Day 20 – Introduction To The Great Plains |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:56 |
Today was our last day in a city for a while! Neither of us particularly enjoyed Minneapolis but we are hoping we can handle being away from large settlement for the next 10 days or so as we travel to Salt Lake City. After preparing some lunch for the road we headed off on our trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. ... |
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Day 19 – The Twin Cities |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:54 |
So it turns out there’s a reason why the car number plates here are so homogeneous – there isn’t much to do in Minnesota! We started the day with high hopes that Minneapolis would be a great city that we could talk about since not many people come up here. However, after driving around the city centre for little more than 5 minutes we realised there wasn’t going to be much to talk about. ... |
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Day 18 – Minnesota, Land Of 10,000 Lakes |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:52 |
The main part of our day today was completing the drive to Minneapolis from Chicago. We made a packed lunch for the drive in Wisconsin Rapids and then set off. The drive was mainly past forests and dairy farms. There were a number of times when the smell of cheese was overpowering – Wisconsin definitely lives up to its name of ‘America’s Dairyland’! ... |
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Day 17 – A Boat Tour And Driving North |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:51 |
This morning was our last waking up in the superb Motel 6 of Arlington Heights. We decided to drive to the city today because we were going to the pier which had no metro stations near it, and the over ground trains cost even more than city parking! Chicago was a relatively easy city to drive in (and probably the only one of its type we will be passing since I didn’t drive in New York). ... |
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Day 16 – The Windy City |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:45 |
Today was the earliest start in a while because we wanted to catch the 9.29 commuter train from our Chicago suburb. The trains had a novelty factor because they are double decker, but we were let down by it breaking down and delaying us 20 minutes before reaching the final station! ... |
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Day 15 – Happy Labor Day! |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:28 |
Yes the title is spelt correctly. For some reason they miss out the ‘u’ here! Labor day is a nationwide bank holiday which is meant to signify the end of summer and was traditionally the last day of the summer holidays for schools. Apparently nowadays most schools go back in late August instead, but I guess a day off is still nice to have. ... |
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Day 14–Cleveland, The Birthplace Of Rock And Roll |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:18 |
The morning started off slower than planned. The first thing we did was drive around a few banks (some are open on Sundays here) to cash travellers cheques, but no luck there as we aren’t account holders. We also had a browse around a couple of large supermarkets, where James finally purchased some weights which he had been missing since our arrival! ... |
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Day 13 – Thundering Falls And A Tour Of The Rust Belt |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:16 |
The day began with us both waking in Canada for the first time in our ridiculous motel 6 room (it had a jacuzzi right in the middle of the bedroom area). We started out by heading up the Skylon tower for an amazing panoramic view of both the American and Canadian falls, as well as the surrounding areas. ... |
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Day 12 – Driving On The Wrong Side Of The Road |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:10 |
Today was the start of the second part of our trip – the (roughly) 5,000 mile road trip from Washington DC to Los Angeles. ... |
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Day 11 – End Of The First Chapter |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:08 |
Day 11 and our final day in Washington and without a car! We decided to take things slowly since the next few days will be very busy until we reach Chicago. We woke about 11 and then didn’t actually get out the house until about 1.30. Our first stop was the local AAA office to get some maps. Cindy and Glenn are members so they get given free maps of any city, state or region anytime! ... |
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Day 10 – Some History And Some Laughter |
Friday, July 13, 2012 - 00:07 |
Today was the earliest start in a while because we had to be at the White House by 9.30. The security was pretty tough – Cindy had a small bag with her and they wouldn’t let her in! Luckily she had been before but it was still a shame. We had our passports checked twice and weren’t allowed to take anything except some money and a phone, which had to be turned off. ... |
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Day 9 – Monuments and Museums |
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 19:27 |
Today was the third day in DC. We started the morning by taking a trip up the five hundred and fifty foot (ish) high Washington Monument! Only ten people can be in the elevator at a time so we had to wait a while in the heat for our turn. It took around 30 seconds for the elevator to climb the monument, and once at the top we observed amazing views of the city for forty miles around. ... |
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Day 8 - Sight seeing in 36 degree heat |
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 19:21 |
Today was our first day of proper sight seeing in Washington DC and we started out by getting the metro to the city centre. The metro system here is deep tunnel like London but half the price and they have managed to work a full air conditioning system into the trains and tunnels – something to think about Boris! ... |
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Day 7 – America’s Favourite Pastime |
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 19:08 |
So now we have been here a full 7 days and it really doesn’t feel like that long. ... |
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Day 6 – It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia |
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 18:58 |
Today we spent the day on a whistle-stop tour of Philadelphia’s best downtown sites. The weather was amazing all day – about 30 degrees consistently so that really added to the experience. ... |