I’ve been pinning to go for over a year now. One of our company’s clients is close to Savannah and that was said to be a worthy trip, with good food and night life to look forward to after work. I also really wanted to go after reading “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” It’s such a romantic book and I definitely want to see Mercer House when I finally go.
I’m flying out of DC on Sunday morning, spending the day in the city, attend a meeting on Monday, then turn around and hop back on the plane again. For the day I’m in Savannah, I’m hoping to visit a few places:
Dockside Seafood Restaurant 201 W River St
River Street Sweets 13 E River St
True Grits Gift & Cards 107 E River St
Basket Bears & T’s Oh My 305 E River St
Bass Pro Shop 14045 Abercorn St
Aside from the Bass Pro Shop, everything is within half a mile.
The meeting on Monday will also take me close to Pooler, GA, where I hope to visit the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. Finally, I’m driving to Albany, GA on Monday night. I might have a minute to go to the Flint RiverQuarium before driving again to the final destination in Dothan, AL.
It’ll be a long trip. But if all goes well, I’ll be looking at 32 new coins when I get back 
Over Labor Day weekend, Andy and I visited the local Potawatomi Zoo. A few years ago, the old machine was replaced with brand new penny designs. Being so close from home, I never planned to visit to get the new coins. It was because there was a few minutes of spare time, and the Asian grocery store I shop was near by, that we went to crank out the new pennies this time.
But the Potawatomi Zoo is worth visiting if you were in the area. I can’t say it’s very different from all the other zoos across the country, but it has its own charm. Ride the Zoo Train, it’s my favorite.
New ECs from Potawatomi Zoo South Bend, IN
Jennifer sent me an email one weekend, saying that she was at Ithaca with Adam. At first I thought Adam was socializing with the good peers at Cornell, after all Ph.D. students meet and toss around dissertation ideas, right? But she explained that, instead of visiting the Hampton, like the rest of the Manhattan crowds, the two of them opted to go hiking around Ithaca’s gorges instead.
The last time I was in the area was 1998. I was accepted to Cornell’s summer college program, made some friends in similar predicament, and a group of us walked by a local waterfall to satisfy the urging of our eager parents, all of whom spent thousands of dollars for us to attend the program and wanted to live vicariously through every dollar.
There’s me! A decade younger and not at all enjoying the beautiful surroundings.
Jennifer and Adam seemed to have a good time. Both of them are much more athletic than I was and they did drive 5 hours for the view. They visited Taughannock Falls, which is slightly higher than the American side of the Niagara Falls. From the pictures they took, it was a good trip.
What I can’t figure out is, how did they end up in Watkins Glen?
Almost an hour drive, directly west of Ithaca, is Watkins Glen. The town is supposed to be scenic, being at the tip of Fingers Lake. But Watkins Glen is most well known for auto racing, something that neither my family nor Adam’s (as far as I can tell) is interested in.
As it turned out, the shop where they rolled the pennies was in Schuyler, directly outside of the park’s entrance. Penny designs can be deceiving.
New ECs from Watkins Glen Schuyler, NY
During my week long business trip, I drove down to Panama City Beach to press some pennies. Two hours each way, which made this quite a detour.
Most of these locations are tourist traps, with the exception of Angelo’s Steak Pit, which looked like a nice restaurant. But if you look closely, most of their coins have a misspell “PAMAMA” instead of “PANAMA”.
New ECs from Alvin’s Island Panama City Beach, FL
New ECs from Angelo’s Steak Pit Panama City Beach, FL
New ECs from Shell Port Panama City Beach, FL
New ECs from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Panama City Beach, FL
New EC from Zoo World Panama City Beach, FL
Jason accompanied me to the Human-Computer Interaction International 2009 conference in San Diego. We were able to visit many San Diego locations during conference breaks and pressed a total of 59 coins! Some are redundant though, since it’s difficult to keep track of which San Diego Zoo coins I possess already.
Made some changes to the Old Town store names and added new coins to the trade list.
Moved location at Inka’s Art San Diego, CA
New ECs from Old Town Alley Shop San Diego, CA
New EC from Cafe Coyote San Diego, CA
New ECs from Old Town Market San Diego, CA
Remaining San Diego Zoo coins to come…
Oh no! It’s been so long since my last update! I really appreciate all the site’s visitors, who are willing to drop by even though I haven’t been updating as regularly.
I got a few more coins from driving around:
New ECs from Ohio Turnpike Service Plaza Fallen Timbers Mile 49 - Eastbound Swanton, Ohio - All the Ohio Turnpike’s machines have been replaced. Even though I pass by the entire strip a couple of times per month, I haven’t been very stringent on collecting the whole set.
New EC from Cabela’s Hamburg, PA - I’ve passed this Cabela many times when driving to NYC. Finally I had a chance to stop and press the coin.
Austin, who’s always been wonderful at helping me add to my collection, pressed these for me:
New EC from The Yankee Candle Co. South Deefield, MA - Austin said that he had to go to a Yankee Candle fair to press this one 
New EC from Parker’s Maple Barn Manson, NH
New EC from Great Wolf Lodge Pocono Mountains, PA
New EC from Thornes Marketplace Northampton, MA
On one of my frequent trips between MI and MD, I took a detour to Cacapon Lodge at Cacapon Resort State Park.
It was Sunday night when I drove into Berkeley Springs, WV. I figured that since the machine was in a lodge, it must be open 24-7. The park actually closes at 10PM, and it was 9:30PM when I got to the gates. I have no doubt that it’s a beautiful park, but at night, the Cacapon was incredibly creepy. Past the gates, the road winds through a forest of trees. It reminded me of the scene where Snow White was running away from the evil stepmother.
The fun didn’t end when the pennies were pressed. When I got home, I realized that it was impossible to tell what the initials on the coins were.
If you look at a vertical coin, the initials look like “CZC”
If you look at a horizontal coin, the initials look like “UNU”
The jury’s not out on this one, but you can see for yourself here:
New ECs from Cacapon Resort Lodge Berkeley Springs, WV
I’ve been traveling between Maryland and Michigan. Usually I pick up coins along the way; travel plazas, Cabelas, or local restaurants. I was looking at places where I could have missed when I spotted that Cumberland listed a local that is just off the highway.
I got this coin from the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Hopefully I’ll pick up the coin from Hagerstown next time.
I also see a flaw in the new Trade List coding. It’s always harder with Washington DC… The way I had it arranged that it’s both a state and the only city. However, I’ll have to put in special output code so the bullets will be lined up.
New EC from the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad Cumberland, MD
I was invited to attend a conference held in Washington DC last week. When I browsed through the agenda, I saw that the last night’s reception is held at the Newseum.
What luck! The Newseum has been on my list of problematic locations. The admission cost is $20 and one of the machines is said to be located inside the museum. $20 is a lot to pay for access to any penny machine, and I never found a way around it till now.
It was a lively party and parts of the museum was closed off. The machine was sitting outside of the gift shop on the second floor. I had to run to the neighboring restaurant in order to get enough quarters, but I got my pennies in the end
New EC’s from Newseum Washington DC
I traded some of the Gettysburg coins previously. Living close by now allows me to fill the rest of the set. Both sets from the American Civil War Museum and the Old Gettysburg Village are completed on this trip.
When I got to Old Gettysburg Village, I found a hand cranked penny machine with only 3 designs. The last space where a design should be had an oval sticker with a question mark on it. I’m not sure if it was a marketing trick, but I guess it worked. Had I seen the design, I wouldn’t have pressed it since it was the coin that I owned already.
New EC’s from Old Gettysburg Village Gettysburg, PA
New EC’s from American Civil Warm Museum Gettysburg, PA
New EC from Turning Point Gettysburg, PA
New EC from Jennie Wade House Gettysburg, PA
