Road-trippin'! Part IV - Boston!

At this point in the road trip, driving is still fun, so we take our time going through Massachusetts, staying pretty close to the coast, stopping to enjoy the view, and I even got to go to the beach!  Cape Cod boasts some of the prettiest sitting beaches in the States, and I gotta admit, the one I went to was pretty.  The water was west coast warm, and the day couldn't have been more perfect - even got a game of horseshoes in!  I later found out that Cape Cod was host to a couple great-white shark sightings, even one on the day I was there!  Kinda sad I missed it.  

Went up the coast to Plymouth, home of the rock!  It also has a nice replica of the Mayflower II - I have like 13-18 ancestors who came over on the original Mayflower so I'd throw out names and the historians had a blast telling me about my past :)

Up next - Boston!  I gotta admit, Boston is a pretty cool place - I liked the feel of it, there's just so much history!  And since I'm nerdy and like that history stuff, we were lucky to get M.C. History as our tour-guide for our DUCK tour.  

The DUCK!

Piece of the Berlin Wall

After a stomach-busting dinner at Tom's cousin's, we checked into the hotel in Cambridge, and somehow the toilet paper kept flying across the room - it was just one of those unexplainable phenomena.  And in the morning the towels weren't working, so I had to dry off with only the hair dryer.  That took FOR-E-VER!  

But I finally dried off to go out into the rainy Boston day.  I'm glad it wasn't rainy and foggy on the night of April 18, 1775 at Old North Church like it was this day, cause no one would have known which way the Regulars were coming.. Old Harbor was much the same way, drizzly and cold.  Fenway, though I'm no fan of the BoSox, is a gorgeous park!  I liked it enough to almost buy some Red Sox garb, but not quite.  

The Green Monster!

My true colors- Go Yanks!

At the Boston Temple, I met a super nice lady, who was willing to tell me the history of the sculptor of the Angel Moroni.  She even knows where I grew up, in Pleasant Grove.  It seems that at every temple I visit, the world seems really small, I love it.

Lexington and Concord - learning about that first battle was awesome.  USA! USA! 

Boston - conquered :)

Road-trippin'! Part III - Philly!

They say that often the hardest part of the journey is the first one, and I admit, it was hard to leave the comfy confines of "home" at Tom's.  But bein just a few hours from an authentic Philly Cheesesteak was enough to get us out of the house :)
Of course, it was hot and muggy in Philadelphia, but we managed.  Historic Philly is pretty cool, and most everything we wanted to see was within a couple-minute walk from the car, so that was definitely a plus.  Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall, and more are right there, so we played tourist for a few hours.

I liked the Constitution Hall the most; there was an amazing presentation regarding, well duh, the Constitution - its thesis was, "We the People - It's up to us to protect the Constitution."

And I liked meeting some of the signers of the Constitution; but I'm afraid the saying, 'You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose' came out after his time...

After lunch (yummy), I had to run off the calories, so I ran the famous "Rocky" steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  I can't seem to upload the video of my iconic run up the steps, so you'll just have to trust me when I say I'm awesome.

To finish the sight-seeing for the day, we headed out to Valley Forge, where it was a bit warmer than when Washington's troops spent the winter, thank goodness..

The cabins are pretty small (and remind me of Maniac Magee), but then again, the people were smaller then, too, as you can tell from the picture...

Part III - in the books

Road-trippin'! Part II - 4th (and 5th) of July

4th of July = fireworks :)
We made a big mistake of turning on the tele the morning of the 4th, because it was a marathon of the BBC hit car show, Top Gear.  We're both fans, and well, it was mid-afternoon before either of us got off the couch. Oops... Oh well, we still got in our barbecue, then, because I've lived in DC and seen the fireworks there before, I talked Tom into taking us up to Baltimore to see them at the harbor.  We didn't get the greatest spot, and it was then that I realized I forgot my camera tripod, so I free-handed these shots :/

Pointing to Bloody Cornfield

 The next day, we headed up through Pennsylvania, stopping at solemn Antietam battlefield first.

Cool monument

Well, learning about the devastation that happened here, we didn't have the heart to go to Gettysburg (we've both been, so it's okay.)
So we drove on up to Hershey!  Mmm chocolate :)

The tour was cool, the chocolate was yummy, but what I really wanted to do was go on the rides, but the attendants wouldn't believe me, even though I fit the height requirement...

Of course, other tall 'kids' saw me and wanted to follow my lead, so we left.  Drove down the road into Amish country.  There wasn't much going on, as expected, so we just bought some root beer - bitter home-made stuff - then drove back home for the night.

Part II - check

Road-trippin'! Part I - New York

Summertime = trips :)

This year my first two trip ideas didn't come to fruition, but my third did.  Thanks to Tom Reese, who decided his new car needed a healthy cross-country road trip, we traveled 5213.6 miles across 23 states and one Canadian province.  

My trip started with a midnight flight out to, what some call the happiest place on Earth, New York.  When the plane I was supposed to be on wouldn't be allowed in the air, I was praying that this wasn't going to be the norm this trip.  After a lengthy delay, I was on my way!  Arriving at JFK 1.5 hours late, I had to amend my plans, but I still owned the city that day.  Taking the train into Penn Station got me into the middle of Manhattan, where I checked my bag and started off! 

First things first: breakfast.  Found the Hardrock Cafe just off Times Square for a nice buffet, then went up to the Rockefeller Center to see what view the roof offered.  They informed me I was wasting my pass (City Pass) because you couldn't see a thing up there.  I went up anyway.  Well, they were right :/  I decided right then that New York wasn't such a happy place.  Next on my agenda was a taxi-ride so I could catch a cruise around the island and past the Statue of Liberty, and by now I was really hoping it would clear up.  

As you can tell, it didn't really clear up.  

Lady Liberty was still beautiful, though.

Then I was feeling artsy, so I took a bus up towards the Museum of Modern Art where I saw many wonderful works of art such as this by the great Van Gogh:

.

I had to stroll through Central Park, so I took the park way up to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

I never thought my favorite thing would be modern art, but New York surprised me.

Well, I've been told that no trip to New York City could be complete without going up to the 600th floor  (well, 86th, but close enough :)) of this building:

Here are a couple views from up top on the still-foggy day...

I was lucky to be able to run up from the 80th floor and also back down from the top to miss all the lines for the elevator.  If I didn't get to do that, I would've missed my train to Baltimore. So I guess New York was alright.  Next time I'm taking a few days to run around the town.
Met my friend Tom who took me back to his place in Laurel, MD.  Turns out he lives just a few blocks from where I used to live.  We were coming off the 295 onto the 198 when I said I used to live here, on Russet Green.  He asked which RG; I didn't think it mattered much, but I told him West. He then turned down RG East, and we were home.

Day 1 - check.