2019 Oakland Gathering
May 9-11 2019
We have gotten to the point where, unless something beyond our control happens, we have determined our final tour details. Unfortunately, something beyond our control did happen and we have had to rearrange our destination points.
Our host hotel is the Hotel Belvidere( 908-475-2006) located at 430 Front Street in Belvidere, NJ. We have reserved the entire hotel. We are taking registrations up until May 6, 2019. Please DO NOT contact the hotel. Wayne will contact all registrants by May 1, 2019 after he has a final count. Registrants will then contact the hotel to reserve a room by holding it with their credit card. This is an historic one hundred and ninety year old hotel that has been recently restored. Anybody who was on our first tour has stayed at this beautiful hotel. Rooms are $440 total for a four night stay and that includes tax and a continental breakfast. Check in will be Wednesday May 8, 2019 with checkout being Sunday May 12, 2019. By the time we stay there, hopefully they will have opened their Rathskellar Room for food and drink. Check in by dinnertime and we will go to the Riverton Hotel for dinner. Even if you can’t make all three days of the tour, come for one or two days. Come even if you don’t have a car or bring a car other than an Oakland. We already have seventeen cars registered!!!!
Our host hotel is the Hotel Belvidere( 908-475-2006) located at 430 Front Street in Belvidere, NJ. We have reserved the entire hotel. We are taking registrations up until May 6, 2019. Please DO NOT contact the hotel. Wayne will contact all registrants by May 1, 2019 after he has a final count. Registrants will then contact the hotel to reserve a room by holding it with their credit card. This is an historic one hundred and ninety year old hotel that has been recently restored. Anybody who was on our first tour has stayed at this beautiful hotel. Rooms are $440 total for a four night stay and that includes tax and a continental breakfast. Check in will be Wednesday May 8, 2019 with checkout being Sunday May 12, 2019. By the time we stay there, hopefully they will have opened their Rathskellar Room for food and drink. Check in by dinnertime and we will go to the Riverton Hotel for dinner. Even if you can’t make all three days of the tour, come for one or two days. Come even if you don’t have a car or bring a car other than an Oakland. We already have seventeen cars registered!!!!
Thursday morning May 11th we will be leaving the hotel no later than 7:45 am. This is the longest day of the tour not in miles driven but in time spent away from the hotel. We will be taking mainly back roads to Bethlehem, Pa. Bethlehem was founded by Moravians who migrated from Moravia and Slovenia in Europe in 1742. Bethlehem is rich in Moravian history including Bethlehem Steel Company. We had hoped for high profile parking on Main Street in front of the Moravian Church and Moravian Book Shop but that may not be possible because we now have seventeen cars registered. The book shop is the oldest continually operating book store in the same location in the world !!!! We also hope to be given a tour of the world famous Moravian Putz (a Christmas setting since Bethlehem was founded on Christmas Day in 1742), and the local Moravian museums. Lunch was originally scheduled for the Historic Sun Inn in the heart of Bethlehem but we decided the limited menu was a downer. You can still eat lunch there if you so choose but otherwise you are on your own and can eat at one of the many restaurants on Main Street. While Moravians did not necessarily support the American Revolution they did care for the sick and wounded soldiers on both sides. George Washington was a frequent visitor as were many other members of the Continental Congress.
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After lunch, we will travel to South Bethlehem to visit the National Museum of Industrial History located in the former electrical shop of Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The museum encompasses all major industry in the Lehigh Valley that includes the cement industry, Mack Trucks, the silk industry, and the steel industry. After that, a short walk to the Hoover-Mason Trestle where ore cars carried ore to the blast furnaces. It is now called Steel-Stacks and you can go online to see what it looks like. Wayne worked in the #2 Machine Shop for most of his 22 years at Bethlehem Steel and it is directly across from the trestle. It was the largest machine shop in the world at three eighths of a mile long and four stories tall. It is part of the National Historic Registry and Wayne is trying to let them let us inside. There are three guided tours you could take which would normally cost $48 per person but Wayne will be giving the tour for free. Wear your walking shoes and we will provide the bottled water. You will get a first hand account of what Bethlehem Steel was really like. Wayne’s first relatives started in the Iron Foundry in the early 1870’s. The tour guides we encountered never worked there and much of their information was politically correct or factually incorrect. We will be going through the museum at a discounted rate of $10 per person. The trip home will be along the Lehigh River to Easton then north up Route 611 to Belvidere. Total driving miles for the day is about 60 miles. Dinner will be at the Sycamore Grill in Delaware Water Gap.
Friday May 10th will see us leave the hotel by 8am for Bloomsbury, New Jersey where we will be given a tour of the private collection of Steve Babinsky. This is in an old Studebaker Dealership that has been totally restored and brought back to life. It is located at 90 Main Street in Bloomsbury. Steve bought this building just to house his collection of unrestored vehicles. We think you’ll agree it is exceptional. After that we will drive to Riegelsville, NJ. and cross over the Delaware River into Riegelsville, PA. where we will make our first stop at Antiques Haven. Leaving there we will travel a short distance to Bowman’s North for lunch. Then it is back across the bridge into New Jersey to Chelsea Forge, a rather unique type of antiques barn. Leaving there, we will continue up the road to Alba Vineyards ( www. albavineyard.com). From there we will back track slightly and travel north following the railroad tracks and Delaware River to Phillipsburg, NJ. We will then continue to follow the river north back to Belvidere. Dinner will be at the Richmond Hotel. Anybody who was on our first tour has eaten there as well as anyone who has come to visit us. This Hotel is two hundred and sixty years old and was originally a stagecoach stop. The prices are cheap and they give you a lot. The only drawback is that there is only one cook in the kitchen and they are slow and they don’t take credit cards. But, hey, we’re in no rush. Total driving miles is about 70 miles.
The last day of the tour will be a repeat of the first day of our first tour six years ago to the town of Jim Thorpe in the Pocono Mountains. This was a request by one of our tour participants. We will be leaving the hotel sometime between 8 – 8:30 Saturday morning. Will be going north on PA Route 611 to Delaware Water Gap and then turning west on Cherry Valley Road. This will take us through the southern part of the scenic Pocono Mountains. After reaching the village of Sciota, we will get on PA Route 209 South following the road to Lehighton, PA. Then turning right and going north for three miles we will reach the quant village of Jim Thorpe, PA. This is roughly 53 miles from the hotel. Originally named Mauch Chunk (sleeping bear), it was the home of Asa Packer, coal mine owner, politician, and founder of Lehigh University among other things. It is also steeped in history of the legendary Molly Maquires, an Irish group of miners who disrupted coal mining in the 1870’s in the pursuit of better working conditions among other things. Among things to do in Jim Thorpe that we recommend, are the Scenic Railroad Tour ($15 per person), the tour of Asa Packers Mansion ($9 each), and the tour of the Prison where the Molly Maquires were hanged. We highly recommend this eye-opening tour at $8 each. Or you can choose to just walk around town and go into the small antique shops or some smaller museums like the Mauch Chunk Museum for $7.50 per person.
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We will be leaving for the hotel at 3:30. After crossing the bridge going out of Lehighton, we will turn right onto PA Route 248. This follows the Lehigh River south. This is a four lane highway that use to be heavily traveled when Bethlehem Steel was in operation. It is not very heavily traveled now and that will be verified by the road condition. After six miles, Route 248 becomes a regular two lane road. By 4:45 we will be at A Ca Mia Restaurant for an early dinner. Many of our members have eaten there and it’s a real treat. We must leave the restaurant by 6:30 to make it home before dark. This return trip is 47 miles.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION :
HILLS: We have made every effort to keep hills at a minimum. Unfortunately, Bethlehem is in a valley as are the towns along the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers. We have planned the routes to avoid any major hills if possible. Our advice is to make sure your tires and tubes are good and that you have a spare. Nobody wants to have a flat tire with no spare to change. Make sure your brakes work without metal to metal noise and that your car is running properly. Experience teaches us that break downs can happen but attention to those three things will keep that to a minimum. The most hills are on Saturdays tour with the least amount of hills on Thursdays tour. Our 23 Oakland can make all the hills and none are any worse than any previous Oakland Tour. We just wanted to keep you well informed.
HILLS: We have made every effort to keep hills at a minimum. Unfortunately, Bethlehem is in a valley as are the towns along the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers. We have planned the routes to avoid any major hills if possible. Our advice is to make sure your tires and tubes are good and that you have a spare. Nobody wants to have a flat tire with no spare to change. Make sure your brakes work without metal to metal noise and that your car is running properly. Experience teaches us that break downs can happen but attention to those three things will keep that to a minimum. The most hills are on Saturdays tour with the least amount of hills on Thursdays tour. Our 23 Oakland can make all the hills and none are any worse than any previous Oakland Tour. We just wanted to keep you well informed.
TRAILER PARKING: Secure trailer parking with be on Wayne’s property at 7632 Martins Creek Belvidere Highway, Bangor, Pa.. This should be your GPS destination as the Hotel is about five blocks from Wayne’s house. Also, trailers are not allowed on the bridge between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. You’ll understand why after you have seen the bridge. Feel free to ask questions if you are interested in attending.
DEPOSIT REQUIRED: This issue of the Oaklander contains the last registration form before the tour and a request of $15 per person. After making reservations at museums we found out they needed a deposit to hold the date as that is the start of their busy seasons. Wayne has sent deposits so we have a firm commitment. Please make your checks out to either Wayne or the Oakland Owners Club. Thank you in advance to those who registered and for those still think about attending, we’d love to have you! We will be taking registrations up to May 6, 2019.