It's not the SS Minnow, and this ain't no 3-hour tour

Oh, this is soooo not the Minnow...

I'm on the road with Jim, playing the bus tour version of Julie, you cruise director, for our annual 12-day, 8-state (10 + Washington DC if you count the ones we only drive through) Elderhostel program, Tracing the Routes of the American Revolution, and I'm assisting him with the tour. Jim does the lecturing, and I keep track of the meal orders, confirm site guide info, call ahead to hotels with anticipated arrival times, etc. You know--just your average vacation.

We're about at the half-way point of the tour and I would have blogged soon, but unfortunately my efforts to have coverage for my projects in the office while I'm out have not worked out as well as I had hoped, and I've been spending a significant portion of my days trying to prevent disaster coordinate things in the office--that is, when I'm not performing my guide duties on this trip.

Let's just say it has not been much of a vacation for me.

Anyway, it's the weekend now, so I can show you some highlights of our trip.

Our group visiting Lexington Green, MA

On our first day in Boston I dressed in period attire along with Jim. (He dresses in period attire for the first 5 days of the trip.) This turned me into a tourist picture magnet. I'm sorry I didn't ask the Italian girls that accosted let me to take their picture, but I did get these tourists to let me pose with them.

Our group took a cruise on Lake Champlain Tuesday morning. Always a treat.


We also visited Fort Ticonderoga. On our way back to the Brandon Inn we drove through Middlebury, Vermont and right past here.


Yeah, that's the reflection of our bus in the window there. I was sad...

Oh--I neglected to mention that out of the 16 participants on this trip we've got four or five knitters. And they spotted this shop without me even telling them that we were going to pass it. I'll tell ya--we fiber people have some kind of woolly radar in us.

Next we visited the Hubbardton Battlefield, Saratoga Battlefield, overnighted in Albany, and stopped at West Point for a guided tour.

Jim's sock listening to tour guide

I really wanted to ask one of the cadets to pose with a sock, but I didn't want to get anyone in trouble. However, Jim spotted these willing cadets in the visitor's center.

What a guy, that Jim is!


And that bring us to the midway point in the trip--Philadelphia. More on that in my next post...