NEW YORK TO OHIO 6/27-7/5/2011

As you look at this entry, you are looking at the last of our New York visit and the beginning of our trek west.  To see the rest of our New York visit you must go down a few blog entries and begin on June 20.

So, our last day visiting Jed in New York, June 27, was spent Jed taking Ann for a ride in his Vespa.....

.... oops, the day before was spent at church and at an Elders Quorum picnic...

....also, on our last day, we went to see the largest cathedral in the world....

....looked at a couple more condos.  Then we bid Jed adieu.

We drove back to our trailer in Hershey PA.  We spent the night, and the next day we headed west and spent that night at Camp Wal-Mart.  The next morning we headed to Brookville, PA.  It is the county seat of Jefferson County.  There we spent all morning and early afternoon in the county courthouse and the local Historical Society.  We found three wills of three of Ann's ancestors from the area and Ann met a distant cousin on the Snyder/Shaffer side of her family.  Fascinating!

We then left and followed the clues we had found and headed towards Ringgold, PA a few miles away where we had learned that some of her ancestors had lived.

It was a very small village.  Here is a picture of their shopping mall.

We found two cemeteries in the town and this was the one the info we had gathered led us to.

Up on a beautiful hill was a little Lutheran Church that had been here for about 200 years with a little cemetery down hill from it.

Looking down from the church we saw the beautiful countryside settled by people like Ann's family six generations ago.  We saw the cemetery and began our search for her family.

And there we found Ann's family.  Four different family names and several generations leading back to.....

Valentine Shaffer, Ann's great-great-great-great-great grandfather.

We also found about 40 other family members there in the same cemetery.

After finishing taking pictures and notes about 8:30 PM we headed further west and spent the night at Camp Wal-Mart in Clarion PA.  The next morning we headed out.  On the way to Jefferson, Ohio, we took a turn a little too sharply and punched out our rear window of the truck.  This is the 4th time Wayne has done this.  Needless to say he had a hard time accepting he had done it again.

We pressed on and passed through several beautiful western Pennsylvania towns and villages before we finally arrived in Jefferson OH.

We set up camp in a Thousand Trails Preserve there where we will get the window fixed, visit with one of Wayne's distant cousins, visit several Cowley cemeteries near Cleveland and rest a little before we head off  on July 5 towards the west and more family history research.

WHAT WE DID IN NEW YORK 6/21-27/2011

We had a blast on Manhattan while visiting Jed and Kate!  There are no pictures of Kate because she was at work a lot and then left for Seattle to run a 1/2 marathon and do a family party.  We had fun visiting with both of them. We did many other things besides visit though.  Jed, the ultimate tour guide kept our feet moving.  We rode the subways and walked everywhere!!

Sometimes we had to stop so Jed could conduct business!

We went to the New York Museum of Natural History......

....and saw lots of dinosaurs.....

...no, the ones in front are not the dinosaurs....

.....we had picnics in the park.....

.....toured Columbia University on our own while Jed met with the director of his next film.....

... we went to Times Square....

....ate some more picnics.....

....toured Rockefeller Square and saw where they put up the big NY Christmas Tree....

...went to see many famous big churches....

....went to a Broadway Musical.....

...called Mary Poppins and got the songs stuck in our heads for the rest of the week.....

....went out to eat several times, this was a El Salvadorian restaurant....

....helped Jed look for a condo to buy.....

.....revisited Ground Zero and were amazed at the progress they were making on the memorial and the two new world trade towers....

... the one in the middle is half as tall as it's going to be....

...and attended a city wide dance contest....

There were many more things we did, but suffice it to say, it was a busy and fun week on the island of Manhattan with our # 3 son.  Read the next two blog entries to learn more!

ANN WENT SHOPPING IN NEW YORK 6/25/2011

One day in New York, Ann wanted to go shopping on Fifth Avenue!

We went to all the nice "little" shops.

Wayne once saw a movie that said the devil shops here and wore this stuff.  He was confused as to why Ann wanted to shop here.

Then Wayne was told we were going to Tiffany's and he got excited.  He remembered seeing a movie about this being a good place for breakfast!!  Sausage, eggs and hashbrowns!  Ohhh Boy!  But when we got there....

...he found it was just a place that had the world's biggest yellow diamond!  (and lots of other $pretty$ stuff).  Ann got all excited!

Then the next store had pretty girls' clothes and Wayne was holding on to his wallet tighter and tighter!  Ann was smiling bigger and bigger!

By the time we got to this store, Wayne was feeling faint and left Ann there while he went down to the subway for a little while.

Ann found him down in the subway when she was done.  Actually the whole visit, Ann had not spent a dime.  But Wayne, feeling they were soon to be broke, had begun what he thought was to be his new career.  He was doing quite well for himself!

DRIVE TO NEW YORK, NY 6/20/2011

On Monday, June 12, 2011, we put our trailer into storage and drove to Manhattan, NY so we could spend a week with Jed and Kate, our third son and his wife.  As we were used to in the past, the roads in Jersey are terribly hard on vehicles and New York driving is in a word, interesting.

But we got to Jed's place safely, negotiated finding a parking place and spent some time with Jed on site as he worked with a film student that was shooting her first film.

It was great to watch him as he was the camera man and taught the woman some of the art that he is finishing his Masters Degree in.  He will graduate next spring and we are quite proud of him.

So none of you would doubt our location, I throw these two shots in for continuity.  Braving the New York traffic for these shots was quite interesting.

I had to lay down on the side walk to get this artistic shot of Jed and Kate's apartment building.  Actually, I am using a new tool for uploading the pictures into Blogger and it will not let me rotate them once I import them to Blogger.  Frustrating!