The small southern Alabama town of Andalusia is a friendly place where southern charm and hospitality reign supreme. It’s the kind of place where everybody knows their neighbors, where people say hello when they pass you on the street, and where you can always satisfy your hunger for boiled peanuts, grits, or fried catfish. And […]
Within shouting distance of the rollercoasters and thrill rides of Hersheypark we discovered a historic log cabin, the oldest in southeast Pennsylvania. Built from hand-hewn logs in 1732, the same year George Washington was born, the Derry Church Session House saw much of the history of pioneer days in the Keystone State. Local records say […]
When I was a youngster my dad used to say that “Kids today don’t know how good they have it.” I suspect he wasn’t the first one to say that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if George Washington’s father didn’t say something similar way back then. But I do have to say that a lot […]
If you are like a lot of Americans, you probably believe that our current president or his predecessor are either the best or worst thing that ever happened to this country. But believe me, a lot of men elected to the highest office in the land have had their own fans and enemies for many […]
In Saturday’s blog I shared with you that I had purchased a new Kodak PixPro WPZ2 waterproof digital camera, but I was disappointed to discover that the battery was bad when it arrived on Friday afternoon. As I said in that blog, I called Kodak’s customer service number and they were closed for the weekend, so […]
The small southern Alabama town of Andalusia is a friendly place where southern charm and hospitality reign supreme. It’s the kind of place where everybody knows their neighbors, where people say hello when they pass you on the street, and where you can always satisfy your hunger for boiled peanuts, grits, or fried catfish. And […]
In his book It All Started With Columbus, satirist Richard Willard Armour wrote that our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln, had been born in three states and also “in two cabins – the original, and the reconstructed.” When I read that I was reminded of a tour guide at some historic inn we visited once who […]
In nearly 18 years of fulltime RVing, not to mention our travels away from the RV lifestyle, we have been to so many interesting places. Historic cities, battlefields, mountains, deserts, and seashores. And we have found that one of the best ways to get an overview of a place is by taking a trolley tour. […]
Any of us who remember our high school history classes know about the terrible winter George Washington’s troops spent at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. But did you know there was also a winter encampment during the Civil War that was just as harsh? So much so that it has been called the […]
Note: This story is from the January-February 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal. Before the days of motels at every freeway exit and the comforts of traveling in your own RV, anyone on a journey away from home had limited choices of where to spend the night. If money was tight and the weather was […]
Note: This story is from the January-February 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal. We all know a lot about George Washington, the Father of Our Country, but how much do you know about his mother, Mary Washington? Would she be called the Grandmother of Our Country? Born November 30, 1708, in Lancaster County, Virginia, Mary […]
Note: This story first appeared in the November-December, 2012 issue of the Gypsy Journal. Recognizing that a waterway across the seven mile wide isthmus of Cape Cod, connecting Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay, would be a great trade boon between the Plimoth Colony, local Indian villages, and the Dutch merchants sailing from New York, […]
Yesterday was a working day for us, but when you have a job like ours, working is a lot of fun so we weren’t complaining at all. We drove into Fredericksburg hoping to visit some of the historic sites there for inclusion in a future issue of the Gypsy Journal. If you like history as […]
We were up and out the door earlier than usual yesterday to explore historic Fredericksburg, Virginia. Established in 1728, this friendly and charming little city on the banks of the Rappahannock River was an important commerce center during Colonial days, when ships traveled upriver from the coast to load up on locally grown tobacco, bound […]
Yesterday we drove 75 miles to Valley Forge National Historical Park, where the Continental Army, under George Washington, spent the hard winter of 1777-1778 during the American Revolution. Being history nuts, this was a real treat for us, and we enjoyed immersing ourselves in this shrine to American liberty. We also learned a lot that […]