Gather EC

An Elongated Coins Collection

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 :D

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
Potawatomi Zoo

I recently moved to Walkersville, MD and it took me weeks before being able to post imagines online. Not that I was great at updating the blog before, but having all the coins packed up in 10 different boxes tend to handicap organization process.
The biggest problem, after fishing out all the coins from various nooks and crannies, was getting Internet connection. My new apartment has a wireless network that only my laptop can connect to, my scanner has an outdated cable connection that only hooks up to my desktop, and I have no cross-over cable to connect my desktop to my laptop. Luckily, my buddy Suhail loaned me his USB to transfer the files. I scanned 20 coins from the San Diego Zoo and posted them up just now.

New ECs from San Diego Zoo San Diego, CA
San Diego Zoo

I finally found a store that sells heavy duty, double row, 14 inch, 2×2 coin storage boxes (in red). It charges an arm and a leg for shipping, but who doesn’t nowadays. Check out Wizard Coin Supply

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.
waterfall near Cornell

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.
Taughannock Falls

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
Watkins Glen race car