We love Vermont!

Greetings everybody!

Sorry for not giving an update on the blog lately but we are not near any consistent cell phone signals. We are in beautiful Vermont – staying at a campground just outside of Westfield. This area is referred to as the Northeast Kingdom and is said to be one of the last frontiers in America. You won't find any fast-food restaurants, strip malls or brand name discount stores here. Instead, we are surrounded by large forests, mountain streams, covered bridges, maple syrup farms and lots of Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream.

When we go into town we shop at the “general” store and have to drive out near the local monastery to get a decent cell signal to make our phone calls (kind of weird seeing monks in black cloaks walking the farm fields).

Unfortunately we got some bad news lately - Carmen’s dear Uncle Doug (aka Coon) has taken a turn for the worse and was placed on life support in Brandon, Manitoba. Hearing this news, we made the decision for her to fly out of the nearest airport (Montreal) to be with her Uncle and Aunt Maggie at this trying time – our thoughts and prayers go out to you both!

So since being in this area for the past week, we have been busy doing the following:

- bike riding around the lake at Newport
- playing and swimming in the numerous mtn. streams/waterfalls in the area
- getting our exercise on some of the local hiking trails
- exploring the nearby small towns during our country drives
- playing golf at Jay’s Peak – hardest golf course I have ever played but simple beautiful
- catching fireflys and having smores around the campfire
- visiting the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory – one word – YUMMY

Well that’s it for now – will post a new update once back in Canada!

Bye for now.

Shaking with the Shakers

Hello there,

After our Massachusetts experiences, we ventured to Canterbury New Hampshire to visit a historic Shaker village.

This Shaker Village was established way back in 1792 when founder Mother Ann Lee formed their 7th community in Canterbury New Hampshire which remained in existence for 200 years. At its height in the 1850's, 300 people lived and worked in the over 100 buildings and 3000 acres.

The Shakers are a religious group dissidents from various religions such as Quakers and Methodists. They were known as the"Shaking Quakers" of Shakers because of their use of dance, whirling and clapping in their worship.

They believe in:

*community ownership

*pacifism

*dancing in workshop

*celibacy

*living simple

"Hands to Work and Hearts to God" - Shakers were aggressive entrepreneurs with their well known "Shaker Brand" - furniture and brooms in particular. We recently read one classic shaker chair sold for over a 100k - WOW!

This was a very fascinating tour and look at the Shaker way of life. Today there are only 3 or 4 Shakers left alive in a community in Maine.

So about Ray's distant relative............would anyone believe it's Chevy Chase!! The Clark Griswold comparison is frightening!!

We are sticking around the northern Vermont area for awhile - stay tuned for a Pilkington family update soon.

Bye for now.

"Witch" you were here!

Greetings all!

Since our last blog we have travelled to southern Vermont and had a visit with the folks at the Robb Family Farm in Brattleboro and managed to pick up some farm fresh maple syrup (Grandpa Ralph - too bad you weren't with us)!

We then travelled to east Massachusetts to a State Forest in the Boston vicinity. Talk about crazy traffic and roads! Our 3 big Massachusetts outings consisted of:

*A quick road trip up to Gloucester which is right on the ocean - very beautiful! Tyrone managed to sneak in yet another swim in the ocean.

*Salem - which is witch central. This is the spot back in the late 1600's when 14 women and 5 men were hung (not burned at the stake) because the community felt they were witches (which they weren't).

Salem certainly has a witch theme with many different themed restaurants, gift shops, etc.. Apparently it's quite wild around Halloween! Emma and Leah were quite intrigued to learn about the present day witches.

We also visited the Maritime Historic Site which talked about non-witch things like the maritime history of the area.

*Boston - We also jumped on the"T" to check out the downtown sites, especially the Boston Common area. We walked along the Freedom Trail where the freed slaves walked so long ago. One of the stops along the way was the State Building where we saw a statue of a relative of Ray's by the name of Anne Hutchinson. She lived back in the Puritan times and was considered to be a courageous exponent of "civil liberty and religious toleration".

Our plans are to continue north through New Hampshire and northern Vermont - we just finished a great visit to a Shaker community which we will talk about soon.

Our blog question - After viewing the statue of Ray's relation, we did some further research to find that he is actually distantly related to a handful of notable individuals including George W Bush, Marilyn Monroe and another actor from the 80's (which there is a resemblance - Helen you should get this) - who is it??

Bye for now.

New York Today - Tomorrow the World!

We love NYC! Wow - what a place. We ended up jumping on a commuter bus in Pennsylvania for the 2 hour excursion to the Big Apple. Finding a hotel is a bit of a challenge here - did you know the average price for a hotel room is $400 a night. Ray found a deal, a great hotel with a 2 room suite in a perfect "Uptown" location.

We spent 2 action packed days taking in all the city sites. Here are the highlights:

*Central Park - Is lovely and much to Emma and Leah's dismay we missed seeing the live concert in the park featuring the Jonas Brothers by minutes! Also saw the John Lennon Memorial "Stawberry Fields" and later walked in front of the apartment where he was shot and killed.

*9-11 Memorial - Very powerful and emotional to see the stories from this tragic experience. NYC is in the process of rebuilding a whole new complex and park as a tribute to 9-11.

*Restaurants - There was this great little diner just by our hotel - lots of character and yummy food.

*Broadway - We stood in line in the rain for 2 hours to get discount tickets to Mary Poppins (no Wicked tickets were available). Mary Poppins was great fun - Chim Chimney, Chim Chim Chero.

*Times Square - I think it's even more overwhelming live in person - big tv screens and flashy lights everywhere and lots and lots of people.

*Subway - We spent lots of time travelling on the subway which certainly was a efficient and safe way to get around but are the subway stations yucky - very dark, dirty, dingy and stinky - I could just imagine the rats!
*Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building - are amazing to see in person.

*Ethnic Areas - Nyc has some strong ethnic areas so we toured both "Little Italy" and "China Town" which was really neat to see.

*Atmosphere and People - Much to our surprise, we always felt very safe and the people were very friendly and helpful.

So all in all a fun little excursion. We are right at the Massachusetts/Vermont border and just had a visit with some Strolling of the Heifers folks.

About the Amish trivia question - Grandma was right - this was a picture of a "Pennsylvania Phone Booth" - where the Amish families have phones for their businesses.

Bye for now.

The Civil War, Amish and Lots of Lots of Chocolate

We are finally catching up on our blog - we enjoyed our time in southern Pennsylvania. Here is a family effort on the highlights.

All Things Civil War in Gettysburg:

We weren't really sure what to expect in Gettysburg but can report that it's a cute little town and beautiful countryside but wow the highways are narrow and the houses and barns are really close to the road (sometimes 4 feeet or less). At the National Military Park we took in a video and an unique cyclorama which outlined the gruesome 3 day battle during the Civil War. There also was a very detailed museum that we took in. Because of some of our interactive experiences in the museum, we now have have a new morning tradition here in the Pilkington/Andrew motorhome - a morning bugle revelry wake up call! There are statues and memorials all over Gettysburg, many with costumed folks rein acting various aspects such as soldier marches, musket shooting, etc.. There were tons of things to explore and never enough time.

The Best Day of My Life by Leah Pilkington

We were in Hershey and went to Chocolate World where they showed us how they make the different kinds of chocolate bars there like the Hershey's chocolate bar, Reese's Pieces, Kit Kats and of course Hershey Kisses. We went to a chocolate tasting school and sampled lots and lots of different kinds of chocolate. Because of all my hard work, I got my very own Masters in Chocolate Tasting Degree!! We ended up buying lots of chocolate there!! Did you know that the street lights in Hershey have Hershey kisses on them?? This really was the best day of my life (and Dad's too).

The Amish in Lancaster County by Emma Pilkington:

The Amish are people who live in different parts of the US and Canada who do not believe in using cars, tractors or any motorized vehicles and don't have any electricity in their homes. They travel by horse and buggy. The kids are not baptized until they are adults so they are not members of the church until they decide after the age of 18 years. Before young Amish make the decision to become members, many of them move to the city for awhile and drive cars.
We went to a Visitor Centre and saw a movie about an Amish boy called Jacob who drove his own car until he decided to become a baptised Amish. Next we got to tour a typical Amish home - I found it amazing that boys had to all share bedrooms until they got married but once a girl turned 16, they got their own bedroom. As soon as Amish men get married, they must grow a beard and never, ever cut it.

Since it was Sunday, many of the stores were closed and the Amish were at church, so we weren't sure if we would see any of them. But we were in luck - we saw many horses and buggies driving in the country side - we even saw kids playing baseball and some girls roller blading on the road through a covered bridge!

Our next trivia question - what is this Amish building (below)??

With the last Springer Spaniel question - many of you were right - both George Bush Sr and George W had English Springer Spaniels like the one in the photo on the White House Grounds.

We are currently in the Pocono Mountains about 2 hours away from NYC. In fact, we just spent 3 days in the big apple - so will be telling you all about it very soon.

Ta ta for now.

Crisis at the Whitehouse

Well we had a bit of an issue in Washington at the White house. I told Ray that we shouldn't bring Tryone!! He got off his leash and slipped through the fence and loved running on the green, green grass. This picture is courtesy of Homeland Security.




OK - So we are joking but this does really look like Tryone on the White House grounds. This leads us to our question right off the start - which US President(s) had English Springer Spaniels?

We have spent the last 2 days exploring all the great things in the US Capital. We ended up staying at a National Forest just outside of the city area and then took the subway in.


Washington is home to many world renowned Smithsonian Museums (and there is no admission for most of them). We took in a few like the Natural History Museum and American History Museums. We saw many sites including a display of ball gowns of all the past First Ladies,the Hope Diamond and the big excitement was seeing "Night in the Museum 2" on IMAX which was filmed right in the various Smithsonian Museums!

Walking is a given when visiting here, we spent lots of time walking (in the pouring rain) to see the Lincoln Memorial, US Capital Building, Vietnam, Washington and WW2 Memorials, Reflecting Pool and of course the White House. Lots to see and do that is for sure.

We are now in southern Pennsylvania and are hoping to explore Gettysburg, Lancaster and Hersey in the next while.

About the last question - the photo from Jamestown Virginia, there were lots of good guesses but the correct answer and the Mytton family knew, was Princess Pocahontas. We certainly learned that the Disney story is very different from reality. Go figure. Click here to read more on her

Bye for now.

In Old, Old Virginia

Greetings from Virginia,

Since our last post, we have arrived in Virginia, spending some time in the scenic Shenandoah National Park. Here is a picture of an exhausted Tyrone after our hike in the forest.

We then got to the Williamsburg area - talk about history! We visited Jamestown Stettlement where we learned about the 400 year history of the English settlers, natives and african americans. There was lots of interactive activities and things to learn about - everything from building a canoe, musket shooting, ships and Emma's physics lesson (she knows all about currents, compasses, compass roses and knots per hour thanks to Dennis the sailer). It was a great day and certainly gave us an appreciation as to how hard life was for these people.

We also went to Colonial Williamsburg and saw the old colonial town. The girls learned how to use a quill pen and had a bit of a hang up at the stalks.

We stayed at a great state park across the James River (we have to take a ferry to Williamsburg). By far this state park had the nicest campground and even an Olympic size swimming pool with diving boards. It's been very hot here (around 93 degrees with humidity) - so good thing for the pool. On Sunday, the campground had a Historic Gas and Steam Engine Show which we caught the last hour of - there were some snappy bands - but no bib overalls.

The park also has big, beautiful trees which Emma and Leah love to swing on!

Here we come Washington DC in the morning!

Question Time - Here is a picture of a famous woman that we learned more about at Jamestown - any guesses?? HINT- This actual photo is much different than the image we know.