It seemed that the closer we got to home, the more it drew us in.  It had not been our intention to travel from Boston to home in four days, but that was what we ended up doing. The magnetic pull of family and friends was just too much to resist.

We completed our visits to all the National Park sites we wanted to see earlier that expected.  Partly because we did all the Boston sites in one day.  Partly because we skipped the three mansions in Hyde Park, New York.  The three mansions were very close to Martin Van Buren National Historic Site.  We considered going there – they were open.  But I just wasn’t interested in touring more historic homes.

We will have to head back that way again.  There are still places in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York City that we need to see.  Consequently Eleanor Roosevelt, Vanderbilt Mansion, and Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Sites will just have to wait for another day.  I reached my limit of historic homes in a four-month period.

We thought about stopping to see some friends.  We drove within miles of Bill and Barbara Ruh‘s house in Massachusetts, but we went by there on a Sunday morning when they were busy at church.  Tom and I also wanted to see our friend Robin Smith in New York, but he travels more than we do.  He was heading to Montana the day we ended up driving by his house.

Once we finished up at Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, we headed west on NY 5.  Taking I-90 would have been faster, but we weren’t in a hurry and NY 5 goes along the coast of Lake Erie.  We passed by lots of little towns, full of people enjoying the lakeshore.  There were also tons of grapes growing along the shore.  Some of the grapes will be made into wine and some of them into grape jelly.

We stopped for a walk at New York’s Evangola State Park.  Tom and I hiked along the lakeshore, through the campground, and around the picnic area.  It was a good place to stretch our legs and looked like a wonderful place for a vacation.  There is a long, sandy beach under the cliffs of Angola shale.  Very scenic.

Once we finished our walk, we continued driving west until we crossed the border and reached the town of North East, Pennsylvania.  North East is a lovely borough of 4,000 people.  We chose it as our stopping place for the night because there was a Holiday Inn Express beside I-90.  There was also an ice cream place in town called Straw Hat Sundae Shop.

The Straw Hat Sundae Shop features Penn State Berkey Creamery Ice Cream and they had so many flavors it was hard to decide which one to get.  They don’t do tablespoons of 10 flavors in a cup.  I finally decided on Raspberry Fudge Torte.  It was, of course, delicious.  Very creamy.  The shop was busy with families and we watched a group of kids sit on the wall around the shop and make the honking gesture at the trucks and cars that went by.  Most of the people driving by honked and waved, which delighted the children.  It felt fun and small-townish.

After a restful evening at Holiday Inn Express, Tom and I got on the road in good time the next morning.  We stopped once to get gas.  Aside from that, we were eager to get home.  We arrived back at our house around 1 p.m.  Plenty of time to do the “day back” stuff that always needs doing.  I started laundry and dusted up the cobwebs that had formed over four months.

Tom had a bigger challenge.  He had to get the Prius started.  The battery was dead, dead, dead after four months.  He used the rental car to jump the battery, but it took almost an hour to get it charged up so the Prius would start.  Tom drove the Prius for a while and it has been working great since then.  We decided to keep the rental car one more night to make sure the Prius would start the next morning.  No problem.

Unpacking was easy, compared to the unpacking we have to do when we come back in the RV.  We had a pile of mail to sort through and also a pile of souvenirs to sort through.  I got all my spoons in one place for the first time.  There are 29 of them!  The day after we arrived home I put them in my display case.  I added a few spoons for the places we had been before and the case was filled up.  There were only two countries we visited where I didn’t get a spoon – Bermuda and Greenland.  I found a couple of spoons from those places on eBay and ordered them to complete my collection.

Tom and I had a wonderful trip.  We are very happy we decided to take this trip.  We learned so much and saw so many interesting things.  Tom and I are also very happy to be home.  The old song has it right:

‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home!