new hope and lambertville

the toughest part of living in nashville is that no one else in my family lives here.  sure, the four of us have each other but we don't have anyone else close by except "the cousins" in paducah and that is 150 miles from here.  so any chance to travel to areas that have family members is taken and as much as possible is crammed into the days since we know it could be months and sometimes a year or more in between visits.  when i traveled to hyde park for my reunion at the culinary institute, i chose to land in scranton, pa so i could see my family.  

mom and brother steve met me at the airport, if you can really call it that.  scranton-wilkes barre (say that bury and not bar) airport has only one terminal and about a dozen gates; finding someone there is not difficult.  we were met by uncle peter and aunt katherine so that we could all visit and have dinner-not at the airport.  we left the building and headed out to a local restaurant for a late lunch-early dinner.  since none of us really spends much time in scranton, a choice was made to head to a local ruby tuesdays, and that is all i will say about it.  fast food is fast food, even in a place like this it is still fast food since very little of it was made from scratch.  

whenever mom and i get the chance to spend time together, we almost always head out to an antique store or a district that has antique stores.  this trip was no exception.  we packed up early and headed out to lambertville, new jersey and new hope, pennsylvania.  the two towns sit opposite each other on the bank of the delaware river and have shops and restaurants lining the streets.  there is a bridge that connects the two and if you park on one side, you can walk across the bridge to the other.

this horse greeted us when we parked the car in a lot on the new  hope side.  the new hope railroad also has a station here and the old trains run daily.  

we left the parking lot and  began walking down the hill towards the bridge, stopping to browse along the way.  it was a beautiful, warm day and we took a leisurely pace.

many of the old buildings, including the large church have restaurants in them.  this area is a popular weekend getaway and there are also little hotels and inns.

the view down the delaware river from the bridge was beautiful that day.

we decided to stop for lunch in the lambertville station which is situated on the small canal that runs parallel to the river on the new jersey side.

there was a large patio along the canal and old railroad tracks that was being used for a dining area and mom and i sat outside since it was warm and sunny.

we ordered sandwiches, and like all of my previous dining experiences in the region, they weren't very exciting.  i ordered a turkey rueben that according to the menu, featured house roasted turkey.  it was bland and unremarkable and no amount of brown mustard seemed capable of adding any flavor.  mom's choice of the greek pita sandwich seemed intriguing.  she didn't care for the large amount of dried herbs in the mix, either rosemary or oregano, i am not sure.  the homemade chips were dark and crunchy, just they way i like them but i think they needed to be a little thinner; they were a work out for the jaw.  the meal was not particularly expensive, so we were not overly upset, just disappointed.  we decided that the ambiance made up for some of it and since we rarely get the chance to dine together like this, we enjoyed ourselves despite the meal.  

after lunch and further browsing, we walked back across the bridge and headed back towards mom's house in bushkill.

on our trip back, we stopped a few times to browse in antique/junk shops as well as at hot dog johnny for a drink.  we couldn't resist stopping since the place looked like a trip back in time and apparently it is.  then it was time to head home.