Saturday, 18th July 2009

Washington DC to New York City. 225 miles on a train.

As I mentioned, I thought our train left at 11am but when I got up at 8:40am I double-checked the ticket and it was for 10:20am. Oops. We (I) still had to pack everything!! So I babbled something to Hubs about making us peanut butter sandwiches and started throwing things in our bags. We got on a bus and thankfully there wasn’t much traffic, and we arrived at the station at 10am. Nice one! Jumped on the train no probs and even got a double seat that no one sat opposite us in. Score! I love travelling by train. It’s so relaxing and there’s so much to see! We went underground just outside of New York and didn’t resurface until we hit our hostel, so it really was amazing when we poked our heads out from underground!

Our hostel was not far from Central Park, so that was on our agenda for the afternoon after we’d checked in. It was everything I’d imagined, and more.

(Do yourself a favour and have a listen.)

We headed towards town and found a quaint little restaurant and ordered a couple of beers and some dinner.(Hubs looks so tanned!!)

 I had a crab cake and Hubs had the ostrich burger. After another couple of beers + tax + tips we had had a $50USD meal. Again, not the best value (we weren’t that full) but we WERE in New York after all. Oh and they had paper table cloths! So Hubs got busy drawing our dream home that we’re going to build one day.

 
Afterwards we just headed back to the hostel to make some friends but there weren’t many people around so we just chilled out with whoever happened to pass through the common room. A great first day in New York City!

Friday 17th July, 2009.

A second day of sight-seeing in Washington DC.

Today we had a better start after a fairly good night sleep. The Hostel really was dirty and kinda gross, but what it lacked in cleanliness, it made up for in character. Oh, and free peanut butter and bread! We set out for Capitol Hill once more, and this time we were more prepared!

 
All the Museums and Monuments are free in Washington which really is wonderful, but they only give out a certain number of tickets each day, so we cued up for our tickets and really didn’t have to wait that long. We went on a guided tour that was really interesting and well presented. We then lined up to sit in the Gallery of the House and listened to a Bill being debated. They (opposition??) were proposing a $700million mustang conservation project. Mustang the animal, not the car, that is! It didn’t get passed.

We left and sought out a McDonalds to do our McDonalds taste comparison. I got a cheeseburger and Hubs got an Angus Burger that hadn’t been introduced in Australia at that stage. My cheeseburger tasted the same as back home, though, it seemed to have a bit more onion in it. It was goooooood! Hubs’ Angus Burger was pretty good too. An unexciting yet necessary experiment!

We had met a guy at the hostel named Aaron who is from Oregon and he was keen to come to a baseball game with us, so we set out to watch the Nationals take on the Chicago Cubs.

And here they are! It was awesome! They had the dinky organ music and everything!

Here’s us drinking the ridiculously over-priced beers out of aluminium pint tins. ($7USD each!!)

Luckily for us, Aaron was on a work junket and had a meal allowance, so he was quite happy to buy some beers and curry chips to share!

We were going for Washington and it was a really great game, but I think they lost pretty convincingly! Oh well. So much fun!

I think baseball in the US has gone the way cricket in Australia has. You used to be able to go to the cricket for $10-$15, sit in the sun and drink cheap beers and have a fairly cheap and entertaining day. Now with all the new fancy-pants stadiums and alcohol regulations, it can turn into a very expensive evening out. But we did have a great time with our new friend, and afterwards we headed back into town to grab a beer. This was easier said than done! After wandering around for about an hour and a half, we finally found a place (reminded me of the Belgian Beer Cafe in Brisbane) and had some fancy beers (I had raspberry! YUM!) and then went home.

I thought we had to catch an 11am train the next day, so I set my alarm for 8:30am. I should have double-checked the tickets. To be continued……

A few of you have asked for this, so here it is!

View Larger Map

Wednesday, 15th July 2009 – Smoky Mountains, TN to Washington, DC. 488 miles.

This was our last day with Sally (original, I know) and it was a beautiful day for driving. We set off around 9:15am for our last leg on the road and enjoyed every beautiful minute of it. Hubs had been trying to get this shot (unbeknownst to me) for 3 weeks and he FINALLY got it on our last day!

Can you see us?? Can you?
And another “reflective” shot 🙂

We stopped for lunch at some random truck stop along the way and had delicious burgers and iced tea and then we hit the road again. We then stopped at a rest stop for one more round of photos.

Aaaaah Sally. You gave us a great ride you sexy thing, you!

We didn’t really want to be getting into Washington too late as to avoid the peak hour traffic, and this is what we witnessed coming OUT of town:

And this traffic went on for miles and miles and miles. Better them than us I gotta say! And no wonder, with these ridiculous regulations:

THAT’S their idea of HIGH OCCUPANCY?? Woah.

As we got further into town, I started getting nervous as we still had the top down and I’d heard lots of bad stories about violence in Washington D.C. (Almost as helpful as “careful of the bears”…) Hubs thought I was being ridiculous, as it was still day time (about 7pm I think??) and there were people EVERYwhere. Actually, my first impression of DC was that it was really pretty and lots of fun! Regardless, I still “made” Hubs pull over to put the top back up.

I then tuned in to the local radio station and heard this:
“Following the shooting on Louisianna Avenue this afternoon, the following roads have been affected….”
Hubs: “What street do I need to turn down?”
Wifey, looking at the map: “Ummmmm… Louisianna Avenue….” *gulp*

We drove right past all the commotion and I tried ever so discreetly to take these photos. And I was like “well, if they shoot me, it will be one HELL of a story! HA!” We arrived at the hostel with minimal fuss thanks to my awesome navigating (I’d come a long way since Day 1 in LA) and Hubs’ brilliant driving and general ability to stay calm.

We checked into the Capitol City Hostel which I had pre-booked (incidentally it was only one of 3 or 4 hostels in DC and the ONLY one that had beds available for both of us for the entire stay) and were very warmly greeted by the owner, Bill. The hostel boasts free peanut butter and bread and milk for all guests, which of course is a great selling point! Ahem, shame about the cleanliness. Oh well. It was only for a few days! (The comments on that link were made in 2006. I don’t think it’s been properly cleaned since!!)

We decided to just have a night in with the residents and had some pretty good chats to a few cool people. Gosh I don’t even remember what we had for dinner. Peanut butter on toast perhaps?? We had to drop off the car first thing in the morning so it wasn’t a big night. I felt like this was the start of another adventure for us without Sally, and I couldn’t wait for it to start!

Total miles travelled: 4204 miles = 6765km. WOO!

More adventures in the Smoky Mountains.

We were pretty knackered after our big ride but it was only about 2:30pm and we had lots more to do! We drove to the start of Grotto Falls which had been recommended by the owners of the campsite and started the short-ish walk.

I was still on the look-out for bears and I wasn’t taking ANY chances. We were told just to make sure we make lots of noise while we’re walking. And so I did.
(You can blame Hubs for the orientation! 🙂

It drove Hubs crazy, which, you know, made me want to keep doing it! And lucky I did too!

The falls were beautiful but I was still nervous so after Hubs had taken a gazillion shots, I suggested it was time to head back.

Thankfully it was all downhill on the way back so it didn’t take too long. We went in search of a nice spot to watch the sunset but we got caught in traffic and lost track of the time so we just saw glimpses of it through the trees. This was the cause of 1 traffic jam we got caught in.

This is, clearly, the worst photograph of bears EVER taken. But we were excited that we did actually get to see a bear (or 2), AND I was particularly excited that it was from the (relative) safety of our car. Then of course we had to find somewhere to eat again which proved tricky. AGAIN! We ended up just grabbing some bread and sardines and potato chips at a place down the road from the campground and got home just after 10, completely exhausted and ready for beddy-bise!

Smoky Mountains. 11 Miles on a bike, among other things!

After an AMAZING night sleep, the owners of the campground told us we could have the cabin for the 2nd night for the price of a tent site!! WOO HOO! (We had already packed everything up but we didn’t mention that! We just unpacked everything again! SCORE!)

We set off around 9am and headed up to the highest point of the Smoky Mountains, at 6643 feet up, Clingmans Dome. It was quite a drive and as we got higher and higher we got colder and colder but we refused to pull over and put the roof up. I think we even had the heater blasting us at one stage! Shocking! 🙂

We parked in the car park and walked the final half a mile up to the look-out. Half a mile is only about 800m but it was hard-going! We reached the top and the view was pretty special. We also passed part of the Appalacian Trail along the way. You can probably guess what Hubs has added to his “things to do before I die” list!

We then drove back down into the warmth of the morning and headed to Cades Cove. Hubs had read about hiring bikes and riding the 11mile one-way loop so we arrived and looked into it. Although I’m not really much of a bike-rider, I thought it would be a fun thing to do so we signed up. Before we headed off we bought a couple of burgers for lunch and to fuel our journey and then we set off!

It was a pretty tough ride at times, particularly as we were riding the 2 DODGIEST BIKES IN THE WORLD!!!! Here they are looking all innocent and useable. Mine kept changing gears randomly, particularly going up hill. Aaargh!

It was hard-going sometimes sharing the road with all the cars and not very nice getting a lungful of fumes, but I’m glad we took up the challenge. It took us about 3 hours all up and about 6 bottles of water. Here we are, happy and exhausted:

To be continued in Part 2…

Monday, 13th July 2009 – Tuscaloosa, AL to Gatlinburg, TN. 424 miles.

I’m so glad I wrote down today’s journey as we went, as there’s no WAY I would have remembered the route that we had taken! Before we left the dodgy Motel 6, Hubs was looking at our huge book of maps of the USA from Walmart, and thought it might be nice to take the scenic route up through the Smoky Mountains. Heck yeah baby! I had booked us in to Smoky Bear Campgrounds for the night and I had mentioned we might not arrive til 8pm or so, so we had the whole day ahead of us. Except that we lost another hour crossing a time zone, but we left at 10:30am local time and changed time zones not long after.

We stopped in at Chatanooga for some supplies (mainly a 2L bottle of Smirnoff Blueberry for a measley $25USD) and left around 3:45pm. We still had a fair way to go at this stage, but with 4 or 5 hours of daylight left, we didn’t think much of it. The scenic drive was TOTALLY worth it. We went through Cherokee National Park which was gorgeous, then along the Cherohala Scenic Skyway. It was a very bendy road so we could only travel about 30-40mph. This proved interesting later on!

(Hubs and his naked shots!!) It’s hard to believe that all of those photos were taken within a few hours. The scenery kept changing!

As I mentioned, the roads were full of twists and turns…

Our drive took us through the Foothills Pathway which was quite secluded and really beautiful. We caught a gorgeous sunset as well!

As the daylight was slowly fading, I kept thinking “we must NEARLY be there”, and I must admit, once 8pm rolled around and we still seemed to have a little way to go, I started to get a little anxious. After all the times people had said “You’re going to the Smoky Mountains? Well, be careful of the bears!!” I really wasn’t at ease. I didn’t want to be setting up at tent in the dark with the possibility of bears poking around. Hubs was doing his best to calm me down, reminding me that there were OTHER people who said that there was really nothing to worry about, and that he wasn’t worried in the slightest.

We finally got to Gatlinburg around 9:15pm and I thought we must be really close! But the campground was on the other side of the town (the town was absolutely buzzing by the way!) so we kept driving… and driving… and I kept getting more and more anxious… and finally we arrived, at 10pm, and it was very very dark. I asked Hubs if we could ask if they had a cabin and he gave me the go-ahead. I went to the office and they actually offered us the only cabin left – the Baby Bear cabin. We said we’d take it for 1 night and then set up our tent for the 2nd night. And I asked them:

“Do we need to be wary of bears?”
to which they responded:
“Well, we’ve been running this place for 6 years and have never seen a bear in this area.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Hubs: “Seeeeeee???? I TOLD you so!!!” Yeah, fair call.

So after quite a stressful day (brought on myself, mind you) we had some vodka and snacks for dinner and had a great night sleep, not thinking about bears at all…

Sunday, 12th July 2009 – Cruising around N’Awluns (that’s how the locals pronounce it) and then from N’Awluns, LA to Tuscaloosa, AL. 306 miles.

We started our day by packing up and saying goodbye to Lamonthe House. It was okay but I wouldn’t rush back to stay there. This was the courtyard outside our room and the pool in the background:

Our friend Four who we know from Newman College but who is originally from Alabama came and picked us up and took us out to lunch. Four is just full of knowlegdge about, well, most things, and having lived in New Orleans for a few years, he was able to give us a great tour of the town. He took us through some very swanky neighbourhoods, past the round church (so the devil can’t corner you), and out to a landmark New Orleans Eatery:

And the food was SO GOOD. Not crazy big servings which was good. Just cheap and really delicious. We had to wait in line for half an hour or so to get in there, but it was totally worth the wait!

After lunch, Four took us for a drive around the Ninth Ward and other Katrina-affected areas. It was pretty sad but I was actually really impressed with all the work that had been done in the last few years. Nothing like what I was expecting after the things I’d heard. I won’t go into too much detail, but things are looking up for the city, and it’s previous occupants are slowly moving back and starting again.

The temporary trailers supplied by the government for people to live in while they rebuild. Some of them are still there.

A lot of the cars that were abandoned/wrecked during the floods. There were hundreds of them.

So yeah, still a lot to be done, but New Orleans is still thriving and is a great place to visit! We were really fortunate to have Four show us around, as it gave us a real insight to the city, the people, and the history. Thanks Four!

We hit the road for Alabama around 3pm, but mostly had the roof up as it was looking pretty bleak. Lucky too, as we got caught in a torrential downpour!

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced rain like that! We had to pull over cos we just couldn’t see in front of us. Funnily enough, a few miles ahead, the road was dry!! So weird! We didn’t really know where we were staying that night – we thought we’d play it by ear. We rocked up at Tuscaloosa and thought it was as good a place as any so, for some unknown stupid reason, we chose the Motel 6 just off the highway. There were a few hotels in the vicinity and we did actually go in to them and check them out, but Motel 6 was the only one with a laundry and, well, I had to do the washing that night. So we booked in. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy????? It was so rubbish. Do you want to hear about it?? DO YOU??

Well this post is too long so I’m going to do a part 2…