Proof read by Nathalie. The biggest musical instrument in the world.; an organ; And a visit to Intercourse Pennsylvania ,

On the boardwalk there is the Atlantic City Boardwalk hall (Convention Centre) Built in 1929 ish this centre in its day could seat 42,000 people and was the biggest single arch span building.  Walking along the boardwalk we saw an advert for a free pipe organ recital.    This organ is the biggest, the loudest, and tallest musical instrument in the world.

It took three years to build, has more than 33,000 pipes and it so happens the builder/ designer was also a state senator so the $$ was less of a problem.    We went to the recital, and it did fill the huge hall with noise.   After this the organists, Dr Stephen Ball, took us on a tour of the repair shop, and the console, and the inner workings.  There are pipes all throughout the building in fact the hall was built around the organ pipes, and each keyboard relate to a certain area of the pipes.  There area lot and lots of buttons, and pedals.  It was damaged in a hurricane in 1944, disasterously 'repaired', and has been in demise till two years ago...$13 m and 14 years it will take to fix it to its previous grandeur...

Spoke to one of the professional organ repairers and he was saying that kangaroo leather is the best and toughest for these machines.

Sort of gives you an idea how big this hall is, that little speck on the stage right is the organist. And the openings above and to his right are about 40 ft tall.

Dr Stephen Ball

The dashboard .

Some more of the pipes.

The sound chanber, with a 64 foot pipe, not pictured here

Inside the chanber

Drove south to a place called Sommers Point, where we found a lovely restaurant (The Anchorage) and had a meal...

The feed, l to r. Ribs chips, coleslaw, chips, coleslaw, fish and crabs

 

The journey to Lancaster County, and Intercourse PA   

Lancaster county in Pennsylvania, is renowned for its population of Amish people.  Eschewing the culture of the 'English' or non Amish. particularly a reliance upon things of the wider society for example, electricity, gas, phone lines, banking,  Unfortunately the most popularly known place in Lancaster county is a town called intercourse. Allegedly this town showcases the Amish life style.  One look at the tourist village in this town, one look and we were out of there...it could have been in mid Texas, or Central Australia, just the name on the tea towels and the t shirts are different, and where would you wear a T shirt saying 'I love Central Australia'?  So we picked the smallest town within 20 miles and set Julia to find it......and we did. The countryside was idyllic, cows horses green bits and brown bits.Nathalie did enjoy sightseeing at the intercourse canning company and the 

Stoltzers grocery store.

Through the drive through ATM 

Road hogs

Irony...Americans aren't good at appreciating the fact that one of the world's biggest tractor and farming machinery factory, (New Holland) is right in the middle of Lancaster county, where many of the locals still use horse teams, and ancient ploughers.   During the day Nathalie also managed to find a shop, where she had her iPad mini screen (destroyed in Jefferson City) replaced.

We did try a local food, baked pretzels, at  Immergut soft pretzels shop was a great place to stop for fresh lemonade and a warm pretzel. Wandered around the farms ending up back at Exton to pick up the iPad beautiful , but no protective cover so making do with glad wrap.

Then, rather than straight back to AC we headed south to Cape May, which is the first beachside resort in the USA, and is mostly stuck in the 1880s to 1920 s, as in 1880 ish, most of the town was destroyed in a fire and in 1970(?) the whole town was declared a heritage site.   There is very clearly much $$ here abouts as the cheapest no star accommodation was $150.00 

1882

Drove home in the dark. A big,  but enjoyable day without micro abrasion work done on any of us....so mostly a successful day.