Road Trip America

The Facts:

• We started out on 1st July 2010.  We flew from Cardiff to Dublin, cleared customs there and flew on to JFK Airport, New York, where we picked up 'The Beast', a black 7 seater Kia Barranga and off we went.
• We drove through 24 States:
• New York; Pennsylvania; Maryland; West Virginia; Kentucky; Ohio; Indiana; Missouri; Illinois; Oklahoma; Kansas; Colorado; Arizona; Utah; Nevada; California; Idaho; Montana; Wyoming; South Dakota; Minnesota; Iowa; Michigan and Ontario, Canada and back to New York.
• We visited at least 17 National and State Parks
• Swam in countless lakes, rivers and reservoirs as well as loads of hotel swimming pools
• We stayed in 38 hotels
• Ate loads of burgers and pizzas
• Altogether we drove 10,257.1 miles
• We got home on Saturday 28th August 2010 - 8 weeks later, elated.
• The song of the trip was, "Hey there Delilah' by the Plane White T's

• Memborable Moments

• White Water Rafting on the Middle Fork of the American River, California.
• Finding the Slot Canyons in Dry Fork Canyon Gulch, Utah - Peekaboo and Spooky Canyons
• Walking on Dinosaurs 167,000,000 year old footprints near Shell in Wyoming.
• Getting stopped by Assistant Chief of police C Farrel who gave Mike a verbal warning for doing 50 in a 30mph zone 
• Celebrating Chris' 18th birthday in Niagra
• Getting Chris' A level results
• Chris and Mike walking up Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
• Visiting Universal Studios, LA
• Seeing Bears in Yosemite and Yellowstone
• Being able to visit the friends we made in the Galapagos.

• Funny Incidents

• Clarkessville - The Sushi Woman - "Do ya think I'm a hick?......  They sell sushi in the Chinese Restaurants, if you like it!" 
• Pennsylvania - Ffion asked in a very excited voice, "Is this where Dracular came from?"
• Chris thought the hotel in Carmel by the Sea was called, 'The Elcome Inn' ............the W had dropped off the greeting sign.
• Car Park Santa Barbara - Mike parked erratically by the pay machine, little Asian woman came out to help, Mike said, "Oh, my arms are too short to reach."  she replied, "No, you park too far away!"  He was very relieved.
• At the Giant Redwood forest, Yosemite, Mike shouted, "Wow, there's a lion!"  As you can imagine it turned out to be the back end of a deer hiding behind a bush!
• On the White Water raft we were sharing a water bottle, Ffion casually said she wanted the water to swill some sick out of her mouth!  Shocked faces but she was having a little joke.........
• Ffion called that famous Geyser in Yellowstone Park, 'Old Reliable' instead of 'Old Faithful'.
• Chris the potential University student turned to Ffion and said, "I'm an illegitimate English student!" woops??? news to me

We all got to know each other much better.  Ffi wasn't impressed though.  She told us she didn't chat to us, just watched telly!  

New York New York - so good they named it twice!

Well, we made it back to New York on Monday 23rd August 2010. We dropped off 'The Beast' in the hire car place and were really sorry to see it go - we had travelled 10,257.1 miles together! and visited 24 states - New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan and Ontario. Our song for the road was 'Hey there Delilah'

We stayed in the Pennsylvania Hotel, beautiful foyer but when you get upstairs it's a little bit tired but is right in the centre of everything. Walking distance to Times Square, The Empire State Building etc and right on top of Pen Metro Station - line 1 took us everywhere we wanted to go!

We spent our first day in the Natural History Museum, which is huge. We took the extra tours following the Astronauts as they prepared to repair the Hubble Space Telescope and then followed them into space - really fascinating. The next tour was in the Rose Centre for Earth and Space, we sat in the auditorium on reclining seats and the screen was a huge dome which reflected the night sky - we then took a tour into deep space - magical.

We also walked through as much of the museum as we could before they closed at 5.45pm. The dinosaurs were the best as a lot of them were the original bones.

We decided to take the free boat to Staten Island which passes the Statue of Liberty because the weather was extremely wet, we didn't fancy visiting the islands. We had a great view and took all the pics we needed. This was also on my birthday - Happy Birthday me x

In the evening Mike had booked a show in the James Theatre off Broadway, we saw American Idiot, a. Because we knew all the songs on the album and b. Because we didn't think it was one which would travel to London and therefore exclusive - it was wonderful and we really enjoyed it.

Our last day in the USA we spent in Central Park. Thankfully the weather was glorious. first we took a rowing boat out and Mike and Chris rowed us around the lake. Ffi had a go too but I just sat back and relaxed - a good thing too with what was to come.

We hired cruiser bikes and set off around the park, we did the full 6 miles around the perimeter on crazy bikes with no brakes - you had to press back on the peddles to slow down and stop - I struggled as the little Asian woman saw, when she was crossing the road at a crossing and I sailed through the red light, dragging my feet on the floor, desperately trying to stop, failing but failed to hit her!!!

On our last night we celebrated at Statlers Restaurant, we had a beautiful meal - Mike had the biggest fillet steak we've ever seen. A fitting meal at the end of a wonderful holiday.

Birthday in Niagara

Well we made it across from the West in a rush. Too long in California! Got to Niagara the day before Chris birthday and realised at 7pm it was midnight at home in the UK, so we went out for a meal to the Skylon Tower to celebrate! Chris was gutted, the age to drink was 19 so he celebrated his birthday with lemonade. We'd bought him a little bottle of Southern Comfort, so we all had a glass as a toast, when we got back to the hotel.

The falls are phenomenal and don't really need any comment.







34,000,000 gallons of water every second!!

On his birthday he decided to go on the Maid of the Mist in disguise

This is where we had the birthday lunch overlooking the falls

This is proving we were there on his birthday - we couldn't catch the whole thing as it was computer generated and refreshed itself every second - ha

Helicopters and Mount Rushmore

It was worth making the de-tour to see this, the four carved heads of the presidents.

On the way we saw an advert for Helicopter rides - well we had to do it, great fun and a 1st....

This is the Indians tribute to Crazy Horse who never made a deal with the Government!

The Indians from our Childhood - The Real Story

We drove up to the Little Big Horn battle field, we didn't know what to expect but we were lucky enough to get a guide who really brought the battle and the area to life.

The leaders were Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

It turns out the whole thing was about gold that the Government wanted from Indian land!

This is part of the Indian rememberance monument - really effective.

Wyoming, slipping into Montana and South Dakota

This is a real dinosaurs footprint, trod on a beach 167,000,000 years ago! We were driving along thinking about lunch when we saw the sign for a Dinosaur Pavement and followed it along a dirt road for only 5 miles. When we got there we spent a long time walking along footprints made millions of years ago - it was quite a thrill!

We all did it - everytime we found a footprint we could find the next one and the next one - bril!

This was the colour of the rock as we drove through

We stayed at the Trails End near

A bril hotel with everything, fab pool as you can see by the nutters behaviour......

We met some Canook Bikers, with their Harley Davidson bikes lined up outside their rooms and sharing their cold beers.
Fab people

This is Ffi and Chris in Cody

Yellowstone - not just another park!

This photo was our coup de gras, we saw quite a few bears but only in the distance but when we were leaving the park by the North East Entrance, this Grizzly decided to try and cross the road - he came really close and didn't look a bit scary until you remember that a grizzly killed a bloke 2 weeks ago!!!

We hunted the park for Moose but his is the only one we found!
This picture is for Fi Leonard who didn't see Moose either! Are there any there?

We visited Mammoth Springs and thought we could only have a look then we discovered we could swim in Boiling River, just where the hot springs come in at just under 100 degrees! This was about 7pm and the steam can be clearly seen rising from the water fall in the back.

We saw lots of Bison but this old fella caught our imagination as he was laying at the side of the road making the cars wait and pull out around him - without a care in the world!

The antlers on this Elk looked too big to hold up!

We were blown away by the colours in the Yellowstone River Canyon.

The Yellowstone River is very fast, with two huge falls.

We also swam in the Firehole river but someone turned the fire off, they didn't turn off the current though which was really fast and fun.

Old Faithful

Of course you can't miss the geysers, which are all over park area inside the caldura.

What a great experience.