Month: August 2018

We drop Beth’s stuff off at the University of Delaware this morning early and head to Target to stock up on supplies. Beth is sharing a suite with three others and her second year dorm is great. Tim goes to Barnes & Noble to work. After lunch we say our goodbyes and the remaining three of us set off for DC.

Beth seems OK to not be in the minivan.

The Tabard Inn in DC is great; old, eccentric, and different. We get the attic suite. After 4191 miles we bid goodbye to the Toyota. What a trip!

Next day we signed up for Lime and Bird electric scooters and go scootering.

 

 

 

Left NYC at 8.30am and headed out west via the Lincoln Tunnel to Gettysburg. It was a surprisingly long way.  Landscape flatish with rolling countryside and lots of trees.  Gettysburg was quiet, sombre and well maintained.

A lot of walking today. Met Keith and Jeanne and walked over to the 9/11 pools then over to the Hudson River north to Greenwich Village where we had a drink and a bite to eat at an open air cafe. Matt and Beth then departed for the Nintendo store and freedom and we continued on to the Guggenheim.  We’d been there in 2013 but at that time the central atrium had been obscured by an installation.  This time it was quite open and so we got to enjoy the building itself as much as the art within.  From the Guggenheim we took the subway to Hudson Yards and walked the High Line.  This is a disused rail line running on an elevated platform south towards Greenwich Village.  The restoration work has involved leaving the rails in place but careful placement of seating and plants has made it a very enjoyable walkway.  After about a mile we took the stairs down to the Half King where we sunk two very nice pints of beer, after which we headed into the Village for a nice Italian meal.

What can we say about Niagara Falls? Well, it is very impressive that’s for sure.  We visited early in the morning and the crowds were quite thin.  A fifteen minute walk put us at the Horseshoe Falls overlook which was spectacular and below us we saw a boat full of passengers wearing red ponchos.

The drive through upstate New York took quite a bit of time as it is easy to forget just how large the state is.  Rolling farmland and small towns and villages.  For our drive into the city itself we adopted our standard operating procedure; Jeri drove and Tim navigated.  It’s best that way.

We stayed at the YMCA in a four person room with metal bunk-beds, reminiscent (one imagines) of a prison cell.  But the Clacketts are nothing if not adaptable and we were only sleeping there anyway. We took a stroll in the direction of a pizza restaurant selected by Matt to perform our third and final test.  Yes, New York pizza was pretty good, very good actually, but the thin crust from Centro in Cedar City wins. Chicago deep dish is not really pizza at all, but jolly nice all the same.

A slower day today as we took time off to visit the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn and the Hudson museum in Yipsilanti. Highlight of the morning was a tour of the Ford F-150 assembly lines; we were able to walk around a catwalk overseeing the body assembly area below; fascinating stuff, but no pictures allowed.

After Detroit we headed into Canada because this was the shortest route to Niagara.  The border agent asked us how long we intended to stay and seemed nonplussed when we said four hours. We had dinner at a nice family restaurant near London, where despite Tim’s best efforts, we could not persuade the waitress to say ‘about’.

Besides being the first time we have driven coast to coast, this trip has also been an experiment in Airbnb.  The teepee was stage one and two nights ago we stayed in a place which was billed as a sort of condo but turned out to be a suite motel (comfortable nonetheless).  But last night was the real thing; a small house in Rochester, near to the Mayo Clinic which was almost perfect; a downstairs apartment with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a lounge and a dining area. Almost but not quite perfect because Matt had to sleep on the couch, but close enough. At least some of us caught up on episodes of The Office…

Today we stayed on I-90 almost all the way,  590 miles through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Miffed about missing the Deke Slayton museum in Sparta, Wisconsin (got there too early).  Continued to enjoy our audio book.  The land is getting softer – far less open range and many more trees scattered across the farmland.  High point was having genuine Chicago deep dish pizza, but note that a medium size, labeled as being fit for 3/4 people, actually can feed 10.  Got to hotel in Toledo at 9.15pm, now in EST.

Our first destination was Wall Drug.  Obviously, because how can one ignore all those signs?

Corn, naturally

Today was spent driving on I-90 east and nothing else. Crossed the Missouri, one of the great rivers of America. Had a picnic lunch in a public park in Mitchell, to get away from drive throughs. Started listening to our second audiobook, Agent of Change.  The landscape changed slowly from grassland and prairie to the more controlled and segmented farmland of corn and soybeans.  No bison were spotted, which was a disappointment, mainly to Tim.

OK, a word about sleeping in a teepee.  If you arrive at 10.00PM in the dark and it is raining (all night long) and muddy, don’t expect everything to be perfect.  Being a camping-like experience, this might not be a 5 star location.  We were denied the chance to enjoy a summer evening sitting outside grilling our food in full view of the Shoshone river.  There were drips of water in the tent. The Andy Gumps were clean but not that close.  We’ll chalk this one up to ‘what might have been’.

Driving to and from Yellowstone yesterday took far longer than expected, due in part to underestimating the distances and the speed limits. Today we set off early from our teepee (thankfully pretty much dry) and had breakfast in Powell at a local diner.  We then hit highway 14.  Interesting that these roads have high speed limits, typically 70.

Highway Alt-14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mount Rushmore

We planned this trip to include several important landmarks, based upon the wishes of each of us.  I can’t remember who suggested Mount Rushmore, but really how could we have missed it?  It is spectacular and pays careful observation and study once there, but it is difficult to spend more than an hour looking at it.

A large collection of potato mashers

Breakfast was at the Bigelow.  It is a nice old hotel, but is certainly somewhat faded in places; it seems to have undergone a remodeling in the 1970s, judging by the odd colors and the strange false walls here and there.  Reminds us of the Eureka Inn in northern California;  lovely, but would have been really special back in 1930.  Today’s drive was only 460 miles compared to the 760 of yesterday, but time was spent on a lot of state roads going over mountains and of course in the National Parks, so progress was slow.  The potato museum in Blackfoot was great; not too big, but the displays were well done and it was just the right size.  We were given two boxes of dehydrated hash browns because we were ‘out of staters’.

In Yellowstone, we arrived only twenty minutes or so before Old Faithful blew, so good planning on our part then.  Saw a deer with huge antlers and a group of three bears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As dawn dawns, our captain, my captain, bravely heads east (on the 210). We made the Starbucks in Hesteria by 6:30am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traveling down that long lonesome highway…….

I-15 from California all the way to Ogden, UT.  Around St George it starts to get green and the red mountains are spectacular. This is familiar territory because we have driven part of this route on the way to Denver.

Looks like they’re in it for the long haul. The rented Toyota Sienna has been great; loads of space for the boxes and bags after the third row seat is put away.  First car we have driven with adaptive cruise control and a lane warning thingy (a bell goes off and the steering wheel moves you back into line).  Weird. Loads of buttons in this thing too.  Super comfortable which is what you want if you are driving 3750 miles. MPG hovers around 23 or so.

Lunch was at Centro Woodfired Pizza in Cedar City.  We have been visiting this place on our road trips since 2012 and we all agree it is the best pizza in the world.  Until that is we get to Chicago and New York…