Peckish Travels

Our current housesit is in an area of the country that is rich with places that have great significance in the formation of this country. We visited one of those sites today — Washington Crossing Historic Park. This park was founded in 1917 to preserve the site of George Washington and his troops’ crossing of the Delaware River on December 25, 1776. The park has historical buildings, walking paths, picnic pavilions, and hosts special events and reenactments. It is free to visit.

The short version of the crossing and its importance is that we (those supporting independence) were losing the war. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and Washington’s campaign in New York had not gone well. By early December 1776, he and his troops had retreated across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania. With critical foresight, he ordered all boats moored along the Delaware moved to the Pennsylvania side of the River so the enemy couldn’t cross.

Desperate for a victory, he decided to attempt crossing the Delaware River once again to attack Hessian (mercenary troops from Germany supporting the British) troops at Trenton. He led the troops in an overnight crossing, which took 11 hours for the boats to get all 2,400 troops and their equipment across in the icy conditions. They then had another 8 hour march to Trenton through snow and sleet. They were expecting to be supported by 2 additional brigades, but those were unable to cross the river. Even so, Washington’s troops achieved a resounding victory as well as 2 more within 10 days time, helping to turn the tide and recruit and retain more troops for the long fight.

In addition to the film, there was an exhibit that provided a good overview of the battle as well as the hardships endured by the soldiers, who were actually much more likely to die from disease, infection, or lack of adequate medical attention than from a gunshot.

After going through the exhibit, we walked outside to view the various historical buildings in the park.

Today is our last full day at this housesit. Tomorrow we leave about midday and head immediately to our next housesit in New York.

Before our homeowners left, they provided us with a list of places to visit, restaurants to eat at, etc. Today, Bob and I visited two of the places they recommended. Both were areas with lots of stores, hotels/inns, and restaurants in scenic settings, and we were happy to have visited both when the crowds were minimal.

The first stop was Peddler’s Village, about a 25 minute drive from the house. it is located in Lahaina, Pennsylvania, in Buck’s County (like Newtown). It consists of a number of blocks of 18th century style shops surrounded by brick pathways, pretty landscaping, and offering family entertainment and special events. While we were there, we got to enjoy their American Road Trip themed sand sculptures as well as Bucks Fever Art and Sculpture competition.

We started our visit in the Visitors Center where they were displaying the results of the art competition.

Below are some of the pics I took of the shops and grounds. We enjoyed poking through a few stores, and even made a purchase for our next homeowners, but we enjoyed the sand art most of all.

Because the theme of the sand art exhibit was American Road Trip, there were sculptures representing the different regions of the country, although I think Hawaii was neglected.

After our perusal of Peddler’s Village, we drove about 10 minutes to another small Bucks County town — New Hope— to check out their shopping area that lies between the Delaware River and an old canal and tow path. New Hope lies on the very edge of Pennsylvania, so we walked out onto the bridge across the Delaware River to straddle the state line between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Bob and I are currently in Newtown, Pennsylvania, caring for the elderly and anxious but adorable Brooklyn. We will be here until about mid-day Thursday when we head to New York to start a 2 month sit. Brooklyn is a pacer. She gets her steps in circling the house, going up and down stairs and out and in the dog door until she feels comfortable with everything or wears herself out. We felt bad for her yesterday because she was asleep when her humans left and except for when we walked her or she was eating, she seemed to be constantly looking for the homeowners.

However, she slept pretty well last night and has even showed a bit of playfulness today when we came back from our short excursion, so hopefully she isn’t too stressed.

The current housesit is in Newtown, Pennsylvania, for which there is both a borough and a township. Not sure which one the house is in. They both are part of the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area and are located in Bucks County. The heritage districts of each abut each other, and we walked a portion of each this morning.

The land for Newtown was purchased by William Penn in 1682. He named the area New Towne, which has become Newtown, and Newtown was the county seat of Bucks County until 1813. The borough incorporated as a borough in 1838, separating from the township.

It was just a 5 minute drive into the heritage area from the house but across some busy streets. We found the self-guided map online, chose our route, and read the historical markers as we found them. While we were walking through the historical district, it was filled with lots of retail, markets, cafes, banks, etc. It is definitely a vibrant area.

We started our walk in Newtown Borough.

Bob and I moved into Newtown Township once we crossed Newtown Creek.

We saw two more historic buildings in the borough after we crossed back over Newtown Creek.

Yesterday Bob and I drove 3.5 hours from Canton, Ohio, to State College, Pennsylvania, otherwise known as “Happy Valley,” home to Penn State University. It was a beautiful day for a drive and an outing once we got there.

In both Canton and State College, we stayed at Hyatt Place Hotels, a new hotel membership that Bob has gotten us to go along with the Marriott and Wyndham memberships. The Hyatt Place Hotel in State College has residences on top of the hotel, a good workout facility, great breakfast, and retail options on the ground level including Target, Planet Fitness Gym, and a restaurant. It is also very close to the Penn State campus, so we highly recommend it.

State College is one of 962 boroughs in Pennsylvania. Boroughs are smaller than cities, counties, and townships (they have both 1st class and 2nd class). State College is in Centre (how British!) County and has a population of a little over 40,000, making it the largest borough in Pennsylvania.

The Penn State mascot is the fictional Nittany Lion, named after a nearby mountain and originally coined in 1907 to seem fiercer than any other mascot at the time. Penn State competes in the Big 10 Conference, that currently has 18 schools, including Iowa and Wisconsin. So while we are unlikely to root for their sports teams, we were very impressed with their campus and the downtown area near campus.

Side note: We drove 3.25 hours today to Newtown, PA, to begin our new housesit, and the first thing we saw when we walked in was a framed photo of our homeowners with this statue. The husband is a Penn State alum.

One of our favorite parts of the campus was The Arboretum at Penn State. Opened in 2009, it is now a hub for community events and a popular garden destination. It includes 10 acres of botanic gardens and 340 acres of fields and woodlands for hiking, biking, and observing wildlife. It also is the location for one of the university’s art museums, the Palmer Museum of Art. The art museum was closed yesterday for Juneteenth, but we loved walking around some of the grounds.

Since Penn State is a big university, there is a Graduate Hotel. We had to check it out even though we were staying elsewhere.

We had a great walk through with the homeowners today before they left with their adult daughter to head to the JFK airport for their flight to Italy. More on this housesit to come.

Bob and I left the very sweet Poppet and Broad Ripple, Indiana, this morning to head to Canton, Ohio, towards our next housesit in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Poppet was definitely the cat with the sweetest disposition that we have sat for and also the frailest. We had to give her medicated lotion twice a day in her ears, which she tolerated as it was always followed by a favorite treat. While deaf, she made some really cute noises to let you know she appreciated the ear scratches.

Canton, Ohio, is currently known (if it’s known at all) as the home of the National Football League Hall of Fame. That was not our destination today. Bob has been. The current cost is $50/person, and I can guarantee you that I would not have gotten that much enjoyment out of it.

Instead, Bob and I added to our count of presidential libraries (now 12) by going to the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum. President McKinley was the nation’s 25th president and was born in a small town north of Canton but lived and worked in Canton following college. He was assassinated in 1901 during his second term in office.

While we did learn some information about the president and his wife Ida, his memorial tomb and garden is impressive, it was the worst museum in terms of content and management that we have been to. It is run by the Stark County Historical Society, and the building that houses the museum (one room and a small alcove with chairs that shows a film on loop) shares space with Stark County history exhibits (multiple rooms), a planetarium, and some kind of dinosaur exhibit. We spent much less time there than we had imagined.

Some fun facts about William McKinley. He was born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843 and was the 7th of 9 children. He served 4 years in the Civil War. He moved to Canton, Ohio, following law school, where he met Ida Saxton. They were married in 1871. They had 2 daughters who both died in infancy and who are entombed with their parents in the memorial near the museum.

William McKinley, a Republican, served as County Prosecutor, Congressman, and Governor of Ohio, before beating William Jennings Bryant twice for President. The explosion of the USS Maine happened during his presidency as did the Boxer Rebellion and Spanish-American War. His first Vice President died during his first term in office. His second Vice President was Theodore Roosevelt who was sworn in as President following McKinley’s death from infection related to a bullet wound. He was shot at the 1901 World’s Fair in New York by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, at point blank range.

We didn’t go through the Stark County historical exhibits, but we checked out the gift store, and Bob found a big head in the dinosaur exhibition.

Yesterday Bob and I went to Newfields, which was just a short drive from the house, to explore this place for nature and the arts. It was a bit steep (for us) $25 a piece,but we definitely loved it. It was both great art and beautiful nature.

Newfields USA is a 152-acre cultural campus featuring the Indianapolis Museum of Art, gardens, two historic homes, performance spaces, a nature preserve, and a (in development) sculpture park.

Since I have just mentioned Robert Indiana, let me do a bit of a sidebar on him, as his most famous work is the entrance to the many exhibition halls within the museum. Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in 1928 in New Castle, Indiana. He was recognized at a young age for his artistic talent and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York. It was during his time in New York that he adopted Indiana as his surname to distinguish his identity in the New York art scene,

His most famous work is his LOVE sculpture, the original of which resides at IMA. See below.

The IMA has an impressive range of collections from African art to Asian art to Impressionism, Pointillism, Pop Art, glasswork, and even a design studio and fashion exhibit. I took too many pictures, but have mostly included my pictures of works that have some connection to Indiana.

First things first though, Bob did find a couple of big heads, both in the African art section. I have included the one where we remembered to get the information about it.

In order to get to the nature preserve and sculpture garden, we had to get back in the car and drive about 5 minutes up the road. Sadly, while the Virginia B. Fairbanks Nature Park is lovely, the sculpture park is still a work in progress. There were a couple of sculptures on site.

In happy family news, we learned today (06/16/26) that we have a new great niece. Jane Margaret Rohrbeck was born earlier today, and baby and parents are apparently doing well in Iowa.

For our outing today, Bob found us a lovely route to Butler University on a different, longer section of the Central Canal Towpath that we were on yesterday.

Butler University is a private university known for its liberal arts foundation, strong programs in business, pharmacy, and health, and NCAA Division I athletics (Bulldogs). Their men’s basketball often makes the March Madness competition, which is how most people outside of Indiana may know of the university. Their men’s basketball university was founded in 1855 and offers 85+ undergraduate and graduate degrees.

It is located on a 295 acre campus in a residential area about 5 miles from downtown Indianapolis. We approached the university from the canal towpath, so we first saw its baseball fields and track across from Holcomb Gardens before getting onto the main area of campus.

Note: The Holcomb name is for James Holcomb, who was a Trustee of Butler University and who co-designed the gardens that bear his name.

Bob and I started a housesit yesterday for the older but sweet Poppet. We had a great walk through with the homeowners before they headed off for an annual visit with family. They showed us how to apply lotion to the inside of Poppet’s ear twice daily for her low thyroid condition.

Our housesit is in the Indianapolis neighborhood of Broad Ripple. It is about 6 miles north of downtown and has a vibrant retail and restaurant area along the Monon Trail and Central Canal Towpath Trail. The house is a cute older home in another lovely, established neighborhood. We noted today that it is our 3rd home in a row with three livable floors. We are getting our stair climbing in!

This morning we headed to the Monon Trail to walk the few short blocks to the free Indiana Art Center.

The Monon Trail is a paved rails-to-trails walkway in Central Indiana. It runs 27 miles — from downtown Indianapolis to the northern neighborhood of Sheridan. It is popular for walking, running, and biking.

Unfortunately for us, the art center was in the process of changing over a number of galleries. We got to see the art but for the most part, didn’t have information on the artist, materials, year, etc.

The initial gallery, however, had a special exhibition called “JoeWill: Better Together,” which told the tragic story of two Indianapolis-born artists, Joe and Will Lawrence, twin brothers, who both died by suicide as young adults. The exhibition told their stories and displayed some of their art to help highlight the need for mental health resources.

From the art center, we walked back along a road to where we had first entered the Monon Trail. We then reentered the trail to walk a few blocks in the opposite direction towards Fresh Thyme Market, which is the closest grocery to the house. It is also in the heart of the Village of Broad Ripple, so we explored a bit of that as well.

We left Monon Trail to walk to the grocery store once we hit the Central Canal Towpath Trail, which runs 7.7 miles along the historic Central Canal, the primary source of drinking water for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area.

Bob and I arrived at Starved Rock State Park near Utica, IL, late yesterday afternoon after spending a few hours with my mom in Janesville, Wisconsin. Bob and I had visited the park on a day trip from Rockford, IL, with my sister a few years ago. We enjoyed the trip and had poked around the lodge at that time and thought it would be fun to stay there.

This is that time, although we had little hope for hikes or anything outdoorsy during our stay as rain and storms were forecast for most of our time here. However, we had very little rain on our drive down and none so far today.

This morning we had coffee and breakfast in the room and then headed to the Visitors Center before hiking. Rain was still in the forecast, so we had rain gear with us. It was a muggy 80+ F.

The park is a series of overlooks of the Illinois River on the top of rocks and canyons surrounded by rocks, so we had a lot of up and down.

We returned to the room near midday and then headed to the nearby town of La Salle to visit their Illinois and Michigan Canal Visitor Center. The Visitor Center is located at Lock 16 of the I &M Canal, the western terminus. Sadly, that is about all we know, as the Visitor Center is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We took the opportunity to walk the few blocks of the small downtown.

We tried again and headed to the Starved Rock Country Welcome Center in nearby Utica, Illinois. It was acute stop, lengthened by a friendly but overly “helpful” clerk at the Visitors Center who opted to give us lots of information and historical bits and pieces of sites that we told her we had no time to visit. Having said that, she was friendlier than most of the staff we have had interactions with at the park.

We’re chilling in our room now until dinner, which we have reservations for in the lodge dining room. Tomorrow we drive to Broad Ripple, Indiana, for an overnight in a hotel before starting our next housesit on Thursday.

Bob and I left Wauwatosa today and one of our favorite housesits. Some housesits are just special — Thornhill, Scotland, Green Valley, Arizona, Oakland, California, Cambridge, England, where the homeowners, pets, and location are all super special. We hope to do another sit in Wauwatosa.

As a catch up from the last blog, we have learned (via our homeowners) who won the $20,000 prize at the art festival.

The cats also made this housesit special. They were 4 of the cutest, softest cats ever.

Also while we were on this housesit, we were able to watch the University of Texas women win the National Softball Championship and watch the men compete to go to the Men’s College World Series. The homeowners also subscribed to Britbox, so we got to watch the “Vicar of Dibley” as well as the latest episode of “Shrinking” on Apple TV.