Hello Mr Lincoln

We were quite looking forward to Washington and had a long list of things we wanted to see and do in three days.

We started off with the State Capitol building which was massive and pretty impressive - the only annoying thing was having to go through airport type security just to get a map.  That's one thing we did notice about Washington a really high police presence and loads of security checks.  A real contrast to Philly that made it did feel really quite safe.

State Capitol building

One of the let downs for us was that pretty much all of the buildings were of exactly the same design.  It looked like the architects had been to Italy, decided they quite liked what they'd seen and thought we'll have a bit of that.  It was all a bit clinical - looked like the buildings needed to be dirtied up a bit so they looked older.
That said we did a whole load of touristy things ...

• Washington Monument
• Memorial central (it felt like millions!) - Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt,  World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Martin Luther King - I think that's about it
• Had a chat with Barack at the White House
• The Pentagon - just looked around the outside and was massively dull
• Arlington cemetery - it was massive.  Visited JFK's grave site and the tomb of the unknown American soldiers - sounds quite morbid but was alright.

Washington Monument with some autumn colours

Lincoln memorial

At the White House

Reflecting pool & Washington Monument

JFK's grave site

Tomb of the unknown American soldiers

Overall we enjoyed bits of Washington but some parts were a tad disappointing and a bit 'samey'.  Not a place we'd rush back to, but good to do.

So, after 3 long days of pavement pounding we're hitting (get ready to sing along) "the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia..."

It has to be said that we are starting to feel a bit America'd (and American'd) out.  We have seen and done some amazing things, but as we journey around we are starting to see a lot of the things we have seen before.  Now starting to look forward to some very different experiences in places like Vegas and Florida - and ultimately outside of the USA!

Philadelphia - Lovely?

So after leaving New England we were city bound to Philadelphia.  There was one thing that Rob was really looking forward to doing there - recreating the run up the museum of art steps and just for a moment become Rocky Balboa!

The first day we spent around the Independence Hall end of the city where we got to see the Liberty Bell, some independence buildings, city hall and love park.  It was OK, but nothing special really.  We also took a tour of the US mint and saw the coins being manufactured - it was really quite interesting but sadly they weren't giving away free samples! 

Liberty Bell

Independence Hall

Guess which park!

We noticed that Philadelphia had a different feel to it than the other cities we had visited on our way across.  There weren't too many tourists or police around and with our back packs on we seemed to stick out like a sore thumb.  Just made you feel a bit more on your guard.

Day two was a bit more entertaining.  We wanted to pay a visit to a prison (yep sounds weird, but was quite cool) - Eastern State Penitentiary.  In order to get there we took a very uncomfortable subway journey (and I don't mean the seats) - it felt like the eyes of the other "passengers" were always on you and you daren't look at anyone in fear of some sort of comeback.  All a bit off putting really.

Anyway, the tour of Eastern State was really good - a bit creepy in places but interesting to see how they housed prisoners from the 1800's - very different to how they do it today (sadly)!  Al-Capone got special treatment though with the fancy furniture in his cell.

Penitentiary cell block 

Al Capone's cell

Then it was time for Rob's big moment to do his Rocky impression!  To be honest all the blokes were doing it - running up the steps and bouncing around like a loony at the top!  Personally I don't see the appeal - must be a man thing!  I have got it on video if anyone wishes to see it?  Rob just can't understand why Rocky was so shattered when he got to the top - apparently it was easy ;-)

Next came the posing with the Rocky statue and here are some snaps...

A Philly cheesesteak was also consumed as it must be when in town - very nice it was too.

After just a couple of days we did pretty much all that we came to do.  Next stop the capital, Washington DC... 

New England - tick!

Wow, we have been busy!  We have had a good tour of New England starting north and working our way south, crossing all six states on the way.  For the nerds amongst you, these are Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The autumn colours up north were pretty amazing - we never knew that trees could make the countryside so colourful.  Not your normal yellows and browns here - reds, purples, oranges and  the odd yellow - trees have never been so interesting!

Out of all the states Vermont was our favourite.  It was very much like rural England with small villages, rolling countryside, quirky unique shops, lots of rain (well we had that all over) and for America it was quite refreshing that there wasn't a McDonald's in sight. 

 

Stowe Church

A lovely display of pumpkins!

Someone getting ready for halloween

Another upside of Vermont is that it is the home of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  Anyone who knows Lisa knows about her love for ice cream, so how could we leave Vermont without a visit to the factory?  Answer is, we couldn't!  She was hoping to get a job in quality control but sadly they have machines that do that kind of thing, so she had to settle for a sample of one of the new flavours instead - yum!

Ready to go in and see how they make it taste sooo good!

Just being silly!

For pure pure 'Fall' colours, New Hampshire was the winner.  Home of Crawford Notch State Park and the Kancamagus Highway (or "Kanc" as the locals - and now Rob - call it), we had an enjoyable couple of days enjoying some of the dramatic scenery on offer.  Here is small sample of some of the millions of photos taken...

 

Sabbaday falls

Otter Rocks

One of many covered bridges - this one by moonlight!

Silver Cascades

A scary moment for Rob!

Beautiful leaves

Another waterfall - this one called Goldmine Brook falls

As we headed south, the colours were no where near as bright (very yellow and green) - frankly a bit of a disappointment.  After having a read on the internet it looked like the best of these colours wouldn't arrive in these states for a few more weeks.  Couldn't hang around for that so on to pastures new for us.... Philadelphia.

A bit dull

We headed south and ended up in Acadia National Park.  We hadn't planned on visiting, but thought we'd give it a shot as its coastal so a little bit different to what we had seen so far.

We did some of the main touristy things like:

• Cadilliac Mountain drive - a 3.5 mile mountain climb to look out over the coastline
• Visited Bar Harbour - an upmarket seaside town with a few quirky little shops
• Watched the sunset at Bass Harbour lighthouse (which was covered in scaffolding - typical!)
• Checked out some of the old carriageway bridges

Carriageway bridge

Shame about the scaffolding :-(

Have to be honest, Acadia wasn't too exciting so after a day we decided to move on for some proper leaf peeping!

Hello New England....

After leaving Canada behind we crossed the border into Vermont.  Probably sounds like a little bit of a cliche, but it was unbelievable how things started to change and resemble home.  The roads became narrower, the countryside greener and we drove through lots of small villages - very unlike the America we've experienced everywhere else.

We have apparently now become "leaf peepers" that's what they call people who are in New England for the fall colours - sounds a bit nerdy if you ask me,  I'd prefer "tourist"!

The fall colours are definitely on their way, a fair few trees in Vermont were changing, beautiful reds and oranges it was definitely like you see in the photos.

The leaves are starting to change a bit...

We didn't stay in Vermont for long as we were heading for northern Maine, that's where the colours reach their peak first and we wanted to visit Baxter State Park in search of moose!

After a longish drive, we arrived in Baxter State Park for a bit of primitive living - sleeping in the car, no rubbish bins and no flushing toilets or showers (in fact no running water at all in the park - well, unless you're a ranger and then you seem to get special treatment - talk about one rule for one, one for another...).  We spent two days taking short hikes in the forest to see waterfalls, ponds (lakes in our book) and generally have a bit of a chill and some early nights.  We were hoping to see some moose as they are apparently rife in the park - not these two days though.  The rangers reckon they're not in their usual haunts as the bull moose are out chasing the ladies as it's rutting season and the ladies are running away!  Good on ya female moose, make them run!

Feeling a bit grubby and in need of a scrub we headed off to some creature comforts and Acadia National Park for more exploring...

It's all gone a bit French!

After leaving Niagara we drove to Montreal.  On the way we passed through a few places that sounded familiar (Grimsby, Whitby, Lincoln, Peterborough, Newcastle) and ended up staying in Perth - all a bit weird.  Can't they think of their own names?!?

We stopped for an afternoon in Ottawa (Canada's capital).  Ottawa was a nice city to wander around for a few hours - it has a few "historic" buildings (the 1920's you understand!), a nice canal (sounds a bit anoracky, but it was quite good) and a statue of our monarch Queen Elizabeth II!

Parliament Hill building

Rideau Canal

Our monarch

Next stop was Quebec. We obviously knew it would be more French than the other parts of Canada, but honestly it was like driving through France.  All the road signs were in French, with not even the slightest acknowledgement that the English language existed.  There were also people on bicycles wearing berets and striped tops munching on garlic and onions saying "he haaaw, he haaaw" - all true, not one word of a lie ;-)

Fortunately Lisa remembered some French from school, otherwise we would have been in real trouble - not knowing how to say my name is Lisa Adams and my eyes are blue would have left us horribly exposed!

As for Montreal - well this wasn't as good as we were expecting which left us feeling a bit disappointed.  Old Montreal was nice enough and we visited a number of old buildings, with the best being the Basilica Notre Dame which was pretty amazing inside.

Basilica Notre Dame

Canadian bank notes

We didn't think there was much to the downtown area or the 'underground city'.  To be frank, it isn't that at all, it's a load of shops that have filled the old tunnel system - no real character or charm about it to be honest, so thumbs down!  One highlight though - we spotted a new outfit for Rob to get at the first available opportunity (being modelled by this fine Asian chap)!

Not sure which outfit would be better on Rob?

We also decided to pay a visit to the Mont Royal Park which from reading the blurb looked OK.  First impressions count for quite a bit and when we got there to spot some 'youths' (yes, we are old!) clearly dealing drugs at the park's entrance it sort of set the downward tone!

Prepared to give it a chance we left the druggies behind and climbed a high hill to get an elevated view of Montreal but to be honest it wasn't really worth the effort as the view was a bit cack.

View from Mont Royal Park

In short, don't think we'd rush back to Montreal unless it was for something specific (hmm, like F1 maybe...)

Which leads us nicely onto what we did on our last morning in Montreal.  On Saturday it was the one thing Rob was looking forward to the most - driving our Chrysler Town & Country hire car around the Gilles Villeneuve race track - the same track they use for the F1 races.  Sadly the speed limit is only 30mph though!

He did stop on P1 and just had to wheelspin off the start line - he drove the track sticking to the racing line and he loved it!  It was a really good day and even though it was chucking it down with rain it was actually really good fun to drive the track.  There aren't too many places in the world that you can drive around a Grand Prix track gratis.  Good work Montreal.

Wishing the car was a Ferrari!

Rob on the Wall of Champions

That's about it really for Canada... Heading back into USA and to Baxter State Park in Maine where a couple of nights primitive camping is to be done......Fab!

Loads of water...

From Chicago we scooted through 2 more US states without really stopping to do anything and crossed the border again back into Canada.  This time we were heading to Niagara Falls for a couple of nights - we had been there before in 2004 but on a coach trip so we didn't explore too much.

To be honest, there isn't really a massive amount to do there that doesn't involve waterfalls or gambling.  With that in mind, some of the things we did were...

• Horseshoe falls (Canada's side of Niagara) - we saw this in daylight as well as at night (sounds odd, but they light the falls up at night which is pretty neat).

Horseshoe at night

• America's side of the falls - we crossed the border from Canada to see this for a couple of hours at night time.

Pretty cool at night

• Both falls viewed from the Skylon tower.
  

• Drove to Niagara on the lake and admired the massive houses they all have - we reckon they might cost a bit.

(Note the lack of gambling - that's saved for Vegas!)

Apart from that, there isn't much else to look at - unless you like Blackpool (and lets be fair, no one does!).  The tourist town side of Niagara is dreadfully tacky and cheap looking - to illustrate just how bad it is, Rob didn't even take photo!  Astonishing that they have got away with building it all near such a beautiful natural wonder.

All in all, the falls are great.  Rob surprised himself as he always thought the Canadian falls were far superior however, he appears to have changed his mind and now prefers the American side - apparently more photogenic or something.  I just know that I spent hours waiting around for him to take photo's - really how many do you need?