There's no place like home..

The flight home was fine, beautiful sunset in NY and could just about see the flat as we landed. Unfortunately the jetlag is a funny thing, slept until 11:40am today and the 6am start tomorrow is not looking so hot at the moment!

It is great to be home- we have one more blog post to write in a couple of days so until then, good night!

writing while intoxicated

Boston was great today- surely one of my favourite cities. We saw all the sights; the site of the Boston Massacre (though I refuse to call it a massacre, the soldiers were confronted by a baying mob) and the USS Constitution which were great.

Having someone who knows a city is invaluable sometimes and we got taken to some great places this evening by some friends.

And yes after midnight, and a few drinks, we met some other people who spent 20mins trying to get onto the roof of our hotel. Apparently it is usually pretty easy, and they'd done a real good job stopping people here. Oh well, something to try at home.

Outbound to Wonderland

So here we are, last stop of the trip, in Boston, Massachusetts. It poured down for the entire drive from New Hampshire but has miraculously cleared up and has been beautiful and sunny today.

Today we checked out Harvard...along with the new freshers, as they were all enrolling for the new year. We went on a walking tour led by two Harvard students, showing us the sights of Harvard Yard. Like lots of places in America, it felt a bit familiar....all the films which have been set there no doubt! It was a really pretty campus, impressive red brick buildings and lots of trees.

We also had a wander round Quincy market which was great - it felt a little like Boston's version of Covent Garden, but with fewer people! We also had a look round the Boston Public Library, which is a stunning place, more like a museum or art gallery than a library.

One final thing that I liked about Boston today - we were on the subway, and on one of the lines you could go to Wonderland. Now that's friendly.

Ben and Jerry and Unilever

The Ben and Jerry's factory in Vermont is apparantly one of the state's biggest attractions, which is understandable i guess. The tour is fine, but when they asked for questions i couldn't bring myself to ask how much they sold the company for...

New Hampshire seems to be famous for 3 things; the state motto 'Live free, or die', the electoral primary that occur here first, and waterfalls. We decided to focus on the latter. We explored our way through to the tallest falls in the state today, and they were certainly the most beautiful i've seen anywhere. There were lots of little splash pools and mini falls further down- truly a haven for kids on a sunny day!

How now brown (and multicoloured) cow

Apparently Vermont used to have more cows than people. Nowadays the state still has the most cows per capita of any in the US. And to make the point, along the main shopping street in Burlington there were around 30 cows, all painted with different designs, kind've like the elephants that have been around London recently. I was quite taken with them....

O Canada

Well there no two ways about it, we kind of accidentally went into Canada. Only for a few minutes, but enough to have a 'conversation' with US immigration. Christina did her best to throw him off the scent say we landed into Salt Lake City, even though our visas were from JFK. Anyhow, they liked our hybrid and let us back in to get to the baseball.

The Vermont Lake Monsters were playing Brooklyn in a minor league game. The crowd entertainment is half the fun- mainly the Vermont Monster mascot jumping on the roof of the Brooklyn dugout. Seems to be a silly game;
1 the pitch is so fast you can hardly see it
2 the batters rarely hit it anyhow
3 if they hit it and it drops a few metres short of going out of the ground, they'll probably be caught out

Basketball was much more fun!

Day of the doughnut

We set off today up the Cascade Mountain (staying true to our London roots), one of the Adirondack peaks. It was up through forest all the way, until we finally broke out of the trees to a great 360 degree view. It was a bit more of a hike than we'd realised when we set off from the car - it was a good job we had Pete's early morning purchase of some mini doughnuts to keep us going ;-)

We're staying in a motel right by Lake Saranac, and this evening we borrowed a paddle boat to go out onto the lake. It's beautiful, really peaceful, with forest all around. There's even an island in the middle of the lake with some little holiday cottages.

Tomorrow we're heading east into Vermont, and will be going within about 5 miles of the Canadian border. We've been debating whether it's worth popping over into Canada, or whether that will in some way invalidate our American visas and bring down the wrath of the border police. We have a healthy respect for the police here; we've seen lots of cars getting pulled over on the freeways and I'm torn between a temptation to drive fast and fear of seeing those flashing lights in my wing mirror!

Lake Placid

Wouldn't it be funny if we tipped a boat over in Lake Placid? I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow, but it might be worth doing just to tell the children one day.

The Winter Olympics was here in 1980, much to Christina's general delight, so we went all the way to the top of the 120m ski jump. They didn't have a hill big enough so they just built a concrete tower with a lift in. At least you don't have to walk all the way up it!

Eddie the Eagle trained here according to Wikipedia, so there can be no higher praise for the place really.

Also, i'm quite excited about the Nissan Altima Hybrid that the hire company gave us- it does lots of clever battery recharging things as you drive. And when you floor it it unleashes the full power of a gazillion batteries. Every London taxi should have it, the engine is mostly off in queues!

Elevator Video

The elevator down from the top of the Rockefeller centre has a glass ceiling and awesome lights in the liftshaft. Just like in every good action movie i can think of- Mission Impossible, Ocean's Eleven, Die Hard....

I heart NY

New York is great! We've had such a fun time here. A few of the highlights...

- Whizzing up to the top of the Rockerfeller Centre and getting a 360 degree view of the city

- Going for a run in Central Park, round the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir (like Charlotte does in Sex and the City)

- The view of Manhattan from the Staten Island ferry.

- Seeing the women's basketball team (New York Liberty) play at Madison Square Garden, complete with cheerleaders, a mascot, pumping music and a crowd going crazy.

- Air conditioned subway trains...ahhh. Although the steaming hot platforms are not so good....

- The Flatiron Building: surely the craziest shape for a building yet invented.

New York, New York

And so to New York! All of the rumours are true, there are loads of taxis, i can confirm the Statue of Liberty exists, and Times Square is very busy, especially when it is raining.

Manhatten feels like such a tiny space, it's a bit like squeezing london into a quarter of the space! It's difficult to see the sights from ground level, they are just too tall. We're off to try and find some more perspective today!

Heading down towards Wall St. and the financial district yesterday, it is very like London- lots of old buildings and curvy thin streets. I guess a lot of it was built before the grid system was conceived..

First settlements

One thing that keeps making Christina and I cringe is when the tour guide or video reminds us all how the English torched Washington DC in 1812. To be fair they were very careful to burn only the government buildings, but still that included the White House, the Capitol and Library of Congress.

We are staying close to the 'Historic Williamsburg' area which was one of the ver first places settled by the English around 1700. Many of the buildings were 'reconstructed' which i guess means they built it from a drawing, but still it gives an amazing impression of the colonial settlement. It feels quite English, but the white picket fence feel very American.

Jefferson's house Monticello(last photo) was great to go and visit- he had about 11 grandchildren living there who were banned from his 'Sanctum' on one side of the house, when he was in his 70s. I would definitely do the same. It gets a little muddled around the slavery issue though- he had over 100 slaves on his tobacco plantations but was a fervent abolitionist.

During the Civil war, it seems very strange that the Confederate capital was in Richmond, Virginia only 108miles from the Union capital at Washington DC. No wonder most of the Civil war was in Virginia!

A Walk in the Woods

I am slightly concerned about the deer around here- they are way too friendly to people. If the economy ever collapses, i'm coming here for steak.
I was just sat in reception of the hotel and overheard a man asking if he could leave his dog outside his cabin overnight. The lady replied 'We don't advise that sir, the bears tend to eat them'.



The Shenandoah itself is lovely, the temperature is 25-30C and with the vegetation it feels quite like Europe. The hills roll off in mist into the distance. We're a little spoilt by the canyons of Utah where it was completely clear for 50miles!

The Appalachian Trail passes very close to our cabin and we walked along a tiny section of the 2100mile length (all the way from Georgia to Maine). A few hundred people walk the entire length in one season- i'd be impressed if i did 100miles!

Capitol

I guess the toughest security line in the world is probably the queue to the Capitol building. You're not even allowed to take in an empty water bottle, let alone 50ml of insect repellent. But you have to be impressed that they can let 1000+ people an hour into the main Capitol building at all really!

I'm amazed the senate room is so small- it houses just 100 senators. And each state sends two, regardless of population which seems silly- California has 36m people and Wyoming only 540k.

And in the basement there was an excellent exhibition filled with original letters and documents from the short political history, to present day. Amazing how slavery tore the nation apart from 1790 until the 1860 Civil War- i had no idea how long and deep the debate ran.

..a few Washington additions

Appears Christina neglected to include any photos of the air and space museum, so i thought i'd add some! We have the Wright brother's original 'Flyer', the Bell X-1 the first plane to break the sound barrier, and a test model of the Hubble telescope.

Capital Capitol

We arrived in Washington DC yesterday evening and seem to have packed a lot in in the last 24 hours. It was raining torrentially as we came out of the airport - and still 96 degrees! Apparently they had their hottest July ever, and heatwave is still going strong.

We went to see the White House yesterday evening, which was very impressive...and made me hum the tune to The West Wing. It felt like President Bartlett...sorry, Obama, might just wander out of the Oval Office looking thoughtful and presidential. After we got back to the hotel we checked the White House website, and it turns out that the President was due to land on the South Lawn in his helicopter about 10 minutes after we'd been there. Major darn!

Today we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (like I could have kept Pete away). They have some amazing exhibits, including the original Wright brothers plane which made the first flight in 1903. Lindberg's 'Spirit of Saint Louis' and the Apollo 11 command module were also drawing some crowds! We also got a glimpse of the Hope Diamond in the Natural History Museum (not a patch on my engagement ring), along with some 50,000 year old skulls.

The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the WW2 Memorial were all stunning in their own way. With the Capitol at one end and the Lincoln Memorial at the other, the Mall certainly seemed iconic.

The tortoise and the hare

Spent the last night in Chicago kayaking down the river right through the centre and out almost on the lake- they run bi-weekly fireworks for us to watch on the pier.

Of the 50+ kayaks that started out, Christina was powering along in first place, i was bobbing along in the pack. By the time the fireworks were done and we turned around, her arms were shot and she was slowly poodling along at the back... oh well. Pain is temporary, glory is forever.

Everyone started off so friendly, apologising for every bump and splash, and after about half an hour, all the friendliness had faded massively...
And the police boat came past at speed leaving a 4ft wake- enough to throw some people outa the kayaks! I think i prefer cycling :-)

Chicago Chicago

Chicago is truly the original home of the skyscrapper- they were invented and first built here in 1890 and now have some of the biggest in the world.

We took a tour this morning and the most interesting buildings were some of the brick-built blocks that were the tallest in the world at the time. To hold up a 17story brick building the walls were 8ft thick and took up 20% of the ground floor space- less than ideal! But when people got comfortable with using a steel frame, it was cheaper, twice as fast and you could build as high as you like.

And i guess the conclusion to that is the Willis (Sears) Tower- one of the tallest buildings in the world, and probably the only one with a glass overhand to stand out over! That's about 440m, Canary Wharf is about 230m high..