Jojo October 13th, 2008
We really should’ve stayed on Cape Cod for one more day and driven to the airport directly. Instead we opted for staying a little closer to Boston and drove from Dennisport to Plymouth. We didn’t visit Plimouth Plantation but saw Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower II. After Plymouth we took a more scenic and slower route along the coast, stopped for a little while in Scituate. After that we had planned to stay near Boston, to the south or west of it. The hotel prices got really steep and the ones we had picked before were either full or way to expensive. So after a lot of driving and cursing about the stupid toll-system and the way they use street-signs over here (for every 3 turns where you have to decide there is one sign, or so it seems) we ended up in Framingham, where the only thing left available (and affordable) was a smoking-room, but a very nice one for what it’s worth. This morning we (for the first time) maxed out the checkout-time of 12am and had a long breakfast at a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts before we drove into Boston. We drove through Cambridge just for the fun of it and then through Back Bay, which seemed really nice (and we regretted not having visited it by foot before). The weather today is still really warm, and I’m still only wearing a T-Shirt and shorts. Right now we’re sitting at Logan Airport with a lot of time to kill and no internet.
Update: Guess what, Boston stinks, London rocks. At least I’ve got free internet here and am able to pass some of the 4 hours we have to wait. Another way to pass the time is kindly offered by the british authorities who send you through security even though you’re on a connecting flight and therefore have already been searched by the people on the other side. This also means that the 200ml bottle of water you got on the airplane and you’ve been saving up has to be thrown away…
Jojo October 10th, 2008
Today we spent our second day on Cape Cod. We started a little later and first had a look at the nearby Hyannis. Hyannis has a very long Main Street which is full of shops for about a kilometer up and down. It wasn’t that spectacular so after looking at all the shops we drove back north, stopping at our hotel to drop some groceries. We continued on Route 6 towards Provincetown (which, surprisingly to me was about 33 miles away). Provincetown sits on the northernmost part of the cape and is one of the “bigger” cities. It has a lot of really small and chaotic aligned streets and is packed with shops and restaurant, as was, even now, still buzzing with activity. This also means that it was harder to find ones way and to get a parking spot. After strolling up and down Commercial Street we already had enough and left for the north shore, near Race Point. We discovered the most beautiful beach there and immediately sat down to read a little. It was already getting late and we still had some driving ahead of us in order to get back to the motel, so we had to leave this nice spot.
Tomorrow we will leave Cape Cod in the course of the day and will spend our last whole day in the US.
Jojo October 9th, 2008
I apologize for not writing yesterday, and there wasn’t even a reason except laziness on my part ;). Right now we’re on Cape Cod, the “arm” that stretches out from southern Massachusetts and has a lot of little towns and beaches. We’re staying in Dennisport for three nights, having seen everything we wanted to there was no reason for us to keep pushing on the last few miles (Boston is only 80 miles from here). Cape Cod is a popular vacation destination, and it’s not hard to guess why. The climate here is still very mild (2 weeks ago but farther nord, in Canada, it was much cooler) and the beaches are white. Driving and hiking through here feels like being somewhere in the Mediterranean (or in southern France) and the few houses you see are either motels, ice-cream shops or privately owned little white vacation homes. And since the distances are relatively short, yet the density of trails (for hiking & biking) is high it’s a good place to spend a few days. If one beach doesn’t suit you it’s not far to the next one (or even the opposite side of the cape). Having said that, you have to admit that prices during season are somewhat higher than right now ($15 for the beach instead of, now, free admission).
After we had arrived yesterday we headed for the beach (1-mile drive) and, german as we are, built ourselves a little sand-wall surrounding our spot, but it was just for wind-cover and there was no one else on the beach in any direction.
Today we drove up further north (towards the tip of the cape) and stopped at the National Seashore Visitor Information (an US National Park institution) where a nice ranger supplied us with maps and tips where to go and what trails to hike. We decided to take the Great Island Trail near Wellfleet which was the longest one we could find (and also supposed to be the most beautiful). The trail was quite different from the kind of trails we had encountered in Acadia or in the Adirondacks. It was at no part hard to hike (you could do it in Flip-Flops), it didn’t have elevations and for the most part you could see where you were going to be half an hour later. To put it short, it was a nice walk around the dunes and the beach, but to people with hiking boots who are looking for some exercise and nice vistas it can be disappointing. Especially the long stretch on the beach was stupid since you can’t really walk in the sand for long distances and, let’s face it, it’s pretty boring too.
Tomorrow we’re gonna go to Provincetown and Hyannis (probably), so stay tuned ;)
Jojo October 7th, 2008
You know a state is small when you don’t even bother looking at your gas level after crossing the entire state from west to east. Its also a bit strange that in order to get from the second-largest city into it’s capital, you have to cross another state. But small is beautiful, and this is especially true for Rhode Island, the state we did today. We had stayed in Newport for the night so the first thing we did was drive towards Bellevue Avenue and then take a walk around the neighborhoods (if that’s what you can call it) and finally walked a part of the Cliff Walk along the shore. Newport is known for its many famous mansions, built by rich individuals, but in a lot of cases vacant nowadays. The most popular one is definitely “The Breakers”, a mansion (see photo above) built by the Vanderbilts (just one of many homes they owned). Along with this building other mansions of similar dimensions and grandeur are lined along a few roads (Bellevue being one of them) and along the shore, where you can take the aforementioned Cliff Walk to get a look at them. Unfortunately these buildings are hidden from the street by large hedges, trees and fences, and the fact that the driveway is about 100m long. We still managed to see our fair share of those (and also of downtown Newport which was really nice).
We set of at about noon and headed a short distance north, towards Providence. Not surprisingly we crossed into Massachusetts before we got there, and it is also here that we booked a room for tonight before driving into town. Providence, one of the oldest cities in the US, is the capital of Rhode Island and also its largest city (or its only city, depending on your definition of “city”). It has a nice feel to it and we managed to spend a few hours there. It’s also home to Brown University, another Ivy League institution. Brown is located on a hill and was our last stop for today (did I mention it was really warm?), so we were quite exhausted when we got there and only had a quick look around before returning to our car.
Jojo October 6th, 2008
Mystic Seaport, located in Mystic, CT, is a living museum. I wrote about Upper Canada Village before, so you should be familiar with the concept. What sets Mystic apart is it’s size and the huge amount of wooden ships, either in the water and still functional or as a museum piece in one of the many showrooms. Mystic does not have actors which are dressed historically correct, which is understandable as you can see civilization across the river and it wouldn’t really work in my opinion. Instead they have different demonstrations every half hour (we saw “Help set a sail” and “Fish split”) at different locations throughout the village. The village also has many more buildings, almost all of them in active use, and the buildings are spread over a smaller area, so you don’t have to walk quite as much. I said “active” buildings because there is a lot going on at Mystic Seaport, like sailing classes and also a cooperation with a university where students spend a whole semester at the port and learn different skills in the field of “Maritime studies” (also they have a blacksmith where people still actually learn how to do that, for a living). The dock at the west end of the village lifts huge ships out of the water so they can be repaired and restored. So you can imagine how all of that would be kind of hard to hide would you intend to do so ;)
Katrin and I spent almost 4 hours there (and skipped the last 5 buildings, and of course read only a fraction of all the explanations), and it was well worth the admission. You can see that they keep improving the exhibitions, as they had (at least) two new exhibitions/buildings, (with state-of-the-art technology) since I was there last time.
We’re in Newport, RI, right now and don’t intend to do anything but read for the rest of the day since we’re pretty beat and still have a week left ;)
Jojo October 5th, 2008
On our second day in the beautiful state of Connecticut, we had a look at New Haven (which is just a really short drive from where we stayed last night). So, since we got up early, didn’t have breakfast and checked out early, we arrived in the city when mass was still on in every church and the streets were empty. Also, the tour we wanted to take to guide us around Yale University was scheduled for 1:30pm. We killed some time by walking around the nice inner city, already saw a lot of university buildings and a map which showed us just how much of the city is occupied by the university. When we realized that we couldn’t spend the whole time wandering around (it was raining too), we sat down in the nearest coffee-shop and read for a while.
The tour, like at the MIT, was provided by volunteer students. After a short film about Yale (like an advertisement video), we headed into the “campus”. And I can tell you that even after seeing the MIT, Harvard, McGill and the U-of-T, Yale was in no way boring or same-old. The architecture here was quite different from the rest of the buildings, aiming for old Oxford and Cambridge-like style. Nevermind that most of the buildings were erected in the early 1900s, and that in order to make them look that old the architect burried the stones and shingles in a river, and poured acid down his big clock-tower. The Sterling Memorial Library is what impressed me the most. It looks exactly like a cathedral, everything that is except the tiny details, like not having christian motives on the windows but little people reading and doing science. The inside is simply overwhelming, and so is the library further downstairs and the reading rooms. Katrin and I were more than just jealous.
The only downside is that Yale offers a liberal-arts education only, which did not sound like I was gonna like it ;)
Today it’s gonna be Mystic Seaport, and tonight we’ll probably be already in the state of Rhode Island.
Jojo October 4th, 2008
So we left NY state this morning and headed south-west, using the I-87 south and then switched onto the Massachusetts Turnpike until we hit Springfield, MA. A few exits later we were in Windsor Locks, where the first thing we did was to visit the New England Air Museum near the Bradley Intl. Airport. Although I have seen my fair share of aviation and military museums, this one is definitely worth a visit. The number and variety of different aircraft (civil and military) is overwhelming, as are the sizes of some of their planes. They have everything from small one-man-helicopters, over Hueys, an F-14 to a B-29 Superfortress. Also the have small photo-and-text exhibitions and miscellaneous stuff like Jeep’s, a 1-megaton nuclear bomb and and a large amount of motors and aircraft-guns. All the planes look very well in shape, and not like they haven’t been looked after since they were put of out service. The F-14 was just 3 years “old” (decommissioned 3 years ago), and the oil was still dripping from it. A lot of the planes were in horrible shape (or in pieces) when they were donated, but thanks to a lot of volunteers and donations they were renovated and parts reconstructed in a lovely manner.
After the museum we first got ourselves a room near the airport (right in the flightpath of landing planes). Since it was still early we took the interstate south again and paid a visit to Hartford, CT, where we walked around town and had a look at the really nice downtown and the simply amazing State Capitol building (which was, unfortunately, closed).
Jojo October 3rd, 2008
After a nice breakfast this morning we got ready to leave, and the rain was pouring down. We left for the trail anyway, but missed the route (Sleeping Beauty Mnt.) so we ended up at Pilot Knob, where another trail starts. This trail was a little shorter than the one we had planned but marked as being “difficult” on the trail map (the one we had in plan was “moderate”). So we took the 6.4 mile trail to Buck Mountain (elevation 2000ft, a little less than 700m) and arrived at the summit about 90 minutes later (what a view!). Now, the trail wasn’t that much longer than the one in Acadia National Park, and it wasn’t even steeper, but we were really tired after just half of the distance. And I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not fit and have adequate shoes. Also it was kinda remote and not that much frequented, so that they had a sign-in book at the trailhead where you could sign-in and sign-out in order for people to notice if you actually went missing on one of the trails. We arrived back at our car almost 4 hours after we had departed, and since we were so exhausted and it was already in the afternoon we only made it as far as Albany, where we’ll stay for tonight (the town we’re at is called “Bethlehem”). We decided against crossing over into Vermont for the reason that there isn’t really that much to see and we couldn’t find any halfway inexpensive accomodation for tonight.
Jojo October 2nd, 2008
The Adirondack Park, located in New York state, is the largest park in the US (except Alaska), and covers an area of 24000 km^2 (for comparison: NRW is 34000 km^2). So it’s sufficient to say that we’ve been driving for a few hours today without leaving the park or even traversing half of it. When we left this morning the weather was still shaky with heavy showers from time to time, making it hard to drive. But as we entered the park the weather gradually got better, so when we reached the visitor information center (which took us more than 3 hours driving in the park itself), we felt safe enough to take a short 2-mile hike. After about an hour of hiking (Katrin was annoyed with me because I was whistling all the way, to keep potential bears alarmed) we returned to the road and drove the short distance to the beautiful Lake George, where we got ourselves a room and a nice pizza. Tomorrow we’re gonna try (given that the weather plays along) an 8-mile-hike nearby before crossing into Vermont.
Now, what else can I tell you about the Adirondack Park. It’s simply magnificient, and we liked it even more than the Acadia National Park. Good thing too that right now the Indian Summer is in full bloom. The simple idea that a strip of land as large as this one is inhabited by so few people and covered by so few roads is hard to grasp. Having to tell yourself to fill up the gas because the density of gas stations (or cities or anything for that matter) is pretty low is something special ;).
Jojo October 1st, 2008
I suppose this is the post you’ve all been waiting for ;). Well, today my little honey-bunny turned 23 and what better day than one’s birthday to visit the lovely Niagara Falls. We left Heidelberg and drove straight towards the border and stopped on the canadian side (for those of you who don’t know it: the “big” part of the falls is canadian, and from their site you can only really appreciate the falls). Although I have been there once I didn’t really remember that much, but the main street towards the waterfront looks like Disneyland and the whole place is buzzing with (yes, again) asian tourists. Anyway, the falls were magnificient, and Katrin was impressed as well. We took some really nice photos and then crossed the border into the U.S. We had a lot of ground to cover, so we took the Interstate 90 across New York state which costs some toll but is the only way to quickly do the kinda distance we were looking at. At a service area (which is like the “Autobahnraststätten”) we stopped, filled up and finally found the Roomsaver booklets we had been looking for all this time. With this in hand we found an inexpensive and really good motel in Oneida, NY, which is where we’re at right now. This is probably the best motel we’ve stayed at the whole trip. Tomorrow we’ll try out the Adirondack National Park, provided the weather plays along.
