Northern American States Part 2

The journey from Duxbury to Hummelstown was not the best.  We decided to travel around the top rather than down and along the coast to avoid getting too close to New York as we felt the traffic would be terrible, we obviously did not travel far enough across the top as we came down on the west of New York though New Jersey and the traffic was still extremely heavy.

We left Duxbury at 9am on a cold wet and foggy morning, rain stayed with us throughout most of the journey, apart from when we saw snow as we came through New Jersey and we eventually arrived in a wet Hummelstown at just after 6pm.  We had lunch around 2pm at a nice little piza place, somewhere along the way, where, I have not got a clue!

The house in Hummelstown was very comfortable, very different from Duxbury, this had been bought and refurbished to be a rental and as such did not have any unnecessary items cluttering it up.  We thought the house was great and were very happy with it, until we went to bed.

We had an idea we may be disturbed in the night before we went to bed when we heard a freight train running through the town, however we only heard one and it did not seem to bad...

From about 11pm until some time in the wee wee hours we had a freight train run through about every 20 minutes, it was not the noise of the train that was an issue however it was the horn.  Hummelstown has a number of unmanned level crossings and for about five minutes each and every train was sounding its horn, not a dainty little toot toot, more like a full on fog horn!  Add to that the fact that the local fire station was just down the road from us and that had a call out at 5am, come the morning Lisa and I had both had extremely little sleep.  Luckily Charlotte had slept through it all, a small blessing.

We continued to have very disturbed nights for the next three, however after that we started sleeping through, either the trains had stopped or our sheer exhaustion was making us immune to them, more likely the latter.

Putting the trains aside we really enjoyed our time in Hummelstown, we were on the doorstep of Hershey with Chocolate World and Hersheypark to explore and in the middle of Pennsylvania enabling us to venture out to Gettysburg and the Amish countryside.

What the Hershey company have established in Hershey, or Derry Township as it is officially known, is very well done and well worth a visit.  Hershey World is great to get an insight into the history and current production of America's favourite chocolate and Hershey Park offered far more than we had expected.  Whilst we were there Hersheypark was closed during the day, but did open over Halloween for Hersheypark in the dark.  Some of the rides available in Hershey Park are on a par with any other top flight theme park we have enjoyed.  

Storm Runner which launches you from 0 to 72 in two seconds, taking you vertically up the equivalent of 18 storeys before plunging you right back down again was definitely my favourite.  For me the worst ride was Sidewinder with it's reverse loop the loop, a ride that left me feeling queazy for a good hour after riding it.  For Lisa the worst experience in the park was the Kissing Tower, a revolving sky ride which despite her fear of heights she decided to give a go and regretted from the moment it rose until her feet were firmly back on the ground. 

The National park at Gettysburg offered what was for me probably the best day out of the entire trip.  To see the park at its best and really experience it the recommendation is that you purchase one of the self paced CD based guided tours, exactly what we did as we decided it was worthwhile giving it a go. The tour really bought the place to life and helped us appreciate what had happened there, and why it was such an important chapter in American history.  The Gettysburg park is so much more than all the monuments that have been erected there to commemorate what happened there.  For Charlotte the highlight of the ay was definitely meeting three gentlemen in period costume who were up 'Little Round Top', not only were they in costume but they were also very knowledgeable as to the events that had happened there and this helped to bring it all to life for Charlotte, so much more effectively than the CD could have ever done.

Another day out saw us travelling into Amish country and visiting the National Christmas Centre and the Strasbourg Railway Museum.  The Christmas centre was OK, worth a visit but do not allow more than a couple of hours, the railway museum had a lot more to offer including a section for the kids that had an O gauge layout with various shunting puzzles to complete, or was that more for the Dads?

Closer to where we were staying we visited the Hershey Automobile Museum and Indian Echo Caverns.  Just before we had left the UK we had been to Cheddar Gorge, only about an hour from where we live, but somewhere we had never quite managed to get to.  We had enjoyed Cheddar Gorge and did not have the same expectation for Indian Echo Caverns, however they turned out to be every bit as spectacular yet far less commercialised.

As already mentioned we stayed in Hummelstown over Halloween, this siting gave us the opportunity to go for the whole trick 0r treat gig.  Charlotte dressed up as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz and we joined the masses walking through residential areas, visiting the people stood on the porches and collecting a vast amount of tooth rotting candy.  After just an hour of visiting door steps Charlotte had more candy than she would normally consume in an entire year.

Another event that happened whilst we were staying here was the US election and the historic appointment of Barack Obama as President Elect.  As we were in that evening we did watch the election unfolding on the television, unfortunately the talent show'esque production was al too familiar as the way that the UK coverage of such events is also going.

When we left Hummelstown we travelled to Columbia for a couple of nights as this was to be the base for our two days in Washington.  We travelled via Baltimore as this would give us the chance to explore another US city.

We enjoyed Baltimore, though we only had time to explore the waterfront, however we found it to be very clean and well restored, what must have been a very busy and active port had successfully been transformed to a first rate tourist destination.  The outer marina and docks remaining a very active commercial shipping asset.

Our hotel in Columbia, or to be more accurate, on the outskirts of Columbia was very adequate for what we required, a base from which we could access the centre of Washington.  A 30 minute drive from the hotel saw us parked in a metro station at the end of the Washington Metro, from there we could get a train into the centre of the city.  On the first day we focused on visiting the sites, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and the Whitehouse, then finished the day in the Natural History Museum.  On day two we visited the Air and Space museum and the Holocaust museum, then ended the day with dinner in Chinatown.

Well that was it, all we had to do now was drive back up to Newark and then fly to Orlando.  We left the hotel at 9am on the Sunday morning, the journey was very uneventful and we found ourselves back at the house in Orlando by 7pm.  And thus ended our three weeks in the Northern US states.

Northern American States Part 1

OK - I have been promising to upload some detail about the trip we took up to some of the Northern American states during our last three months on that side of the pond, so here goes the start of it anyway.

On October 18th we flew from Orlando to Newark, from there we hired a car and drove the seven hours up to Niagara Falls, we stayed on the Canadian side of the falls in the Sheraton on the Falls hotel, very comfortable!  If you have never been to Niagara you cannot imagine the experience of standing at the top of the falls and hearing all that water rushing over the rim, neither can you imagine what it is like to stand at the foot taking the spay in your face, until I had experienced it what I imagined did not even come close.

Whilst at Niagara we both sailed on the Maid of the Mist and took the walk through the tunnels behind the falls, both of which I would recommend to anyone visiting the area.  When on the platform at the foot of the falls Charlotte's plastic mac gave up the ghost and I got some great video footage of her running around the platform trailing her mac and getting absolutely soaked.  Luckily it was remarkably warm for the time of year whilst we were at Niagara and even though we all got wet we did not need to rush back to the hotel to dry off.

The Falls take on a whole different perspective after dark, floodlight from the Canadian bank in an ever changing sequence of colours the spectacle is very distinct from that you see during the day.  We took the opportunity of walking up the bank and observing, plus photographing, the illuminated falls from many perspectives again it was unseasonably warm.

We spent two nights at Niagara after which we drove down for another seven hours to the village of Duxbury, just below Boston on the New England coast.  Here we had rented a house for eight nights to use as a base for our exploration of New England.  

The house was great, very comfortable though possibly a little cluttered.  It had been the owners house before he moved out though he had left many of his personal possessions in the house for renters to enjoy, maybe a few too many.  At the end of our stay there it was hard to see what was about the house that was ours as there was so much spread about.

Whilst at Duxbury we journeyed into Boston, drove to the tip of Cape Cod, visited Mayflower II in Plymouth and Plimoth Plantation and took some delightful walks in the vicinity of our house.

Boston is a city I had visited before, though Lisa and Charlotte had not, it is a city I very much wanted to introduce them to and share with them,  they were not disappointed.  Whilst in Boston we walked the freedom trail, as most tourists in the city do, and took in most of the historic landmarks along its route.  We combined this with some history for Charlotte on the American revolution and why it, and wars in general, happen at all.

Both the area our house was in and Plymouth presented a great opportunity for teaching Charlotte some American history and the story of the Pilgrim Fathers.  We had started this in the UK before we travelled to the states and picked up the thread whilst in this area.  We toured Mayflower II and discussed with her the hardship of the voyage and then introduced her to how the newly arrived pilgrims would have lived by taking her to Plimoth Plantation.  Again our experiences here did not disappoint, we were very impressed by how thoughtful and thorough the recreations are.  Near to the house we had rented was a grave site for some of the early settlers so this also provided a focal point for us to explore and relate to what she had learnt.

Cape Cod was somewhere I particularly wanted to visit having regularly read stories and seen films set along it's shores.  We also wanted to explore the links with the West Country in the UK, our own home base,  we especially wanted to visit Barnstable, even if they do not know how to spell!  We drove from Duxbury out to the tip of the Cape, stopping off a few times along the way.  We spent a few hours in Provincetown at the end of the afternoon before we set out to drive back down the other coast.  The coastal roads provided some of the best scenery we would see in New England and in many ways the seasonal weather making for a harsher environment added to it, couple that with the amazing colours you see in the trees throughout New England in the fall and it really was a drive to be remembered.

Before heading North we had decided to be more relaxed on Charlotte's schooling for the three weeks and treat it as a mini holiday for her, we therefore did not find ourselves having to make time for lessons everyday and were more able to go out and about.  As already mentioned the schooling we did do was in the main relevant to the area we were visiting, thus we could combine a day out with her education.

After our time in Duxbury we headed across into Pennsylvania and drove for eight hours again, this time to Hummelstown, a small town adjacent to Hershey, the home of American chocolate.

Our time here will be the subject of a later post.

In addition to a great day out Cape Cod also gave rise to my favourite photo from our entire trip, a shot of Charlotte stood in a Pumpkin patch in a new coat we had bought her as the ones we had travelled north in were not substantial enough for the temperatures we had to enjoy.

Christmas Eve . .

Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house .....

We have been back at home in the UK for just over a week now and in many ways it seems like we were never away.  With Christmas on the immediate horizon we have not started much of the planning for what comes in the new year, that I am sure will come next week, though this morning I did wake at 6am thinking I had missed a payment date for the final balance on one of the legs of our trip, so I had to get up and check my records and then had no hope of going back to sleep.  Sleep is very much over rated anyway!

So merry Christmas to anyone who may be reading this and I will keep you informed of what we are getting up to and how the preparation is going as we move into the new year.

Home again, home again

and going to be jet lagged....

Travelling back bucket class last night I go no sleep on the plane at all and apart from a quick snooze on the chair this afternoon have now been on the go for nearly 30 hours, still best to force my body to adjust and not hit the sack until a respectable time tonight now!

Our flight back was pretty uneventful, though Charlotte does seem to be developing a dislike of flying, each flight it gets a little worse, could prove interesting next year.  We had nearly a four hour stopover in Newark on our way back to Bristol as we did not fancy cutting our bookings fine at this time of year and with the possibility of weather induced delays, as it was the weather was fine and we arrived in Newark early so had the full amount of time to kill there. In reality even that proved pretty painless.

Now we are back in the UK we can seriously start getting ready for Christmas, though looking at what we bought back I am not sure we have much left to buy, before we switch totally back into travel mode for our journey starting mid January.

In my next few posts I will pick up the thread of what we got up to whilst we were up north in the middle of our trip to the USA as promised.

A couple of quiet days a run-around and a COLD experience!

Charlotte went back to Fort Lauderdale with Katie on Sunday afternoon and we found ourselves alone without child for the first time in three months.  It is funny, when she is here she never stops talking and you long for peace and quiet, yet shortly after she was gone it already felt too quiet.

We used the opportunity to prepare for our trip back to the UK this weekend, not only do we have our suitcases to pack, but we also have 3 months worth of 'stuff' to pack away in our house and leave it tidy and ready for rental.  It is amazing how much 'stuff' you accumulate during 3 months.

On Tuesday morning we got up at 6am, drove to Palm Beach to collect Charlotte off Katie, then drove back up to Orlando and straight to Universal studios, there were a number of things we did not manage to do on Saturday and had promised Charlotte a repeat visit to try and fit these in.  The highlight had to be the Suess Landing Show, "How the Grinch stole Christmas".

Wednesday saw more packing then a trip to Gaylord Palms to the ICE! exhibit.  Basically a great big cold store at 9F with over 2,000,000 pounds of carved ice.  Spectacular and well worth the visit, though this was our second visit to ICE and we did not feel the carvings were as intricate as when we went there back in 2004.  After 40 minutes in the freezer you start to feel very dull and are keen to get out but if you are in the area it is well worth a visit.  After ICE we stayed at the hotel resort for a couple of hours and warmed up whilst taking in the various Christmas experiences they have on offer, they certainly know how to shrink wrap a Christmas experience!

A visitor for the weekend

This weekend our three became four with Katie, Charlotte's older sister joining us for the weekend.  Katie is currently doing a year as an au pair in Fort Lauderdale and as she will not be with us for Christmas we decided to give her a mini Christmas before we return to the UK.

On Friday we had dinner in the town of Celebration and then took a horse and carriage ride around the streets, the girls both seemed to enjoy it and we got the initial footage for a new Baggage post whilst we were there.

Saturday saw us all doing the Orlando theme park thing.  We went to Universal and hopped the parks between Universal Studios and Island of Adventure. We started out in Universal with the Simpson's ride as none of us have done it before, though the highlight was the introductory film for the revamped 'Disaster' experience, just how did they do that Christopher Walken film? After a spell at Islands we then ended the day back in Universal and watched the Macy's Holiday Parade and the Manheim Steamroller live on stage.  The concert was fantastic, we all really enjoyed it.

Sunday was our mini Christmas, we got up and had stockings filled with presents, of course we all had to have a stuffed stocking as it would not have been as much fun for Katie if she was opening presents on her own, would it?  Katie then had her 'under the tree' presents and there were also a few in there for Charlotte, it was a good job Santa got the letter in time about delivering the presents early!  After we then had a full 'English' roast Katie took Charlotte back to Fort Lauderdale with her, Charlotte is going to visit there for a couple of nights as she will not be seeing her big sis' for at least 7 months after we return to the UK.  We will meet Katie half way between here and Fort Lauderdale and pick Charlotte up on Tuesday.  A couple of quiet days for us to get on with some of the jobs we have left to do before we leave here and head back to the UK at the end of the week. 

A Day at Busch Gardens

On Tuesday we went to Busch Gardens in Tampa for the day, a well earned day off schooling for Charlotte (or so she tried to convince us!).  It was a little cooler than of late, a mere 62F compared to the temperatures in the mid 70s we have been enjoying.  Cannot complain, it will be much colder than that when we get back to the UK!

The benefit of doing something out of season is there are no queues, we could walk up to pretty well any ride and get straight on, the disadvantage was that some of the rides we wanted to go on were out due to annual maintenance.  In particular we wanted to experience the water section of Rhino Rally, a ride we have managed to miss on previous trips to the park, unfortunately it was not available, the motor had packed up the day before and a new one was in the process of being fitted.  Maybe next time.

Whilst we were there Charlotte recorded a further entry for her video log which I will endeavor to get on line over the next couple of days. 

Yesterday we just chilled, Charlotte attended the 'School of Mom' in the morning and we had a swim in the afternoon, not a long one though as the air temperature hardly rose above 60F all day.

Forgot to mention...

In advance of me getting the information into my blog you can do a bit of catching up on exactly what we have been getting up to by visiting my daughter's website - www.beingbaggage.com

Catch Up

It is December 1st 2008, I am currently in Clermont Florida nearing the end of a 3 month stay in the USA.  Last summer I gave up my job of 23 years and we took our youngest child, Charlotte, out of school in order to get to see a bit of the world.

Whilst in the US we have spent most of our time in Florida introducing Charlotte to the regime of being home schooled.  When possible we have worked to a very strict routine as we know that next year when we are traveling  things will be much more fluid.  We did however take a three week trip up north and visited Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington DC, over the next few weeks I will make a number more catch up posts on what we got up to whilst there. 

We have two more weeks in the sun then we fly back to the UK and our home in the South West for Christmas, mid January the adventure then starts for real as we set out on a seven month journey around the globe, first stop Hong Kong.