Beaches, Battles and Bears

Its been 9 days since our last blog entry.  In that time, we have travelled down Long Island, through New York and some of the Civil War battlefields, and along the spine of the Appalachians.

We spent a wet day in Groton, CT, visiting the USS Nautilaus, the first nuclear powered submarine. Suddenly our camper van felt terribly spacious.  A ferry over to Long Island saw us celebrating Tony's birthday by the sea.

Having explored the length and breadth of Long Island, from the rural villages of the Northern tip to the affluence of the Hamptons (where we were reduced to sleeping in a car park) - we moved on to the urban contrasts of New York City (where we were reduced to sleeping in a hotel!)

We had great fun in Central Park - check out Liberty's hula action - she looked the part but it was all rather ineffective!  We hadn't mentioned the Statue of Liberty to the girls, but they spotted her the moment we stepped on the Staten Island Ferry. There was much excitement about the multitude of "Liberty" products in New York, but none were worth photographing until....

Onwards, ever onwards, visits to the Civil War battlefields of Gettysburg, Antietam and Harper's Ferry proved educational for all. Harpers Ferry, a preserved 19C village on the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, was also the site of John Brown's pre-war insurrection -  though not his grave.

The last couple of glorious autumn days were spent in the Shenandoah National Park...

The weather was perfect, the colours were great and the girls were troopers - they walked and walked, and were rewarded with marshmallows around the fire in the evening.

Best / scariest of all, deep in the woods, we encountered a bear and her cub rooting amongst the leaves for acorns, just 100 m from the path. All of Ellen's worries were manifest, but we returned with the same number of children that we started with - albeit holding our hands slightly tighter!

To cap it all, we later spotted a bear in the trees above us - to quote Liberty: "that is the coolest thing I have ever seen in my whole life!"