How we met our long lost American cousin - 8th update from Chrisandra's Roadtrip

Aloha all,

this is a special edition for a very serendipitous event last week. It's one more reason for me to be happy that I married Sandra, since I would not be Chris Weininger otherwise...

If I ever had to get a “real” job again and if I could pick where that would be, I might pick a presidential library. Of course they might prefer somebody with a real history background, not some German who only knows a little bit about the presidents he has visited. But in fantasy world, Director of a Presidential Library might be a fun job for me. For a couple of seconds, I thought that fantasy had come true:

Imagine my surprise: In Fremont, Ohio, we arrived at “Spiegel Grove”, the home of Rutherford B. Hayes and the first real Presidential Library in the country. We walk into the museum and literally the very first video welcome message starts off:  "Welcome to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library. My name is Christie Weininger and I am the Executive Director…” Wait, who?? what???

First, we went to the bathroom to wash out our ears to make sure that we heard this right. Well, not really, but we did listen to the video a few more times and made sure she spelled her name ‘the right way’. Hearing your own name might be kind of fun if your last name is somewhat common, but it’s unheard of for us. Weininger is not a common name in Germany or in America. Neither one of us had ever met a Weininger who wasn’t one of Sandra’s relatives!

So of course we had to ask whether our long lost cousin was around. It took a few hours to connect, but if you know us and presidential libraries, you know that we tend to hang around for many hours anyway. And there was plenty to do: We took the regular tour through the home of President Hayes, visited the museum, and took a 'backstairs tour' from the servant’s perspective. In the evening they had a big band concert on the veranda. The concert might not have been in our honor, but that’s when we finally got to meet the mysterious Christie Weininger. And we felt right away like we found a new cousin, she’s just as nice as all the other Weiningers we know. 

We quickly found out that her greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrandfather was Adam Weininger from Stuttgart. Sandra’s dad was from Stuttgart…as if we needed any more proof that we are related. Obviously, we were very excited. I can also see that Christie was very excited, she had never met a Weininger from the old world. But what surprised us was how excited everybody else at the museum was, too. Wherever we went people asked us whether we were Christie’s German cousins from Hawaii. I guess Christie must be a really nice boss that they were all so happy with her. We even had a photo shoot with the PR person of the Library to record this historic event.

Of course we accepted gladly when Christie offered to take us to her hometown to meet more Weininger the next day. We had no plans anyway plus we still had not seen everything in the museum. And even with all the excitement about Weiningers, we still wanted to learn about President Hayes, too. Interesting fellow, by the way: He was elected in 1876, the centennial of the declaration of independence. At the Republican convention, he finished a distant 5th on the first ballot. The leading candidate James Blaine had almost 5 times as many votes as Hayes. But all the other delegates had one thing in common: They hated Blaine and after seven round of voting, they agreed on Hayes as their nominee. If you think that was close, wait for the general election! You might remember the 2000 election Bush vs. Gore that was so close that it took several weeks to determine who would be president. For Hayes, it took four months! Two days before the inauguration (which was in march back then), it was finally decided that Hayes would become president. I will not bore you with all the details of his presidency (of course not because I forgot most of what I read last week). But one thing that made us relate to him was that apparently he loved to travel as much as we do. He took a 71 day trip throughout the country, making him the first sitting president to travel west of the Rocky Mountains. 

The next day we increased the number of Weiningers we have met in the US about tenfold. Christie took us to her home town, about 45 minutes south of Fremont and even with just a few hours notice, she got a whole bunch Weiningers together, who apparently all wanted to meet their long lost cousins Sandra and Chris. We went to cementeries, homes, farms and dentist offices all proudly displaying the Weininger name. We are particularly thankful to the the one ancestor who corrected the spelling back to the correct way, apparently Adam had dropped an ‘e’. I don’t think I would have asked at the museum if the greeting would have been from Christie Wininger. 

After an afternoon of touring the various Weininger sites we got some delicious fresh Weininger peaches, had some beer and pizza with three generations of our new extended family before taking off again. Hopefully we will get to see them again, whether it’s in Ohio, Hawaii or Germany. And if we ever have a tooth ache during our road trip, I hope it’s going to be close to the Weininger Family Dentistry in Ohio. 

Aloha,

Chris, Sandra & Christie

I hope we have some of Auntie Mae's longevity genes...

They actually have a family tree all the way back to Adam, but not Eve..

Before they corrected the spelling... 

I'd rather not get a tooth ache, but if I do, I hope it's close to here

Plenty of Prehistoric and Presidential Points of Interest since Pennsylvania - 7th Update from Chrisandra‘s Best of Both Worlds Roadtrip

Aloha all,

I feel a little guilty about all the fun things we‘ve done this week, while our sweet hometown Lahaina is dealing with a huge brush fire and a hurricane at the same time. Several friends had to evacuate and Sandra and I have both been busy all day assisting guests who could not make it in our out of West Maui. But there is nothing else I can do right now, so I might as well keep up with our adventures on our blog. 

After all, we‘ve been to the sweetest place on earth, learnt about several new–to–us presidents, stumbled over a new–to–us National Park, saw the site of the oldest proof of human habitation in America and met a cousin we did not know we had!

If you read the last update, you know how much we enjoyed the various estates from the Du Ponts in Delaware. One prettier than the other, but all slightly tainted by the fact that they were mostly built on the fortunes from making gun powder, thus profiting from other people killing each other. Our next stop was not tainted that way. Au contraire: Hershey is not only a most pleasant town, it is also completely built on profits from making chocolate…how sweet is that!

The town that chocolate built

Maybe somebody who actually lives in Hershey will burst my bubble some day. There might be a dark side to this town (other than dark chocolate), but our impression of this place was very much in line with their motto: ‘The sweetest place on earth’. It reminded us of Telluride or the movie ‘Pleasantville’: Just a little too good to be true. 

We first stopped at Chocolate World, which is like a Mini Chocolate Disney World, except that it’s free, including the Disney style ride that explains the process of making chocolate. Then we took a historical trolley tour through town, with a fun and informative guide passing out free chocolate throughout the tour. On that tour we learnt that the whole town is built on the chocolate fortune from the very generous Mr. Hershey, including the children’s hospital and the free school for orphans which has grown to accommodate over 2000 underprivileged kids at no cost to them. Ann should be proud, she and other chocoholics really support a good cause here in Hershey. 

After the chocolate capital of the world we went to the state capital of Pennsylvania. As you know, that’s one of our things to do, so of course we took a tour of the state capitol in Harrisburg. And you might also guess that, of course, we loved it. Running the risk of sounding like a broken record: This might have been the most impressive state capitol building we have ever seen! But you are not going to guess how much we liked our tour guide, or will you?

Yet another prettiest state capitol of them all!

Well, our tour guide was mediocre at best. Not terrible, but we found it ironic that the most impressive state capitol had the least enthusiastic guide. We did not realize how uninspired she was until we left the building. There were all these TV crews around the capitol. She had mentioned that we could not see the Supreme Court room because it was being used. She failed to mention why. As we found out from one of the reporters outside and from a CNN news alert on my phone, they had just announced the findings of the grand jury that investigated the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the very building we were in. And our tour guide either did not know or was unable to include it in the  tour, which sounded like she had given word by word a few hundred times already. 

As if sexual abuse by priests is not depressing enough, we also visited the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg und the battlefields in Gettysburg. We had been to Gettysburg before, but we had missed two very interesting sites. We did not even know about the Cyclorama, which was under renovation when we were here last. Not really sure what to expect, we bought tickets, watched a movie and then went to the Cyclorama. I was already pretty impressed by this modern looking multimedia presentation. It brings to life and explains the battles on a 360 degree painting with impressive light and sound effects. And I was totally blown away when I learnt at the end that the main attraction, the painting itself, was created 135 years ago in 1883!

Obviously, the first president anybody would associate with Gettysburg is Lincoln. What I had not heard before is that the Gettysburg Address he gave here, wasn’t an instant hit with everybody. History might rank it as one of the best speeches ever given, some contemporary reviews were less flattering, speaking of “silly, dishwatery remarks” that shall not be repeated or thought of ever again. 

But we actually went back to Gettysburg because of another president. As we found out, Dwight Eisenhower had his home pretty much right in the middle of the historic battlefield. We took a tour of his farm and home, where he retired after he was done defeating the Nazis and being president. By the way: Planning D-Day was not his only talent. Turns out, he’s also a pretty good painter. We like Ike and we liked Ike’s paintings, too:

We also went back to Ike’s farm for a sunset ranger program. It was about September 1958, when Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to America during the Cold War. It’s a fun story and includes the Soviet leader publicly throwing a temper tantrum because he did not get to visit Disneyland. We loved hearing the story told by a national park ranger around sunset at the Eisenhower farm, but it should be pretty entertaining even if you just read up on it online.

Ranger talk at the Home of President Eisenhower

We want to thank all of you who ever ate any ketchup. Because part of that profit went indirectly to the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. And what a deal that was. For one low price we got admission to three interesting sites. The museum itself had a diverse collection of Pittsburgh history from Westinghouse and other innovators to the story of the Heinz Company, steel and glass manufacturing all the way to the set of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Included with the History Center is also the Fort Pitt Museum. The museum gave us a little better understanding of the French and Indian Wars, which I was not aware, were a global affair and are by some historians described as the first world wide war. The location at the tip of the golden triangle in downtown Pittsburgh reminded me a lot of the “Deutsches Eck” in Koblenz. I wonder whether any of you been to both places and feel the same way?

Golden Triangel in Pittsburgh

The third part of the History Center is actually outside of town at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter. There is a small living history village and an Indian village where you can try your luck at hunting an Elk with a spear. 

No elk were hurt in the making of this photo...

They also had a historical baseball game played by 1890 rules going on. But the main attraction is the rockshelter archeological site. When this site was excavated in the 70’s, it literally rewrote the history of human habitation in North America. Up until then it was believed that the first humans came here about 10,000 years ago. This site has evidence of human habitation from 16,000 years ago, which still makes it the oldest known site in North America today. Not bad for just an extra freebie to museum admission.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter, the oldest evidence of human existence in North America!

Ohio has a bunch of presidents, but don’t worry, I realize not everybody finds presidential history as fascinating as we do, so I will not bore you with all the details. But I have to briefly mention them. We saw the memorial and gravesite for James Buchanan, who gets most of the blame of not avoiding the civil war, but neither did any other president and he seemed to have been a decent person, just caught in an impossible position. Then we visited the home of James Garfield and the memorial and museum for William McKinley presidents 20 and 25. Both of them fought in the civil war and survived, but for both of them the presidency proved to be far more dangerous. Both of them were assassinated while in office. 

If you know nothing about President Garfield besides that he loved lasagna, don’t feel bad. Neither did we. But he did have a lasting effect on future presidential elections. Until then, candidates did not campaign for themselves. Apparently Garfield was such a good orator, that he decided to break with that tradition. Since rallies around the country would have been frowned upon, he started the short lived tradition of ‘front porch campaigns’. Trainloads of people from all across the country came to his home to hear him speak. Can you imagine if we still had the old tradition? Can you imagine the Clinton/Trump election without ever hearing from either of them? Not sure Garfield considered all the consequences...

President Garfield's home, or the birthplace of presidential campaigning 

The fact that surprised me the most to learn at the home of President Garfield had nothing to do with him, but with his wife. Even though she seems to have been a very emancipated woman, running the estate by herself for many years after her husbands untimely death, she was against women’s suffrage. That is really hard to comprehend for me. If it had not been a subject at all, I could see that she didn’t fight for it. But since there already was a growing suffrage movement at the time, I can’t understand how a lady of her statue could not be supportive of it. I wonder whether we do anything today that will look as weird to future generations. 

Usually we plan visits to national parks way in advance. Not so this week. We literally had not heard of Cuyahoga Valley National Park outside of Cleveland until we saw the exit signs on the highway. This is no Grand Canyon, but it still had enough history and natural beauty to keep us busy for a day and a half. We got a private ranger walk around Kendall Lake. It might not look like much, but it’s pretty impressive that this is all man made. The lake, the pier, even the trees are products of the CCC. So thanks to FDR giving young men something to do during the depression 80 years ago, we got to go on this walk and many bats, birds and beavers got a new home. 

Artificial pier on a manmade lake surrounded by trees planted just 80 years ago.

The visitor center of the park will get a new home soon, too. We had heard of this being done, even of extra floors being inserted, but never saw it ourselves: This historic house got lifted off the ground and gets a new foundation before they 'drop' it back down:

The floating house at Cuyahoga Valley National Park

We also learnt about the importance of the canals in the early days of Ohio. Still considered wilderness when the country was founded, it became the 3rd most populous state by the 1850’s, mostly because of the network of man made canals. It tells you something about how inaccessible the land still was if these narrow canals were considered such an improvement. Boats had to be pulled by mules, no faster than 4mph! And to go from Lake Erie to the Ohio river, there were way over a hundred locks that each took half an hour to several hours to pass through. No wonder the canals quickly disappeared after the railroads came. 

In the domed observation car on the scenic railroad

We also took the scenic train ride through the park, riding in a domed observation car with a very nice Canadian couple and went on another ranger walk along “The Ledges” with fun Ohioan family. 

Our ranger guide trying to explain how much a million years is...

Even million year old "Ledges" were improved by the CCC boys

Since it happens so often that we spend a whole day in just one museum, we planed only on the Thomas Edison birthplace in Milan, Ohio for the next day. This time it was the other way round. The tour through the very modest house was interesting, but not very long. Even with listening to several of his phonographs and reading all the historical markers, we were done in about an hour. So we had time for just one more quick museum to visit in the afternoon...or so we thought....

Genius grown here! Thomas Edison Birthplace

The ‘quick visit’ turned into a two day event and included one of the most serendipitous experiences we have ever had on any of our road trips. So serendipitous and interesting in fact, that it will fill a whole update by itself...so I hope you’ll come back to our blog soon to read all about it!

Aloha from Ohio,

Chris, Sandra and Christie

Dazzled in DC and Delaware - 6th update from Chrisandra's Best of Both Worlds Road Trip

Aloha all,

one of the things on my bucket list is to stay in Washington DC for a month or so and visit all the Smithsonian museums and tour all the public buildings. We did spend two more days in DC after Linnea left us, but there never seems to be enough time to see it all. 

From inside the Jefferson Memorial in DC

We actually went back to the Capitol to see the House of Representatives and to take two more specialty tours. One was about ‘Freedom Fighters’, where our petite tour guide, re-enacted a speech from Fredrick Douglas, who was probably the most famous black Abolitionist, known for his rousing speeches. She turned some heads in the halls of the visitor center. The other tour specialized on the artwork in the areas of the capitol that are not on the general public tour route. Most of the art is by Brumidi. He was an artist for the Vatican in the 1840’s when he had a falling out with the pope and was given the choice of being put in jail for the rest of his life or leave Europe. This was an easy choice for him and after he was hired to decorate the capitol, he said that for the rest of his life he wanted to do nothing but “make beautiful the capitol of the only country in the world in which there is liberty.” So he kept painting for decades and his work in the old senate corridors is spectacular. 

Brumidi Corridors in the senate

I am not saying that I am a big fan of every current member of congress, but I am a big fan of the capitol building and what it represents. And the inefficiency of the political process might have been envisioned by the founding fathers. After all, it’s not always a bad thing if nothing gets done if you happen to think that the current majority or the current president might not align with your idea of how the country should be governed.

Even though this was our second day at the capitol, we did not see everything when they closed for the day at 5pm. Still thirsty for more, we looked at the list of Smithsonian museums and found out that the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American Art stay open later. They would not have been my first choices, but like anything the Smithsonian does, they did not disappoint. My favorite gallery were the portraits of all American Presidents from Washington through Obama. Judging by the crowds in front of the portraits, those two were also the most popular amongst the visitors that day. 

The official Obama Portrait or "Instant Nostalgia"

In another gallery, I saw a bunch of crumpled papers on the wall and started rolling my eyes that this is called art, thinking that anybody can crumple some paper and call it art. But before I left the room, I noticed the shadows. Wow, I might try some day, but I am not sure I could do this. And even if it’s not that hard; I give the guy credit for the idea.

The faces are just shadows, pretty cool, eh?

The next day we went to the National Museum of American History in hopes to eventually know as much about American history as people think we already do. Again, we spent all day in there until they kicked us out. It was one of those moments when we are particularly glad not having kids: We joined a guided tour of the museum with just one other family. The tour guide was excellent, but the kids of the other family quickly lost interest so it turned into a private tour for us and lasted at least twice as long as scheduled. We got to see, amongst a million other things: the actual flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner, we walked on an actual section of the Route 66, we saw Julia Child’s kitchen and the actiual car that completed the very first transcontinental road trip...

The guy and the car that beat us by just over 100 years...

We felt so privileged: Think about all the things that had to happen for us to get a totally free, personal tour of all these American treasures: For reasons that are unknown to this day, a British Scientist donated most of his wealth to establish the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, even though he never set foot on American soil (at least not in his lifetime, his remains were moved here long after he passed away). Out of the 30 million people that visit the Smithsonian Museums every year, almost 4 million come to the National Museum of American History. That’s over 10,000 people a day. Out of those only 6 people decided to join the free tour that day. And after the kids did what kids do, we ended up with a private tour and are very grateful to James Smithson and our tour guide Bob. We still marveled at our luck on the stroll along the memorials afterwards. 

Sandra with Bob, our private Smithsonian guide

The older states on the east coast are much smaller than out west, which also means it’s never far to the next state capital, the Maryland State House in Annapolis in this case. Not the biggest or fanciest state capitol, but one of the most historic. It’s the oldest still in legislative use. One of the reasons it still stands is that they have a lightning rod. 2016 is the last time that rod protected the building. The guy who designed the lightning rod and oversaw its installation was none other than Benjamin Franklin. It’s also where the treaty of Paris was ratified, officially ending the war for independence and where George Washington resigned his military commission in 1783, setting a precedent that civilian government should always be independent from the military, still followed today, even though there is no law requiring it. It’s unclear to me whether he did this for symbolic reasons or whether he actually hoped to retire to his beloved farm at Mount Vernon. If it was the latter, it did not work out too well, since obviously he was called back to serve as the first president a few years later. 

Recreated scene of Washington resigning his commission
at the Annapolis State House in 1783.

And wooosh…just an hour drive away is the next state capitol in Dover, Delaware. Now before you think that we have gone completely capitol crazy, we usually don’t just visit one capitol building and move on to the next. Capital cities, or in the case of Maryland and Delaware: capital towns are usually very interesting places anyway and often offer free museums and attractions beyond the always free capitol tours. Call it “State sponsored tourism”. Dover is a champion in that. First of all, they have two state houses, where they offer free guided, usually private tours: The old historic state house and the newer currently used “Legislative Hall”. 

The Old State House on The Green in Dover, Delaware

They also offer free tours from one of the historic houses around “The Green”, the colonial town center. This turned into a great lesson about the history of Delaware. Realizing how much I enjoy history lessons on our trips and remembering how little I was interested in history classes in high school, makes me wonder whether these guides are that much better than my history teachers or whether I was that much less interested back then. Probably both. 

Since we entered the original 13 states, there obviously have been a lot of sites connected to the American Revolution. I find it interesting how every state has their own local heroes. And it always sounds like without them, the revolution would not have happened or would not have been successful. And that might be true; if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes all 13 colonies, with many villages and many heroes to win a revolution against the most powerful empire in the world at the time. Two of the local heroes in Delaware: Caesar Rodney rode from Dover to Philadelphia for 18 hours through the night, despite a rainstorm and being sick and arrived just in time to break the tie in the vote for Independence. And John Dickinson voted against the declaration of independence, hoping for a peaceful solution, but as soon as his fellow countrymen had passed the declaration of independence, he signed up to fight with them. Sounded honorable enough that we paid him a visit at his planation out side of Dover, but he wasn't home. In New Castle, Delaware, they don’t just have their own heroes of the revolution, they have their own date. They celebrate about three weeks before the 4th of July, because that’s when in 1776, at the New Castle Courthouse, Delaware declared their separation from Pennsylvania and their Independence from England. And yes, you guessed it, we got a free and private tour there, too. 

Just for a little variety, we also visited the Air Mobility Command Center Museum at the Dover Air Force Base. Usually, we are not that curious about the technical aspects of planes or military equipment in general, but the free, personal tours by the volunteers made this museum very interesting even to us, who can’t tell any of those planes apart. And since the volunteers are retired Air Force veterans, they usually have lived in Germany and in Hawaii at some point in their lives. 

Look at Sandra for scale...hard to believe this plane was built just one lifetime after the Wright Brothers' first flight.

We also had one of the best meals in the Dover area: A classic crab shack, with newspaper for table cloth, a hammer instead of silverware and a view of the dock where we at least imagine the crabs were brought in just a few hours before. We ordered a half dozen hard shell crabs and either they can’t count or they just got a kick out of how much we enjoyed them (and struggled with opening them) that they brought us 9 crabs all together. At first, it took us half an hour to open one without wasting any of the delicious meat. We got a little better at the end, but we still spent the better part of the afternoon here. Afterwards, we wanted to go for a walk through the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. But after just a few steps we were attacked by so many flies that we opted for the cool, air-conditioned and fly-free comfort of the next movie theater instead.

Sandra is in Crabby Heaven

Before we miss our island home too much, we spent the next full day with a Maui friend on an island. Tommy joined us to visit Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island. This impressive fort was built in the middle of the Delaware River in the 1840’s to defend Philadelphia from an attack that never came. Instead of fighting off a British attack, it was used as one of the largest prisoner of war camps during the civil war.

Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island

The ferry takes you not only to the island, but also to the year 1864. We love those “Living History” places with in-character interpreters. We met a prisoner from the Confederacy complaining about the Yanks and talked at length with two officer’s wives and their lives at the fort.

Poor confederate POW, still complaining about the dam Yankees

They also shot a cannon for us. It all looked fairly authentic, except that they were aiming at an oil refinery:

Then they offered a bat tour that was interesting even without bats. And all that with the extra bonus of spending time with Uncle Tommy. Of course we finished the day with a great meal and beer once we got back to 2018.

With Uncle Tommy at Fort Delaware

Wilmington at the northern end of Delaware was meant to be a quick stop before heading back west, since we have to be in Chicago by the end of the month. But it’s three days later and we are still in Wilmington. We blame the Du Pont family for that. Had they stopped after failing at their first six endeavors after coming here from France in 1800, we could be half way to Chicago by now. But then they tried one more thing and their gun powder business was very successful. So successful that it started the billion dollar Du Pont Company still in existence today and left their many heirs so much money that they were able to create a whole bunch of spectacular sites for us to visit.

First we went to the Hagley Museum. This is the valley along the Brandywine river where the Du Ponts built their first gun powder factory. It’s very idyllic now, with lots of trees and plenty of original buildings to tour and explore, but without the smell, noise and the danger of being blown up from explosions in the gun powder factory. One thing that hasn’t changed: People around here love the Du Ponts. Apparently, they treated their employees extraordinarily well back then. We got a great tour of the house where the Du Ponts lived and the first company office. We also got a demonstration of the machine shop, with actual working machines from the 1800’s that can still be powered without electricity by the power from the river. They even blew up some black powder for us. This was Sandra’s birthday, pretty cool birthday candle, right? It got even better…

Part of the gun powder factory at Hagley, where the Du Pont company and fortune started

One of the heirs of the Du Pont fortune built Longwood Gardens. It’s a huge and beautiful garden (for our German friends: Think Insel Mainau; for our American or Canadian friends: Think Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island). They even have a beer garden in the garden. And they have a water fountain. Boy, do they have a water fountain! Even the afternoon show was splashtacular, but the evening show just blew us away. I hear the fountain show was already pretty impressive when it opened almost 100 years ago. But they’ve done some major renovations for Sandra’s birthday and have now about 1700 fountain jets reaching about two hundred feet in the air. They did a half hour show for Sandra, beautifully choreographed with a new light show and set to some of our favorite music. The theme was “British Invasion”, from the Beatles and Elton John to Adele and my favorite Bohemian Rhapsody. Best version since I saw Queen do it themselves over 30 years ago. And if you know how much Sandra loves the water fountain shows at the Bellagio in Vegas, then you know how fitting this was as the perfect ending to her birthday. I wish I could claim I was that nice of a husband, but it was just lucky timing. 

Sandra's Birthday Fountain Party at Longwood Gardens

But wait, there is more: Yesterday we went to the Winterthur House, Museum and Garden. Not to be outdone by his cousin, this was another Du Pont heir, establishing a different, but equally impressive estate. His house in the middle of these beautiful gardens grew to about 175 rooms, I think mostly because he kept collecting beautiful things. Long before he passed away, he moved out of his house to turn it into a museum and moved into a tiny 40+ room “Cottage”, as they call it. I am told that the 90,000 piece collection of early American Art, furnishings and furniture is the best and the largest anywhere. But I have to admit that silverware and furniture itself is not that fascinating to me. But Duncan is. He was the tram driver and tour guide on our garden tour. And what a hoot he was. Full of knowledge, but fuller of jokes. When I asked about him at the information desk, they told me that he’s quite the legend and that he was giving another tour later in the afternoon. We did not even care what that tour was about. I’d go watch grass grow if Duncan narrates it. Sometimes bad weather can be a good thing. Apparently a little rainstorm scared everybody else away and we got a private tour with Duncan. We sat upfront with him in the big empty tram and he showed us all over this huge, beautiful estate, including places he is not supposed to bring visitors and despite thunder and lightning and a siren that is supposed to tell him to stop the tour. But they seem to give Duncan a little leeway, I guess they know how good he is and that he could leave them and work at the next comedy club instead if he wanted to. But apparently taking people around the Winterthur Estate is his passion. That’s why he did not mind doing the tour just for us. How do I know that he enjoyed it just as much as we did? The 45 minute tour lasted over an hour and a half, even though we were getting wet in the rain. What a treat!

Yes, Duncan, our guide at Winterthur was sop good that I'd rather post a picture of him than
of the beautiful garden, the amazing house or the impressive art collection.

Today, we visited one more Du Pont site; the Nemours Estate. The house is not as big, “only” about 40 rooms for the three of them and their help, but at least they had a bowling alley and a French garden modeled after Versailles. 

Nemours, the most modest among the Du Pont Estates we visited

And since they lived so modestly, they had enough money left over to finance a children’s hospital next door, that helps children to this day. I am sure that the modest admissions to any of the sites we visited do not cover the actual cost for the staff, the gardens and the upkeep of the houses. So one can argue about the insane amount of money they made, but if they spent it to help children and to create all these wonderful places for the public to visit, it is something to be grateful for. 

A small part of the Gardens at Nemours with the children's hospital right next to it

However, my bubble that everybody loves Du Pont got burst on the last tour at Nemours today. It still seems like people love the Du Pont family. But we had a former employee of the modern Du Pont Company on the tour and what he told us sounded like the ‘normal’ corporate culture has taken over since the Du Pont family left the company. But we can’t blame them for that and therefore, we forgive the Du Ponts for holding us back three days in Wilmington. We truly enjoyed our time here and I am sure we can still make it to Chicago before Sandra’s sister arrives. I bet there is nothing to see along the way anyway, right?

In Joy with Linnea from Ohio to DC - 5th travelogue from Chrisandra's Best of Both Worlds Roadtrip

Aloha all,

this is the first time I am writing a travel blog rather than an travelogue as an e-mail. Not that there is a big difference, it’s still the same Germans from Maui rambling on about their hopeless attempt to see everything in-between Germany and Maui. I hope this new format works for everybody. For the next two updates, I will e-mail invitations to the blog posts, then you can decide for yourself whether you want to follow me to be notified of future posts or not. I’d love to hear from everybody how that works for you.

We have never stayed in one place on any of our road trips for as long as we have in Cincinnati. But with the Ultimate World Championships going on, there was still not enough time to see everything this fun city has to offer. Before we took off, we visited the Freedom Center. This is a very impressive, large new museum about the Underground Railroad. It has exhibitions about the history of slavery and about slavery toady. You can find out about your own biases and you can ‘become’ Rosa Parks in a virtual experience. We had warned Linnea before that Sandra and I can spend hours and hours in museums. Linnea is a very interested and patient traveller, but when she could not find us after she spent more time in the museum than the average visitor, she thought we had left her behind. She simply didn’t consider that after so much time, we could possibly still be in the very first exhibition. The last ‘highlight’ in Cincinnati was the observation deck at Carew Tower. Since you can see all of the city from there, we can now claim that we saw everything and we were ready to move on and take Linnea on the road with us.

I knew from last year’s road trip that traveling with Linnea is fun; and of course it’s even better to travel with Linnea AND Sandra. Having Linnea along means more disc golf and, like last year, we found beautiful disc golf courses almost every day. Our favorite was the Deer Creek State Park in Ohio. Whoever designed that disc golf course has a sense of humor. Let’s just say I have never seen a dog with legs that crooked as this course and when there finally was a straight hole, they’ve put the basket 11 feet up in the tree. But we loved the course and we found more discs than we lost. I am too humble to report the overall score, but let’s just say I am over last year’s defeat now…

Our favorite disc golf course

Since we love visiting state capitols, we went to Columbus, OH first. Yet again, we had a tour guide with the opposite attitude of a state employee’s common reputation. Great information on the history and current state of the state as well as amusing little behind the scenes stories. So of course this was again my favorite of all state capitols, at least for the hour while we were on the tour. And it still is the place with the best view of any state capitol: Right next to it is a tall office building where they let you up on the top floor if you are lucky enough to know that it’s semi-public. From up there we planed a short stroll along the riverfront and through the city back to Joy. The weather was glorious and we came across a fun kid’s performance at the Columbus Commons open air stage, so the city made a very fun and lively impression on us.

Ohio's State Capitol in Columbus from the office building next door

The next day was the first time I knew that it wasn’t all bad that Linnea had her passport stolen and we had to go to the Swedish embassy in DC instead of Chicago. That’s because the new route put the “Palace of Gold” on our way. For those of you who actually read all of my travelogues, you might remember how the first stop in Iowa, the “Grotto of the Redemption” disproved right away that ‘there s’nothing to see but cornfields’. West Virginia did the same thing. Just a few miles into West Virginia we arrived at the Palace of Gold. If you have not been there and if you don’t belong to the Hare Krishna, then you might not have heard of this place. Neither had we. But I am puzzled how a place like this can exist in this country without the masses finding out about it. Maybe it’s better that way, it being so isolated and hardly any tourists being there made this place so much more special.

It sure does not look like what I expected West Virginia to look. I’m not sure what I expected West Virginia to look, but not that colorful, not that Indian and not this different. The Palace of Gold is in the Hare Krishna community of New Vrindaban. During the heydays of the Hare Krishna movement in the late 60’s and early 70’s, one community of Hare Krishnas turned this remote rural land into a mecca; the Palace of Gold was intended to become the residence for their founder. He came to visit during the construction, but never moved there.

The Lotus Pond at the Palace of Gold

The community struggled with corrupt and immoral leadership in the 90’s from which they still seem to be recovering. But two things seem to be unchanged throughout the decades: The Palace of Gold is spectacular and unique and the people there are very friendly and still believe in the Hare Krishna teachings, without coming across as preachy. We took a tour, wandered around the community and even got a free and delicious vegan lunch. It felt very weird, welcoming and wonderful; without any danger of any of us being converted. 

The Hare Krishna Temple of Gold

The evening in Uniontown, PA was another pleasant surprise. This sleepy town provided us with the best dinner and the only live theater during our time with Linnea. Most of the other dinners we had were at Cracker Barrel, since we like it, Linnea likes it and they let RVers overnight for free. But the restaurant right in front of the State Theater was amazing or “bursting with flavors, textures and colors” as our friend Barb would say. Equally impressive for a small, former coal town of only about 10,000 people was the theater building itself and their local community theater production of “The Musicman”. Maui might be particularly blessed with a talented theater community and a beautiful historical theater, but luckily we are not the only ones. 

Another added bonus of going to the theater was the recommendation of the “local Judy” to visit the Kentuck Knob House, built by Frank Lloyd Wright. I don’t blame you if you, like us, have never heard of it. But you might have heard of his other house in the area called Fallingwaters. We followed the advice to visit Kentuck Knob mostly because the tours at Fallingwaters were sold out, but what a treat it was! We had another fun & informative tour guide; by the end of the tour I was equally glad we came to see this house as I was glad that we never had Frank Lloyd Wright build a house for us. We had toured Frank Llyod’s Wright’s own home in Oak Park outside of Chicago many years ago. They had left out on the tour back then that Frank Lloyd Wright, besides being a brilliant architect, was also a jerk. The stories of how he argued with the owners of Kentuck Knob about how much space or how much light they really needed are amusing, unless you are the one trying to get a house built that you actually want to live in. The tour at Kentuck Knob was very personal and we got to talk to a very nice couple for over an hour afterwards; and I am not just saying that because they bought us ice cream afterwards.

Kentuck Knob

Even though the tours at Fallingwaters were sold out, we still wanted to see it at least from the outside. So we got to take the picture of the classic view of the house over the waterfall and we got to peek into the house like uninvited dinner guests. But eventually, we hang around long enough that surprisingly, we were able to join a tour after all. They usher 1,000 visitors a day through the rooms of Fallingwaters, so it’s a very different experience from the relaxed atmosphere at Kentuck Knob. But it’s all very well organized and we had to admit that we liked the house even better, even though we did not get any free ice cream here.

Fallingwater

Just before we are having too much fun, we decided to visit the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville. That’s the site where the 4th plane crashed on 9/11 that was most likely intended to destroy the capitol in Washington DC. I was not aware of that, but September 11 was the first day that congress was back in session. The memorial is run by the National Park Service, so it really does a great job honoring those who tried to save themselves and others by fighting the terrorists in that plane. They failed to save themselves, but they saved many lives on the ground and the symbol of American democracy. Listening to the ranger talk and listening to the actual voice messages passengers on that plane left for loved ones was deeply moving. Seeing that one of the 40 victims was from Germany and two were from Hawaii and seeing pictures of them in familiar surroundings made the experience even more sobering. 

Somehow it’s less sobering if a tragedy happened longer ago. So when we visited Harper’s Ferry the next day, it felt more like an intriguing history lesson. Harpers Ferry is the kind of place I really like to visit because it is something I had heard so often, but had no clue what it really is or why it’s so famous. There are many interesting aspects to this place and again the NPS does a great job telling the different stories. The most intriguing one is the one of John Brown, a white Northern Abolitionist who attacked the US armory here in 1859 in an attempt to start a slave uprising and end slavery. At first I was a little confused how he thought he could free all slaves and end slavery with his band of only about 20 men. The exhibitions and the rangers I talked to actually leave the question open whether he was a madman, a martyr or just an overly optimistic freedom fighter. We know that the raid obviously did not have the intended consequences, but since it started a debate that led to the civil war that led to the end of slavery, one can argue that he lost the battle (and his life), but achieved what he set out to do, since slavery ended just 4 (albeit bloody) years later. Sandra and I were glad to fill another gap in our American history. Linnea liked the town and the history, too, but might have enjoyed the cute and historical candy shop she found even more.

The first stop in Washington DC was the Swedish embassy, since that was the initial reason to come here instead of Chicago. Linnea got her temporary passport and just like her uncle would, she also made new friends at the embassy. From Sweden, we went right to Mexico. In DC, that’s only 30 minutes apart. The Mexican restaurant Sandra found on Yelp was definitely more Mexican than the only restaurant in Mexico (in Tijuana) we have ever been to. It did not look like restaurants in America look like and the first two people we (tried to) talk to did not speak any English at all. We failed so miserably even at the drink order that they had to call over a grandson or so to help with translations. But it seems like it’s the kind of restaurant where it does not matter what you order, it’s going to be good…and plenty. In fact, we will have the leftovers right after I finish this.

We had one full day to explore the National Mall with Linnea and just in case if that is not fun enough, Tommy came down from Philadelphia to join us for the day. We met at the capitol and were very impressed by the new visitor center. What used to be a container with a long line is now an underground temple of a visitor center. Hardly any wait, a quick security check and we sat in a theater with an introductory movie. Whoever made that movie deserves an Oscar. It’s a 20 minute movie about the founding of the country and the role of congress to shape the nation. All under the motto of “E pluribus Unum”, which is Latin for “How should a country be run when a farmer, a business man, an artist and over 300 million other people can’t agree on anything”. The movie actually made Congress look like a well functioning institution that works together to solve the problems of the country. That’s no small feat (both, solving the problems and making congress look good!).

Sandra and I with two other familiar faces from Hawaii in the Capitol in DC

In order to see the senate chamber, we had to go to an office of one of our Hawaii representatives. At first that seemed like an inconvenience, but it turned out to be the highlight of the day. First we got to see the office of Sen. Mazie Hirono. We did not get to meet her, but her assistant was so nice and friendly, in typical Hawaii fashion with kisses and all. Then we got a personal escort back to the capitol using the underground tunnel system and riding in a cute little tram that made me feel like I was right back at Disney World. And to top it all off, we ran into Bernie Sanders and I got to shake his hand. I am not as big of a Bernie fan as Tommy, but compared to the alternative we got, it seems like he would have been a great choice. 

The senate was actually in session when we got there and they were voting on an appropriation bill while we were there. But they really need to work on their choreography. We got to see about 90 senators, including Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono from Hawaii, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein and Elisabeth Warren with my new buddy Bernie… but with all that star power and with the amazing backdrop of the historic Senate Hall, I have to admit, it was still a bit boring. But the American history nerd in me is glad we got to see it anyway.

The underground tram between the senate office building and the capitol

Afterwards we got to stroll along the National Mall with Tommy and Linnea, past all the museums and memorials. I liked that at the World War II memorial, they actually encouraged you to cool your feet in the fountain, since that’s what the soldiers did in the fountains of Europe after the war.

World War II Memorial

We also went to see the White House from as close as you get if you don’t plan several months in advance. We want extra credit for not showing any disrespect, despite not being a big fan of the current resident. Then we walked Tommy to Union Station and found a fun pizza place before heading back to our campground in Greenbelt. Linnea left us the next day after a last and very exciting round of disc golf and a way too exciting race to the airport.

At the White House

Linnea is also very good at seeing the positive in everything. She noted how getting her passport stolen was actually a good thing since we would not have gone to Washington DC otherwise. It’s hard to argue with that, other than that we could have come to DC even without having her passport stolen. But even though we always enjoyed coming to DC before, I just now realized that it’s probably my favorite city in the country. But we’ll keep looking anyway, just in case…

Aloha,

Chris, Sandra & Linnea