Vacationing with Scotty: Ocean City, NJ - Lorimer Park for Bike Riding - Philadelphia Museum of Art - Perlman Building

Ocean City, NJ. Scott's favorite place on earth. Here we are on the beach. I'm wearing my invisible bathing suit.

We stay at a hotel with an indoor pool.

B/c of my bad back we hadn't visited in four or five years. I couldn't swim - my favorite sport.

As we approached Ocean City, Scott said he was really getting excited.

As we approached the swimming pool, I was really getting excited.

While there, I finished three books: "The Affair," a Jack Reacher novel, by Lee Child.

 The Affair started out slowly but Scott urged me on. His SEPTA buddies trade books and they all called it a real page-turner. It was tremendously exciting at the end. Ah, beautiful Elizabeth Deveraux, the sheriff, who lives in the same hotel where Reacher is staying.

It took me about 6 weeks to finish 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It's about a time-traveler who goes back in time to try and stop the assassination of JFK. Good book!

I was in the 11th grade at Shaker Heights High School when we heard the devastating news. Going home that day by public transportation, there wasn't a sound on the train.

Where were you? OH, you weren't born yet?

Hey, I just realized you can actually enlarge these photos in the new Goggle blogger.

Death Comes for the Archbishop - dare I call it one of the best books I've ever read? Altho fiction, it's more or less the true story of Catholic missioners sent by Rome to colonize the American frontier, including Santa Fe, where most of the action takes place.

On Saturday, June 2, Scott and I drove to the wedding of my niece, Jade, center, who was married at the Centrebridge Inn, outside New Hope, PA. There's Mom looking lovely.

Can't wait until I turn 89!

And my sister Lynn, mother of Jade.

Next to Mom is Jade's husband Matt Piccarilli. Then comes Warren, Jade's dad, who lives on a houseboat in Venice, CA; Warren's mom the ebulliant octogenarian Fran, and Miles, Jade's brother.

And who, you may ask, performed the wedding ceremony?

Ah, the Reverend Sarah Deming. She got her certificate online for $10 and conducted a lovely ceremony.

What? You go to the beach in your....dress?

I bathed my aching feet in the salt water. Forgot to wear socks and got blisters on the heels of my sandals.

On this part of the boardwalk is our favorite restaurant - not shown - Hula Grill, with wonderful seafood, salads and zoup.

Beaches look alike everywhere. This could be the Baltic Sea, for all we know.

 This IS the Baltic Sea.

We walked the Boardwalk at night. There are five things to do in Ocean City:

Walk the boardwalk, eat, tan on the beach, shop, and watch TV in your room.

The Wizard of Oz was on Turner Classic Movies. This is a 'short' on how the film was made. Here's Ray Bolger who played:

The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie, but, alas, The Boardwalk and Dinner were calling.

Looks like we got home in one piece from the beach and now we're gonna go biking at Lorimer Park's Rails to Trails in Abington Township, PA.

I was so excited cuz I hadn't biked - othan my exericse bike - in four or five years.

Today is Thursday, Garbage Day. Grind! Grind! Grind!

Art Museum Day!

We parked out front and walked to the back door of the Philadelphia Museum of Art so I wouldn't have to walk up all them steps!

Every patch of ground is beautiful! Well-landscaped.

Here's the statue of Rocky, from the movie. He's wearing boxing shorts and gloves. People stand next to it and put their arms up like Rocky does.

 A new Sculpture Garden lies on a grassy knoll across the street. There were several sculptures by the great Isamu Noguchi.

Claes Oldenburg (born January 28, 1929) is a Swedish American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects. (From Wiki)

 Sol LeWitt, Steps and Pyramid. LeWitt is very famous but I never heard of him either!

Oh? The Times art critic is reading this? Of course I didn't mean YOU, Roberta!

 Here's another Noguchi. The one-acre sculpture garden is easy to navigate.

Even the stairs and railings were beautiful.

I didn't take fotos of the museum itself but I did take them in the Perelman Building, which is across the Parkway from the main museum.

Here's the fancy golden elevator. The building formerly housed an insurance company.

Stone sculpture "Victory" by Cy Twombly, 1928-2011.

 Hello Cy! Sorry you had to go at 83.

Sad to think people no longer know what a typewriter is. Yeah, but I no longer know what a Morse Code machine is, tho I do remember the teletype from when I was my dad's secretary.

These are cool designs from perhaps the 1950s. How bout de clock! Or, tick-tock, as Grace says. OMG, I almost forgot I had a granddaughter!!!

Do I really want to upload all these fotos?

I'll see if my shoulder gets tired.

We ate at Bishop's Collar.

We met a nice security guard in the Rockwell Kent illustration exhibit in the main museum - hello Stephanie Washington! - who recommended a restaurant but I don't think it was Bishop's Collar.

Rockwell Kent was a great illustrator. I had a one-volume edition of Shakespeare which he illustrated. A progressive whose beliefs bordered on socialism, Kent depicts heroism in everyday man.

There was also a photo exhibit of "staged photos" by a man with the peculiar name of Meatyard. In his photos he used his family as props. I really enjoyed his work.

So, off to the newly refurbished Bishop's Collar.

I had BBQ Pork and Cheddar Cheese. Delicious!!!

That's me in the earrings my neighbor Elaine Klawans made.

 We're driving home along Broad Street, near Temple University, my alma mater. Memories came flooding back as I craned my neck trying to see where my old classrooms were.

Took a lot of pix of the horribly rundown neighborhoods, which fascinate me. Let em roll:

I remembered the old and now abandoned Dropsie College from when I was about 26 and walked to Temple from the once beautiful, now ramshackle train station BELOW.

Look at these old cars for sale! What dyou spose the first one is on the left?

Some of these row homes are real beauties!

And then we got home.