Nearly end of road trip report

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One moment I was in New York, the next I'm in San Francisco. Its as if 7 weeks have gone by in the blink of an eye.

The road trip has been hectic. I've had far less free time than expected for blogging duties and learning Spanish (for South American phase, now less than a week away!).

I have seen so much! There is certainly no better way to get around the states than a big gas-guzzling SUV. The flipside is that there have been times when I'd have liked to have spent longer in a place, but we've been forced to hit the road again in order to reach the next destination and ultimately get to Los Angeles on time.

Here are a selection of photos from the journey so far.

PS. I wrote the captions in rather a hurry, so excuse the inevitable spelling errors etc.

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Photos

Reflections
This is a picture of the Crysler Building - probably NYCs finest skyscraper - reflected in the steel and glass building next to it.

Architecture
An example of the fine architecture to be found in NYC. The building in the background isn't bad too.

Empire State view
It was a slightly overcast morning when Tim & I went up the Empire State Building, but the views were still amazing.

Times Square
Times Square is more of an elongated diamond shape. Standing there in the pouring rain, the neon seemed all the more vivid.

Brooklyn Heights
When we set off to cross the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhatten it was a fine sunny day, but about half way across a storm descended from nowhere, as if sent from God, eveloped us in thick grey cloud and totally soaked us. My Goretex shoes did an excellent job of holding the water in and I was squelching around for the rest if the day. It was worth it though.... Brooklyn was beautiful and had a very different feel to Manhatten.

Ludlow, Vermont
We were aiming for Mount Washington, New Hampshire, on our first day on the road, but due to Ben suffering a nasty bout of food poisoning, we were delayed in setting off. By complete coincedence we found a nice motel in Ludlow, Vermont.

First night under canvas
The second day on the road, we made it to the Mount Washington area. All the local campgrounds were fully booked as it was the first week of the holidays, so we were forced to rough it. We ended up in an idylic spot by the river.

Mount Washington
On the third day on the road, we climbed Mt Washington - the highest mountain in north east USA at 6288ft. Here is a picture of me having conquered it...... in our car. If there is anything worth seeing in the US, they spend millions building a road to it and providing fast food restaurants and gifts shops.

Ludlow, MA
Another day, another Ludlow.

Bum
This tramp in Boston was either dead or comatosed. I couldnt believe the amount of people (including cops) who walked past without even looking at him, let alone checking he was OK. There are a lot of homeless in the US, but they seem to be largely harmless. You also see a lot of well dressed people panhandling for some reason.

White House
We spent a few days in Boston, where we watched the Independence Day celebrations. From there we headed to Washington DC, via a night in a motel in Delaware. DC was great. The museums were excellent and we stayed in an area with some really good bars.

Our trusty steed
This is our Ford Explorer, near the start of the trip hence pretty clean. By now (San Francisco) it has the mud of more than 20 states stuck to it and has taken quite a lot of on and off road abuse.

Feeding the pony
The 4 litre V6 provides enough poke to make decent progress on an interstate (and land one a speeding ticket - oops) but with 4 lads and our stuff in it only returns between 15 and 18 MPG. This is only a medium sized SUV too - the bigger V8 Ford Expeditions can do as little as 8 MPG. God Bless America!

Blue Ridge Mountains
From DC we made our way down the Appalachian Mountains, via two scenic routes known as Skyline Drive and the Bluw Ridge Parkway. Together they are 600 miles long, at a rediculous speed limit of 35 MPH! This is where I got nicked for speeding. The scenery was interesting for at least the first 50 miles. This picture is me having done some hardcore rock climbing to reach a spectacular viewpoint.

The Great Smokey Mountains
We spent a couple of days in the national park here, doing a 14 mile hike which ended up being surprisingly hard work due to the constant climbing and descending.

Memphis
From the Smokies we drove all the way across Tennessee in one day to a motel in West Memphis. Memphis was real surprise... there were no Elvis impersonators in sight! Just lots of Harleys and good live music.

Gator
Travelling through Mississippi, the scenery started to change from the woooded hills we'd seen before into something more foreign and more interesting. In Louisana we did an amazing airboat tour of the swamps and later walked down a long boadwalk trail. I was looking across the river hoping to see a gator on the opposite bank when Tim pointed out there was one licking its lips about a metre from my juicy-looking feet.

Texas
Eastern Texas is swampy much like Louisiana, but after spending a couple of nights in Austin, we headed west and the landscape soon became more barren and dusty. This is a typical north western Texas town... wide streets, a few run down looking comercial buildings and no people about.

Oil
I'd like to know how many SUV a small oil pump like this serves. You see these small pumps dotted acrodd to landscape. The really big ones are around the Dallas area.

More Texas
Here's me posing with my new cowboy hat on a bridge over a dried up river of amazingly red sand.

Windmill
I'd been hoping to spot one of these classic irrigation windmills, and one turned up at the perfect moment for a sunset photo. When I got out the car to take it, there was a rustling in the grass and I looked down to see an armadillo looking at me, considering whether to run, which it did.

Comments

[Gem]

Bloody 'f'ing wow!
Ad I am so amazed by what you have seen and done! This blog is wonderful. Take care on the next leg and keep us posted. Love ya!

[Cathal T Scullion]

Pictures
I like the pictures where you have your shirt off the best.

[Rick]

Illiac IV Architecture
Dr Tom Axford is having a retirement do back in Brum at the Dept of Comp Sci - I put your name down....hope you dont mind, I know you admired his work on 4 dimensional hypercubes. Have fun, raise a plastic glass of cheap champers to me. Rick x

[sarah]

to the beautiful boy with the cowboy hat
Can I have your number? S. xxxx

[Loui]

Dor get
Sir Rossalot you look splendid in the cowboy hat, surely the next thing to hit sandpits. Enjoy dude!

[Panwasher]

White Man Look Cool
I know understand the hairstyle works well with a cowboy hat on top. Looking cool. Fantastic pictures mate!!