East Coast 2021:
Day 8 - Bensalem, PA

	Friday, September 17, 2021: There were lovely moring glories and a garden visible from the back window of the suite. The hotel owners obviously care about the property.
	We were driving south on Route 1 just after 7 AM. We expected a stop-and-go day as we headed toward New York City.
	We crossed over the Quinnipiac River with the bridge for I-95 visible to our right.
	We were surprised to see a sign directing people to the Pez visitors center. We love Pez, so we had to follow the sign. It was still well before 8 AM, so we didn't go in.
	Even the street signs had Pez shaped designs on them. So cool.
	There was a shopping plaza with both of Tom's brothers' names on it. That's only fair, since we had driving through Thomaston, Maine, a few days earlier.
	We crossed over the Housatonic River, making very slow progress southward.
	It felt like there was a stoplight or stop sign every mile, ...
	... and it seemed like the traffic lights were almost always red. We were averaging less than 30 miles per hour at this point.
	We passed Pepperidge Farm headquarters in Norwalk, CT.
	According to a college classmate of Debbie's, Darien is "THE suburb of New York." Sadly, the classmate's father had been cruelly discriminated against back in the 1960s or 1970s when one of the country clubs wouldn't let him join. How horrifying to only get to be a member of some of the country clubs.
	We slogged our way through Darien, ...
	... and into Stamford.
	As we crossed into the town of Greenwich, we saw these pillars that marked the original boundaries of the Condé Nast printing operation, where they used to print Vanity Fair, Scientific American, Vogue, and the New Yorker magazines.
	We passed this cute little falls on Mianus Pond in Greenwich, just before turning off Route 1 for a quick detour to ...
	... Putnam Cemetery. We were here to see the grave of Victor Borge, the Danish-American entertainer.
	More specifically, we were here to see the miniature copy of the Little Mermaid statue on his grave. We had just seen one the previous month in Iowa.
	Three hours after leaving the hotel, we crossed over into New York State.
	We saw several light-rail trains that were headed into the city.
	In Port Chester, we saw this quaint triangular-shaped area with a round building, a garden, and a plaque marking the "re-dedication of Main Street."
	This way to continue on Route 1.
	We should have gotten a photo of the street containing endless upscale automobile motor car dealerships back in Greenwich, but this Mercedes dealership in New Rochelle will have to do.
	We saw another series of Hometown Heroes banners in New Rochelle.
	Hey, that really looks unsafe. They should really be tethered to something.
	We left US 1 and headed south at New Rochelle to head toward Queens. We saw this cool building as we entered the Bronx.
	We crossed over the Bronx-Whitestone bridge over the East River.
	Manhattan was shrouded in spooky fog.
	We passed the New York Times distribution center in Queens.
	We could see two stadiums: Citi Field in the foreground, home of the NY Mets, and the Arthur Ashe stadium in the distance, part of the Billie Jean King Tennis Center.
	We saw planes land and take off at nearby LaGuardia airport.
	We were headed to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
	We passed the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which hosted the annual US Open tennis championship. Luckily for us, it had ended a few days before we arrived. There were still signs of previous detours and traffic changes to handle the traffic from the event.
	As we drove by, we glimpsed some people playing and watching tennis in one of the smaller courts.
	We passed the Queens Museum, which had large banners thanking service workers during the pandemic.
	There were lots of things we wanted to see here. We parked near the site of the New York State Pavilion from the 1964 World's Fair.
	We passed the Queens Theatre on our way to ...
	... (please wait while Debbie is kind enough to photograph a nice family that was trying to take a group photo) ...
	... the Unisphere! It is a stainless steel representation of the globe dedicated to man's aspirations toward Peace through mutual understanding and symbolizing his achievements in an expanding universe.
	It's hard to do it justice from close up. It is 140 feet tall, 120 feet in diameter, and weighs more than 700,000 pounds. It was built for the 1964 World's Fair. It looked beautiful, having been cleaned and restored most recently in 2010.
	We were drawn to a spooky mist off in the distance. A new misting plaza had been October 2020 to replace the aging, unused World's Fair fountains and pools.
	Spooky.
	From a distance, this statue looks like a man flinging an octopus by its tentacles.
	Its official name is "Rocket Thrower," and it too was created and installed for the 1964 World's Fair. It was repaired in the late 1980s, and it was cleaned in 2013. It looked brand new.
	This squirrel obviously thought he was invisible since he wasn't moving. He sat there posed like that for a few seconds, and then decided that we could see him and scampered off.
	This is the Fountain of the Planets in the Pool of Industry, a huge fountain that was built for, you guessed it, the 1964 World's Fair. While it was operating, the Fountain of the Planets was the largest fountain in the city. Interestly, it was built on the site of a previous fountain that was constructed here for the 1939 World's Fair that was held in this same site.
	Check out these double-crested cormorants. One of them got out of the water and spread his wings out to dry, which is very cormorant-ish.
	Debbie spotted a turtle sticking it head up in the pond. It ducked back under before she could get a picture. We spent a few minutes looking for it, hoping to get a picture, but every time we found it, it ducked back under and swam further away before we could get a photo.
	The letters on this manhole cover denote that it belongs to the New York Transit Authority (NYCT).
	We walked along the Path of Commerce, which was a nice treelined boulevard.
	The New York State pavilion looked very iconic in the distance.
	We stopped at the former site of the Vatican Pavilion, which exhibited Michelangelo's Pietá during the 1964 World's Fair. It was brought to the US by ship in a special shipping crate designed to float in the event of the ship sinking, and had a marker buoy and electronic locator beacon installed in it to track its location. We wondered what security would have been like during the fair to protect this priceless piece of art.
	We stopped next at the site where the Westinghouse time capsules were located.
	Some were deposited here during 1938 and more were deposited in 1965. Put here as a record of the twentieth century, they aren't to be opened for 5,000 years.
	We made our way toward the New York State Pavilion.
	It was being restored, and the cable suspension roof had been freshly repainted in 2015.
	The observation towers were still being worked on.
	A picture attached to the construction fencing around the site showed what it would eventually look like. It would have been amazing to see it during its heyday, and we will probably have to come back if it ends up looking like this when the restoration is finished.
	We completed our visit to the park and got back into New York City traffic heading east past LaGuardia airport.
	We passed the Jackson Hole diner featuring a neon cowboy which seemed to be based on the Cowboy Bar we had seen in Jackson Hole four months earlier.
	We passed under this cool bridge with art glass windows.
	We questioned why anyone who didn't have to would drive in this traffic, including us, but we had US 1 to get back to.
	Manhattan still looked spooky.
	We crossed over the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, ...
	... back into the Bronx ...
	... and felt very welcomed.
	The buildings we passed were lovely to look at.
	We passed the Bronx Terminal Market, built in 1935, which means we were near ...
	... Yankee Stadium.
	Want to adopt a highway in NYC? There are sites available.
	They could use the help.
	We were reunited with Route 1 a little over seven miles from where we originally left it to go to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
	We crossed under this bridge, ...
	... and ended up driving across the bridge right next to it.
	We crossed into Manhattan at a walking pace.
	The lower side of the bridge featured gigantic air shafts to vent the exhaust from vehicle traffic.
	The route wound its way ...
	... on the lower level of the George Washington Bridge ...
	... across the Hudson River ...
	... to New Jersey.
	In case you missed the tiny sign on the bridge, here's a much larger and more official looking "Welcome to New Jersey" sign.
	Here's the Meadowlands American Dream, a retail and entertainment center that is part of the Meadowlands Sports Complex. After years of delays and construction issues, it was finally scheduled to open on March 19, 2020, just as the US was becoming aware of the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was delayed further, and finally opened in October 2020 with limited capacity.
	Now looking at it from the other side, here's foggy Manhattan again. Still spooky.
	We approached Newark on the combined I-95/US 1 ...
	... splitting off to Route 1 just after we crossed over the Passaic River.
	We passed the Essex County Correctional Facility, ...
	... passed a lot of Maersk containers, ...
	... and headed toward the New Jersey Marine Terminals, ...
	... apparently connecting with every highway and interstate in the region.
	Maersk again! A brand new looking white one, which is very rare.
	We drove by Newark Liberty International Airport on our way south.
	Bud Light anyone?
	We stopped at White Castle for lunch, and were surprised when the sliders had ketchup on them. Looking at the nutritional chart information from White Castle, the calorie information for the Original Slider is different in New York and New Jersey by five calories, about the amount of one dollop of ketchup. Huh.
	The road in the New Jersey Adopt-A-Highway sign looks very pleasant to drive on.
	Every Top Golf must be photographed. Every. One.
	We saw this Toyota C-HR in traffic next to us and really liked the rear door handles. They are set up near the roof of the vehicle in the skinny part of the door frame.
	We passed Thomas Edison State University in Trenton, on our way ...
	... to the New Jersey capitol building. There was lots of construction around the building, so this is the best photo we could get.
	We drove on the Calhoun Street Bridge, which was really cool. Luckily for us, we were in Septimus rather than The Ocho, because the bridge was limited to vehicles less than three tons and shorter than eight feet tall. It was originally built in 1884 and connects segments of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000 mile trail system connecting Maine to Florida. Hey! We must be on that right now!
	The Delaware River was right beneath us as we crossed into ...
	... Pennsylvania. Signs welcomed us to Morrisville Borough, part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
	There was no need for us to get on the turnpike, as our hotel was was once again just off of Route 1.
	We were at the Sleep Inn & Suites in Bensalem, and we had a lovely suite waiting for us.
	We took a short time to relax in our suite, and then headed out in search of Weyerbacher beer. Score! We found four packs of Weyerbacher Quad, Imperial Pumpkin Ale, and Blithering Idiot, plus a six pack of Merry Monks. If we really wanted to load up, they had cases of Quad and Merry Monks available, but we decided that we didn't have quite that much room in the van.
	Debbie saw these Austin cider cans next to Jack's hard cider. We bought the Austin cider, but decided we better against buying the Jack's since we weren't on a quest for alcohol based on our granddog's first name. We did appreciate that the Jack's was produced by Atomic Dog cider brewery.
	Since we were on the outskirts of Philadelphia, we just had to get Philly Cheesesteaks for dinner. We stopped at Steve's Prince of Steaks, ...
	... Tom went in and ordered, ...
	... and we enjoyed them immensely back in our hotel room. Miles today: 210. Total miles from Fort Kent, ME: 1088. Day 9 >