Wednesday 1st – Today we got up and packed our bags ready for the start of our road trip – whoo hoo! Went down stairs had a vegemite bagel (the best) hoped on the airport shuttle and headed to LaGuardia airport to the avis car rentals. Took about 30/40mins to sought all the paper work out but finally they handed over the keys to our brand new ‘Chrysler Sebring’ sedan in a light grey/blue colour, 4 door auto. Packed all our stuff in – just, and hit the open road! or more like the congested highway of queens! Luckily Kel had bought her GPS with her so we typed in the hotel we booked in Philly. I was quite cosy sitting in the back drawing where we had been while Leigh did a great job driving through Manhattan, New Jersey and then into Pennsylvania and Philly. It took us about 2 ½ hours and we arrived without a hiccup, luckily we had aircon because it was 95-100 degrees.
The Hotel was really nice chandeliers everywhere and it had a pool on level 8 that looked out over the city. Verena came in from her sister’s place that was about 20 mins away and we went for a walk downtown. The town of Philly is really nice its got an old school charm with historic buildings and old cobble stone streets. The main street is really funky with lots of different types of shops, bars and restaurants. We stopped at a pub that claimed that it was the home of the 3 stooges – not that, that means anything to me!
After getting back to the hotel Kel wasn’t feeling too well with a sore throat, we walked to the chemist and got some throat medicine and went to bed. The next morning we were up at 6 as Kel was even worse than the night before and she wasn’t looking to crash hot so we called front desk to see if we could get a doctor to come to the hotel, unfortunately they don’t have GP’s or anything like that so our only option was to go the “ER” as they call it.
So 2 hours later they were back with antibiotics and pain killers and a diagnosis of ‘strep throat’. Kel went back to bed and so did Leigh, Verena had arrived for the day so her and I went swimming as it was soo hot 95+. Leigh came up and joined us and we lazed around for a bit. We decided it was time for lunch and we headed off into town, it was extremely hot and very sweaty. While we were in Philly we just had to have a famous “Philly cheese steak” which they are famous for all over America. We stopped off at the best place in town which was a small, small skinny shop with stools on one side of the counter and a stove/hot plate on the other side. They cooked it right there in front of you which was cool but just added to the heat! We ordered and it was massive, its on a long Baggett type roll and its just thin strips of beef (like what you would get on a kebab) with melted cheese on it! It was ok and I have had one now but I wouldn’t be rushing back to have one.
More looking around the town and we decided to head back and check on Kel – still asleep. It was still really hot and we wanted to see some more things so we jumped in the car and headed out for a drive. We saw the famous Philly ‘Love’ sign in the park and lots of the old buildings, town hall and then we managed to end up in China town. Back to the hotel and we walked to the ‘Independence Hall’ which s a famous building were the declaration of independence was signed and the ‘Liberty bell’ was hung. It was really old but nice looking, then onto the museum where the ‘Liberty Bell’ is now housed, it’s a famous bell! People where lining up and we even had to have a security check and bag checks before we could get in and see it!!
Coffee time, too hot for coffee so an ice frappe it was, back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We decided on an Italian place up the road (when we arrived at the hotel a few days before we signed up for their rewards program and got to spin a wheel and won a free desert, which just so happened to be at this particular restaurant!) It was really nice and we tried scamming 3 free desserts but one would have to do.
Leigh and I then drove Verena to the train station, parked in a towing zone and raced down to drop her off on the platform as it was 11pm and we wanted to make sure she got there ok. While saying goodbye this crazy man came up to us and literally was telling us his life story which included how he is now looking after his own kids and his ex partners kids as she left him, he works hard so the kids can have the best of everything while he is left with holes in his shoes (which he showed us) all his friends and family think he is gay as he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years, but this is only because he is nervous around women and it takes him 6 months to even kiss a woman let alone sleep with one which he says takes him about 2 years, but this is all due to the fact that he was raped by men while he was in jail, the whole reason he was in jail was because one day he and his mother where at the markets and a big black man pushed his mother down so he couldn’t stand for that so picked up a jar of pickles and bopped this guy on the head and knocked him out and was charged with assault. Then he says thanks for letting him speak to us and walks away, the whole time I'm thinking don’t make eye contact, don’t look at him, ‘I'm sure I could out run him if he tried anything’, ‘oh god we have to leave Verena here with this guy’, ‘oh crap the car is in a tow zone’ So another quick goodbye to Verena and a scan around the place to make sure the nutter had gone and we bolted back up the stairs back up onto the street, past the congregation of homeless people and round the corner to find our car…………………..still there and all in one piece!
The next morning we checked out, Kel was still feeling crappy but we were headed to Washington DC. We hit the road with trusty Tomtom to help us along the way and drove through the state of Delaware and into the state of Maryland and stopped at Baltimore for lunch, it was a nice town by the water which had a marina with shops and restaurants which is where we ate, then drove around the town and headed on our way. We got into Washington and arrived at the ‘Hilton Washington’ which was massive and had hundreds of people all there for conferences and work functions. We booked through our trusty hotwire and it had come through again with the goods all for about $25 each a night. By the time we got in it was about 5ish and Kel still wasn’t feeling good so we all decided to have a snooze. Got uo and headed out for dinner, the hotel was located in an area called ‘Dupont Cirlce’ where there are lots of shops and place to eat, so we stopped at ‘Bistro Bistro’ a French restaurant. Walked about the street for a while and then headed back for an earlyish night.
The next morning we got up and headed down stairs to the tour desk to inquire about the hop on hop off bus that went around all the sights. We decided it was a bit pricey so we just put our names down for only the night tour and told the lady that we would decided if we wanted to do it we would let her know, she just gave us the seat numbers and the number to call to let them know. So we set off to catch the subway into town and it was just down the road which was good and the station was fascinating, there was an escalator that you had to ride that went down on a steep, steep 45 degree angle into a big tunnel that they had built into the ground. Down on the platform it looked like a space age tunnel with a roof that had a concrete rectangle cut out pattern, if that makes any sense. Anyways it made the place really quite which was really bizarre considering there were lots of people.
Everything is really well sign posted and it was easy to find which train we needed to be on and which one not to catch! A change of trains got us to the ‘Smithsonian’ stop. We popped out in the middle on this great big long park called ‘The Mall’ we looked right and saw the Capital Building and to the left we could see the Washington Monument and all along each side of the park was the Smithsonian museums. Another hot day to be walking around but it was nice. We headed to the Smithsonian museum of Natural History, we got security checked and bag checked before we went in but it was free which was great. As you walk in you come face to face with a massive African elephant that’s right in the middle of the room. It’s a 2 story building with all different rooms leading of into different exhibits, dinosaurs where first but so we walked through massive t-rex bones, stegosaurus heads, and diplodocus bodies it was really cool with all the different fossils and things to look at. Onto the worlds biggest diamond the ‘Hope diamond’ which was huge and was apparently sent to the museum in the regular post?
Next exhibit was evolution and animals, the human body and the first American settlers, then ancient Egypt and under the sea. We spent a good few hours there, next stop was the Capital, along the walk on either side of the park there is so much to see like art museums and botanical gardens. The park its self stretched for at least 2km so we did lots of walking up and down the park. We got to the capital and it was closed you couldn’t get up into it but we just got pics outside, architecturally it was beautiful. Back down through the park to the other end to the Washington Monument, which is the tall obelisk building, more pics and onto the White House. There were so many cops out the front patrolling the area and the actual house was really far away from the gates you could see the house but it was at least 500m away, more pics and more walking to the World War 2 memorial which had fountains and flags and all the states of America around the fountains. Walked another km to the Lincoln memorial which was my favourite, there were lots of people but when you walked up the stairs and looked back out across the pool of reflection you could see the Washington monument and the Capital building all in a row which was cool. The actual statue of Lincoln was huge but really awesome.
Walked back to the park in front of the white house and grabbed a hotdog for dinner and a nice cold ice block, it was almost time for the bus tour so we thought we would just rock up and buy a ticket when we got there. We lined up and the bus driver got off and said if you had a seat number please come to the front of the line, so we had a seat number so we gave it a shot and he just looked at the numbers and said yep go on up, se we got on and sat there not saying anything till we took off and had started the tour!! Whoo hoo a free tour – that saved us 39 bucks! So we drove around the capital, past the Washington monument, then over a bridge and saw the Jefferson Memorial, past the mint and onto the President Franklin Roosevelt memorial. We got off here and our tour guide took us through and showed us around the place with commentary about all the different era’s in his life, he seemed like pretty amazing guy and he was the only American president in history to serve 2 terms in office, after him they changed it so you could only have 1 term. The memorial was beautiful, it was all outside but the way they built it with different walls and things made it feel like different rooms and there was water falls and streams running through it, it was quite big 7 acres worth. Back on the double decker bus and onto the Lincoln memorial – even though we had seen it all in the day it was so much prettier at night time with all the lights it had a completely different feel.
The Lincoln was even better at night but the pics we got just didn’t do it justice at all. We then headed to the Korean war memorial which was very sombre on the granite wall that lined the memorial there was the faces on the men and women that served etched into the wall it looks so real and life like (they looked similar to those crystals and dog tags you can get printed with a photo on it) its all outside and in the middle are 12 bronze statutes of 6 foot men in battle gear with different facial expressions that reflected their feelings like fear, courage, horror and weariness.
After that we got back on the bus and drove over to the state of Virginia to see the Iwagima memorial (I know that’s not how you spell it but it will have to do), it’s the one with the American soldiers bunched together and pushing up the American flag, you would know it if you saw it, its about conquering Japan or something like that. More driving and we were on the outskirts of Arlington cemetery and we could see all the white headstones in the dark along with the flame that constantly burns on the Kennedy’s grave sites – spooky.
We got dropped back off at the main train station and caught the train home, and back to the hotel. We had only booked up until that night and we still had things we wanted to see so we booked through hotwire again and hoped it would be the same hotel but it wasn’t but it was the Westin just down the road so it wasn’t to bad. In the morning we packed up and headed to the Westin checked in and decided to go for a drive around the place and find Arlington Cemetery, even with Tomtom with us it was no easy task, we ended up in a high security area of the army base ‘Forte Myers’ and had to have our id’s and car inspected just to drive in and turn around and go back out. We weren’t too far from it but eventually made it after passing by the pentagon a few times.
Finally arrived and went it in, all for free too. It was really quite and sad there was just thousands and thousands of rows of grave after grave after grave all lined up in rows. We saw the gravesites of JFK, Jackie and there son and their stillborn baby girl, also his brother Robert Kennedy, we also saw the civil war grave, the outdoor amphitheatre and the Lockerby bombing memorial. We walked to the grave of the ‘Unknown Solider’ which is guarded by a member of the US Army all the time and while we were there we got to see the changing of the guard where the commanding officer came out and ordered the men to swap over, they are dressed in full dress uniform and the tomb of the solider looks out over Washington and has fresh flowers in a wreath laid next to it.
It was now time for lunch so we headed into George town for some tucker and looked around the shops, it was Labour day weekend today so there was quite a few people around. Back to the hotel and we retired for the night as the next morning we were off again.
Today (Labour Day Monday) we left Washington and headed south to a town called Richmond, on all the maps we have its quite a big town and it mentioned that it was great day to stop at??? Not to sure why as when we got there it was deserted and not much there at all we couldn’t even find a place to eat and in the end we decided to ask Tomtom to find us a McDonald’s ! The town didn’t even have one of those and everything else seemed to be shut because of the public holiday. Luckily the visitor centre was open and we ducked in there for a quick look, this little old lady was the only person there and we was about 80 – bless her, she rang all these different places to see if they were open and they weren’t but she told us to take a drive along their famous street, so we got back into the car. Leigh had just stayed outside and she got chatting to these 2 men that where in town helping their kids move there for college, they both told Leigh that Richmond was a quote “Hell Hole” with nothing in it.
We drove along the famous street for a bit and it had a few statues along the road every now and then, nothing much to see but a guy had crashed into one of the statues and the cops where there so that was at least something to see. Back on the road and we continued south, stopping of the highway at the 1st Macca’s we saw. More driving and our destination today was Durham/Raleigh a university town in North Carolina. We had booked at the ‘La Quinta inn & Suites’ for $50 including breaky. For dinner that night we headed into the uni area called Chapel hill which was full of young people with bars and places to eat, we settled on a bar called 4 corners ate and had a drink. While we were there they had a game of trivia on so what the hell we signed up and ‘Grandma Gimpy’s Gaurdian’s’ where on their way to winning the trivia comp! That dream didn’t actually come to fruition but coming last and being from a different country had its perks – got a free ‘Coors’ beer bucket and 3 tumbler glasses!!!
After it had finished this group of people came up and started chatting to us and wanted to know if we wanted to come to the next bar with them, so we went along and down into the under ground bar and it was dead we where the only people there and by this stage it was 12.30pm and we had to leave the next day so we said chow and off we went. On the way home we saw all the frat houses of the university, it was so cool they were massive houses with big porches with signs out the front like Alpha house and omega house just like ‘Legally Blonde’. Then a bloody big deer jumped across the road along with 2 little Bambi’s!! We made it back to the hotel and crashed out.
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