Had an early start this morning, getting up at 6.45 to catch a bus from The Port Authority Bus Terminal to Teterboro in New Jersey in order to collect our hire car. The vehicle is a Dodge Malibu. By the time we had sorted out the paperwork and figured out how to turn the windscreen wipers on and all that, it is around 10.30 before we start on our way to Niagara Falls. We stopped off for lunch in Scranton, Pennsylvania (the town made famous by the American version of "The Office". I drove the first leg of the journey with Jessica taking over after Scranton. There was some beautiful scenery along the way including the foothills to the Appalachian Mountains. We arrived at the Canadian border in the early evening and it took around half an hour to get through passport control. We were surprised to see we had a really good view of the falls just driving across the bridge into Canada.
Niagara itself is a bit like Blackpool. Lots of fluorescent lights and crazy golf, Ripleys Believe it or not and various dodgy waxwork museums. However, the falls are spectacular. At night they are all lit up. We are looking forward to tomorrow when we will get to see them up close.
Our Hostel for the night is the ACBB Hostel on McGrail. Looked quite ramshackle from the outside but was a really friendly place and the host, Patrick, was extremely helpful and knowledgeable about the Niagara region.
Saturday 31 August 2013
Day 2 - Empire State of Mind
Our second and final day in NYC began with a delicious breakfast at IHOP, sharing a plate of course since we're not quite used to American portions yet. Pancakes and bacon with all kinds of flavours of syrup, mmmm!
From here, we got the subway downtown to the Museum of Modern Art. I think mum thought a lot of the art was rubbish but I had a great time! She did find a favourite painting though, dubbed so because 'its pretty'. We also saw starry night by Van Gogh, and some pretty cool Jackson Pollocks. I was both excited and confused about the section on video games including play throughs and the opportunity to play live games like portal and dwarf fortress, how it was art I'm not sure!
From here, we grabbed a pretzel from a cart for lunch and sat by a fountain in the beautiful sunshine. Dessert was from a cupcake from our favourite place, the buttercup bakery on 2nd and 52nd. We intended to take a photo of the cakes but may have forgotten until they were already partly eaten.
Following this, we headed down to the World Trade Center site to see the memorial. Not realising you needed tickets, we were a little concerned about getting in but managed to all the same. The memorial was very saddening as expected, but also a great display of architecture with the huge sunken pools and waterfalls, with a pit in the centre designed so the bottom cannot be seen. Inscribed all around the edge of the pools are the names of those who died on September 11th, in a seemingly endless list. A ray of hope in the midst of this however is a tree found at the site of the attacks, almost dead but nursed back to life and also since surviving a storm, strong in the face of a whole lot of adversity.
After heading home for a nap and a shower, we travelled downtown again into Hells Kitchen for dinner. Well, only after an accidental detour uptown into the Bronx after we got onto the wrong train platform... A pretty hip area full of restaurants, in Hells Kitchen we ate at a cute little Mexican place named the Limon Jungle. We had awesome Mexican sodas that came in loads of flavours: mum had mandarin and me mango.
We finished off our visit in New York at Swing 46, a famous swing and jazz club on, funnily enough, 46th street. I was so excited to go here and it definitely lived up to expectations, especially once I spied swing legend Dawn Hampton in the corner! I unfortunately couldn't convince mum to join in the dancing, but we had a fun time watching the band and I managed to get a bunch of good dances. Great night overall!
We arrived home very sleepy and ready to finally get on the road in the morning...
Thursday 29 August 2013
DAY 1 - PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES
OK so day one of our journey begins! After a drive to Downham Market train station to catch the 07.05, we arrived in Kings Cross station and transferred to the tube over to Heathrow. A surprisingly quick and easy journey, we manage to arrive at the terminal just as bag drop opens. After a surprisingly high tech security check, we discover we seem to be in the posh new terminal! The greatest surprise of all however, is the presence of a certain space ship and the arch enemy of its owner!
We very excitedly went inside the TARDIS and had our photo taken, though unfortunately the email with it in seems to have gone astray :( We did get a bag of free jelly babies though, so it's not all bad.
After a delayed takeoff and a delayed landing, the plane had to be dragged by a tractor (we didn't understand either) to the terminal building, by which point we were an hour behind schedule. Although the American security was much faster and even friendlier than in the past, we decided to get a taxi into the city rather than the slower train.
For our 2 nights in New York, we are staying at a guest house in Harlem. Having never been in this area before, we are both loving it as it seems both a bit calmer than downtown and also very culturally interesting. The guest house seems great, loads of space with a big communal living area and kitchen. After some great advice from the owner, we headed out for a walk around Harlem, ending up at the north of Central Park, somehow finding a swimming pool and taking an accidental very long walk around a lake. Fittingly hungry from this escapade, we stopped at a fab restaurant named Native on Lennox Ave. We dined on delicious Moroccan chicken and rice with peas. The food was great and we were attempting to stay up until a suitable American bedtime, but by 10pm East Coast time (3am UK - meaning we've been up for 23 hours), we were practically falling asleep at the table! And that brings us to now, about to go to sleep and ready for our next exciting day in New York tomorrow!
Wednesday 28 August 2013
THE ROUTE
So what began as a trip to Vegas has quickly grown into the trip you see (beautifully) drawn below.
- NYC
- Niagara Falls
- London, Ontario
- Chicago
- House on the Rock, Madison, Wisconsin
- Minneapolis
- South Dakota: Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial along with Needles highway
- Billings, Montana and the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, along with the Bear Tooth Highway
- Yellowstone National Park
- Salt Lake City
- Grand Canyon, via Zion National Park
- Las Vegas via Death Valley
- Los Angeles
- Pacific Coast Highway/Yosemite
- San Francisco
At last count this totals over 5,000 miles. We're expecting possible diversions from this route, we just need to make sure we are in San Fran for the 22nd!
It's now only 6 hours until I have to wake up and head to train station, better get some sleep!
THE CAR
So, the hire car. This turned out to be far more expensive than I originally thought. I assumed that when Jessica was 21 the insurance would be the same as an older driver but unfortunately drivers aged 21 to 24 are classified as young drivers and the insurance is fairly astronomical. You are also charged quite heavily for hiring a car in one State and then dropping it off in another State (especially a State that is on the other side of the Continent). After spending many hours online looking at all the different car hire companies I found that National were the cheapest for both young drivers and the one way drop off fee. They charge a standard $250 for dropping in a different State and $525 for the Young Driver Insurance package (for 3 weeks).
We already had a SatNav with European maps on it so I just downloaded the USA maps at a cost of around £24 from TomTom as this was a lot cheaper option than hiring a SatNav from the hire company (at around $13 a day). If you do not need to collect your car from the airport it is also a good idea to shop around the different National depots in the area you are starting from. The price of the car itself can differ by up to £100 per week depending on whether you collect it from the centre of Manhattan, one of the large airports like JFK or a smaller depot just outside the city limits. We did not want a car whilst in New York City so decided to pick the car up from a depot just across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Remember to get a car with a decent amount of luggage space if you are on a road trip and also a decent level of comfort as you are likely to be spending many hours in it. We of course considered a convertible for the style factor, but decided overall for reliability,efficiency,cost and comfort, it was not worth it. So we chose a standard size car: a Chrysler 200 or similar which should have plenty of room for the two of us plus bags.
We already had a SatNav with European maps on it so I just downloaded the USA maps at a cost of around £24 from TomTom as this was a lot cheaper option than hiring a SatNav from the hire company (at around $13 a day). If you do not need to collect your car from the airport it is also a good idea to shop around the different National depots in the area you are starting from. The price of the car itself can differ by up to £100 per week depending on whether you collect it from the centre of Manhattan, one of the large airports like JFK or a smaller depot just outside the city limits. We did not want a car whilst in New York City so decided to pick the car up from a depot just across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Remember to get a car with a decent amount of luggage space if you are on a road trip and also a decent level of comfort as you are likely to be spending many hours in it. We of course considered a convertible for the style factor, but decided overall for reliability,efficiency,cost and comfort, it was not worth it. So we chose a standard size car: a Chrysler 200 or similar which should have plenty of room for the two of us plus bags.
Monday 19 August 2013
THE PLAN
Seven years ago when my daughter, Jessica, was 14 years old we started to plan for a road trip across the United States. We decided to wait until Jessica was 21 mainly because we wanted to spend a bit of time in Las Vegas (there is no point in going to Vegas unless you are at least 21) and also because I wanted her to share the driving and you cannot drive a hire car until you are 21. Not much planning was done for the next six years due to the fact that it all seemed a long way off. I seem to remember shoving a few left over dollars from a previous Florida holiday into a piggy bank and saying "that will do towards our road trip".
Jessica (at age 14) and me at Madam Tussaud's
In the autumn of 2012 we thought we had better start planning so after looking at a few road trip websites we found this great little site where you can map out the starting point, places you would like to visit along the way and your final destination and hey presto it tells you how many miles you will be travelling, the time it will take you to do the trip and it will also give you road directions as well. Obviously over the past year and a bit the route has changed umpteen times and we have added numerous stop-offs along the way. We wanted to do coast to coast so decided to start in New York and finish in San Francisco. The route we are taking will cover almost 5000 miles and go through 16 different States and four time zones. We have three weeks to complete the trip.
We booked flights very early in 2013 because they seem to be cheaper the earlier you book. We were also told by a friend of Jessica's that it would probably be cheaper to book a return flight in and out of New York and then get a one way flight from San Francisco to New York (rather than a single into New York and a single from San Francisco back to the UK. This was indeed the case, we saved hundreds of pounds by booking this way. We booked all the flights with www.britishairways.com although the San Francisco to New York flight is actually an American Airlines flight in partnership with British Airways.
When deciding on accommodation, cost was the main priority. We could not really afford to spend 23 nights in five star hotels. Jessica, being a student, is used to staying in Youth Hostels. Me, being 53 years old, was not so keen. However, on looking at the Hostel website hostelworld.com I realised that they can be quite luxurious. We booked the first 7 nights accommodation because our arrival in the US coincides with the Labour Day holiday weekend and we thought hostels in the large cities and tourist destinations like Niagara Falls may get booked up. After that though we are just going to book one night at a time being as we want some freedom to change our mind where we go (being as it is a road trip and spontaneity rules).
In the autumn of 2012 we thought we had better start planning so after looking at a few road trip websites we found this great little site where you can map out the starting point, places you would like to visit along the way and your final destination and hey presto it tells you how many miles you will be travelling, the time it will take you to do the trip and it will also give you road directions as well. Obviously over the past year and a bit the route has changed umpteen times and we have added numerous stop-offs along the way. We wanted to do coast to coast so decided to start in New York and finish in San Francisco. The route we are taking will cover almost 5000 miles and go through 16 different States and four time zones. We have three weeks to complete the trip.
We booked flights very early in 2013 because they seem to be cheaper the earlier you book. We were also told by a friend of Jessica's that it would probably be cheaper to book a return flight in and out of New York and then get a one way flight from San Francisco to New York (rather than a single into New York and a single from San Francisco back to the UK. This was indeed the case, we saved hundreds of pounds by booking this way. We booked all the flights with www.britishairways.com although the San Francisco to New York flight is actually an American Airlines flight in partnership with British Airways.
When deciding on accommodation, cost was the main priority. We could not really afford to spend 23 nights in five star hotels. Jessica, being a student, is used to staying in Youth Hostels. Me, being 53 years old, was not so keen. However, on looking at the Hostel website hostelworld.com I realised that they can be quite luxurious. We booked the first 7 nights accommodation because our arrival in the US coincides with the Labour Day holiday weekend and we thought hostels in the large cities and tourist destinations like Niagara Falls may get booked up. After that though we are just going to book one night at a time being as we want some freedom to change our mind where we go (being as it is a road trip and spontaneity rules).
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