Flew into JFK on the 18th & collected these 'rentals'
Dodge Durango for me, my son & partners...
A 'stretched' Jeep Cherokee in disguise, 3.6l V6 294 bhp, 8-speed ZF auto
Surprisingly good drive and managed about 30 UK mpg on the highways, (don't ask around town).
Fitted 4 of us + 4 big suitcases and all the other junk comfortably
Dodge Journey for the other 3 family members
A fair bit smaller / slower but no less thirsty despite it's 2.4 4 cyl petrol engine.
Overnight stop in New York, then off to Philly in the morning so I could tick this beast off the bucket list.
USS New Jersey, now a permanent museum / memorial is moored at Camden NJ, the other side of the Delaware from Philly
Always wanted to have a look round a genuine battlewagon, shame we scrapped all of ours. Every bit as impressive as I imagined, even my son was impressed.
View through the windshield.
Overnight in Philly, then a marvelous drive through Pennsylvania and upstate New York, crossing into Canada at Niagara Falls.
The Canadian side is a bit tacky, all casinos & high rise hotels - our room was about the size of one story of our house c/w jacuzzi no less.
Next day spent mainly at Niagara on the Lake, which is much more picturesque and sort of British Colonial-ish.
Lengthy afternoon / evening trudge across Ontario, back into the US at Sarnia, overnight stop in Flint MI.
On to Chicago next morning, passing through Gary IN, the most depressing run-down area we saw.
I'm not a fan of cities, but Chicago was memorable for good reasons and definitely worth a visit. We had sun and 22 degrees, 2 days later they had 3 inches of snow. Mrs Doggy got in some retail therapy and we had a great meal at Chicago's oldest restaurant The Berghoff, which featured great food and this novel sign in the window.....
After 2 days in the 'Windy City' we turned back east, overnight stop just outside Akron OH en route to rural Pennsylvania to visit one of my son's schoolmates who married a local girl he met in London. We spent a great couple of days seeing the 'real America', going bowling, eating in diners, even visited local Amish farms and shops.
Next we went on to Washington DC and I guess did the usual tourist stuff - Arlington Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial, Reflection Pool, Capitol and past the White House.
Atlantic City next which was disappointing, very quiet, waiting for summer proper or maybe a miracle. Then back to NYC to dump the cars for our final 3 days. 10 days and almost 2.5k miles went without a hitch. Easy going as well with 3 of us sharing the driving between the 2 cars.
TBH I didn't like New York - I'm not keen on cities at the best of times and traffic in Manhattan is the worst I've ever seen. Generally it's quicker to walk than get a cab, but we're not all able bodied enough to hike all the time. World Trade Center memorial is poignant and tasteful, well worth a visit, but the museum needed a 2-hour plus wait in the rain so we didn't.
Fifth Avenue had a surprising amount of vacant shops, (though not up the posh end by Central Park), even the Empire State building had vacant retail space at street level. We tried going up to the observation deck on our last night, but the top half was lost in low cloud so no point, (saved $36 a head)!
Needless to say, Mrs Doggy triumphed over these adversities to score some more bargains*
Was dreading the flight home / jet lag, but had a daytime flight so persuade yourself it's 8:45am when you get up a 3:45 and you're back in sync. Worked for me.
Oh well back to work tomorrow.
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