actually grew up in the same county but I never had the occasion to visit. As I wandered about, I wondered why my schools never had a trip to this place. The sheer enormity of the park and many of the sculptures would have won over most of my classmates who really would have wanted to go to an amusement park instead.

I guess it is true that those who live near sites of cultural/historical significance or just major attractions don’t end up visiting them because they are so easily available. I ended up traveling 5,000 miles to visit a place that was only about 45 minutes from me most of my life.