Epic Road Trip 2017 Day 3

 On Tuesday, Paul and I got up early and I drove him to where he was speaking and then I returned to get the kids.  After we ate and cleaned up a bit, we set out to visit some of the places from my childhood.  I was much more excited than the kids, but I didn't care!  I was thrilled to have these three days to do whatever I wanted to, to drive where I wanted to and to see what I wanted to!  First place, of course, was our house in Levittown.  (Above in yellow).  We lived in this house from about 1977 to about 1986 and it is the house that I grew up in.  Right before we lived in that house, we lived in the house below with the big willow tree in the front yard.  We lived here from about 1975 to 1977 when we moved across the street into the yellow house.

 This tree was here when we lived here, and we loved to climb it.  It is massive!

 Front view of the house with the tree in Levittown.

This Carvel was here when we lived here also, and we walked to it numerous times.  There is nothing like Carvel ice cream.

The old post office below was also there when we lived in Levittown.  It is exactly the same as it was so long ago.

 The library was one of our favorite places to go as a kid.  We could walk there, and we took advantage of it and spent many hours here.

This was our church while we lived in Long Island.  It is so different today, although this part is pretty much the same.  Being pastor's kids, the church was our second home, but other than the front part, I almost didn't recognize it.

 After my trip down memory lane, I decided to take the kids to an authentic Long Island diner.  It was a fun meal, yet very pricey!  I had forgotten how expensive it is to do anything on Long Island.  We ate very frugally but it was still alot.  After lunch we headed to Eisenhower Park, a very large park near where I used to live.  It had a very cool playground that the kids loved.

 This was pure excitement.  My children have never bought ice cream from an ice cream truck before.  I had told them stories of when I was a kid and would hear the music.  I would run to find some quarters and run out to the street to buy an ice cream.  They were thrilled to have the chance to do that.

 After the park, we picked Paul up and headed to Jones Beach, anticipating swimming in the ocean.  Only Sam had memories of the ocean, and the other kids were really looking forward to it.

 But it wasn't to be.  As you can see in the picture above, the sign says swimming was prohibited.  There was a lightning storm.  It was so disappointing.

So we left the beach and drove around, had dinner,  and headed back to the place we were staying.  Even with the disappointment of the beach, it was a great day!