Hit the road

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It’s been a couple of days since the last blog, so there’s a bit to catch up on. My reasons for falling behind will become apparent.

I got up on Monday morning, packed and caught a cab down to the car hire place. I picked up the car no problem and was off. Fortunately it was Labour Day so there wasn’t a lot of traffic about. First problem was that my GPS was still in kilometres but I changed that once I stopped in Lexington.

Lexington is just outside Boston so I was there in under half an hour. It’s a picturesque little town. I found a carpark, parked there and got out to have a look around. I soon found the visitors centre, had a look in there and talked to the lady. As I had limited time, she suggested I head over to the Lexington Green, where the local militia first confronted the British red-coats. It was there that the so-called “shot heard around the world” occurred.

I headed over there and listened to the volunteer who was dressed up in period costume. He was talking about the events of April 19th 1775 and, besides the lady who kept chiming in with comments, it was quite interesting.

I decided to keep moving, but first I wanted to grab something to eat in town because I hadn’t had breakfast. Most places were closed, and only coffee places seemed to be open. The only one of these that sold breakfasty food was Starbucks so I grabbed something and then went back to the car.

My next stop was the Minuteman museum. The minutemen were the best trained and equipped militia men who were supposed to be the first to respond to action. It was these men that first confronted the British troops on their march to Concord where they were looking for illegal weapon caches. The museum is also the visitors centre for the Minutemen national park. The park contains various walking trails that visit the important places between Lexington and Concorde. I didn’t have time to walk all of the trails, so I looked around the museum and watched the movie there. The movie was very well done. The theatre had more than one screen; a map with LED’s to show where the various people and forces were; and various props to make it look like it was a period home.

From there, I headed to Concord. It was in Concord that the Americans gathered enough men to actually confront the British on an equal footing. This they did at the “north bridge” so that was where I headed. I parked in the first carpark I saw near where the GPS told me the bridge was. I walked down and had a look. The bridge there now is a reconstruction and not an accurate one because the original was flat. The river is used now so they had to rebuild it with a raised centre. There were various monuments and, interestingly, one to the British soldiers that were killed there.

Again, there was a volunteer in period costume, but this guy was not very helpful. So I walked up to the Visitors centre and had a look around. I probably should have parked up there and then walked down to the bridge, but no matter. There wasn’t a lot at this visitors centre, but what was there was pretty good.

Then I had to drive across Massachusetts to my hotel in Albany, NY. The good long drive was helpful to get me more accustomed to the driving thing. One thing that really spun me out was the “service centre” beside the freeway that I stopped at for lunch. I could not believe how many American flags they had there! They lined a walkway, and were all over the outside walls. There’s so many US flags on display here. If you were somehow magically transported to the US and had no idea where you were, it would only take a minute to work it out. The things are everywhere.

Anyway, I reached Albany, checked in and dropped off my luggage in my room. Then I was off to visit some friends I’ve played online games with for years. They live about 90 minutes out of Albany in a small village in rural NY – in the Catskill Mountains. It really is beautiful scenery in NY State. I was a bit late in arriving, but I got there and spent a nice few hours having dinner and talking with April and Steve. It was great to meet them in person after knowing them for so long – over 5 years, in fact! I got back to the hotel after midnight and went straight to sleep.

The next morning I was heading north from Albany. I needed fuel so I did that, bought a bite to eat on the road and headed up to Saratoga (actually, the town is now called Schuylerville). The road went alongside Saratoga Lake, which again made for some great scenery. I headed to Saratoga National Park which is where a very important battle was fought in the Revolutionary war in 1777.

Again, the Visitors centre was part museum. As it was not a public holiday there were far fewer people around this time. I talked with one of the rangers and he told me all there was to see, and about the battle. He said most sites I will go to for the revolutionary war will claim to be the turning point of the revolution, but he believed Saratoga was because the American victory there convinced France, Spain and the Netherlands to join in the war against Britain. There was another really interesting movie to watch, although this time it was just a movie and didn’t have all the extras that were at the Minuteman museum.

I purchased a CD tour guide of the battlefield and then headed off in my car to look around. It was well done too, with a talk about each of the stops around the park and some music played while you’re driving between the stops. One of the stops had a volunteer there and I talked with him for a while. Apparently, of all the people he had talked to that day, I had travelled the furthest. This particular stop was at the American fortifications, which were designed by the Polish military engineer Kosciuszko. I asked the fellow there about Kosciuszko, because I was curious if it was the same guy that Mount Kosciuszko was named for in Australia. He didn’t know, but I’ve since looked it up and it is the same guy.

I spent way more time at Saratoga then I expected to. My next stop was at Fort Ticonderoga, which was an hour and a half drive north. So I had to cut short the tour of Saratoga and left a bit after 2pm. Again, the drive was through some beautiful scenery, particularly because there are a few lakes in the region.

Fort Ticonderoga has quite a history, being originally built by the French but then being taken by the British, then the Americans. It changed hands a couple of times between the Brits and the Yanks too. It’s a very strategically located fort, overlooking Lake Champlain. The lake, Lake George and the Hudson river was, in the old days, essentially the best route to travel between Canada and New York.

I arrived at the Fort just in time for the last guided tour. Again, there was a fellow in period costume and he gave the tour. The fort is actually privately owned and not a national park site. The tour was informative and afterwards there was just time to look around and take photos before it closed at 5pm. I then went into the town of Ticonderoga and had a late lunch/early dinner before I embarked on a 3½ hour drive to my accommodation for the night. When planning, I honestly thought I’d be leaving much earlier because I had no idea there would be so much to see at Saratoga.

I chose Watertown as my overnight destination because that would give me a nice drive through the forested mountains of upstate New York. And the first couple of hours gave me exactly that – it was a fantastic drive. Then it got dark and there was nothing to see. And it rained. And rained. And boy did it rain! The wipers on the hire car are not great so it was actually a bit scary, really. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I wasn’t going to get there until after 9pm so I didn’t slow down as much as I should have. But I got there in one piece and it was still raining very heavily. I checked into the hotel and went to bed pretty quickly.

The next day (Wednesday) I took it much easier. The rain had gone and it was a fine day so I had a much more leisurely drive. To this point I had been listening to various radio stations as I travelled. At first it was quite interesting, particularly the public radio stations. However, in some places I could only get religious channels, right-wing Fox news or crappy music. And as I travelled, I kept having to search for a new channel as I went out of range. So I decided to drop into a book store and buy some audio books to listen to. One of the public radio stations had a discussion about them and that sounded like just what I needed. I bought three books about American history for a total of 30+ hours of listening. I’m currently half-way through the second one, but the first I listened to was the shortest.

Anyway, I then made my way to Niagara Falls. I had to cross over to Canada because everything I heard was that the falls are much better on that side, and that was where my hotel was. I crossed the border and headed to the hotel. I checked in and figured I probably didn’t have time to see the falls before I had to head off to dinner at Burlington. Again, I was meeting up with some online gaming friends. These two, Jim and Pam, live in Toronto so we had agreed to meet in Burlington as that would be half-way between for us. The drive was 50 minutes and I arrived a bit early, so I headed down to the shore of Lake Ontario for a couple of photos. It’s quite impressive to see a lake that’s so big (and it’s not the biggest of the great lakes!). It was like an ocean, really. Again, I had a great night meeting in person people that I had known for a few years.

And that brings me to today. I got up, had breakfast and checked out of the hotel before heading down to see the famous Falls. I walked down there from the hotel, and I have to say, the town is pretty much as close to hell on earth that I’ve ever seen. It’s full of cheesy touristy crap including at least 3 wax museums that I saw (Legends of Rock Wax Museum, Movie Legends Wax Museum and Louis Tussauds). It really was a disturbing place and I don’t recommend it at all. Fortunately, the Falls were impressive. I walked along from one waterfall to the other (there’s 3 – the American Falls, the Bridal Veil Falls and the Horseshoe Falls) taking photos. Then I bought a couple of postcards and got the hell out of there.

Not only was it a shithole of a place, but I had a long way to drive down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The drive, once I crossed the border, was through great scenery again. I went through rural Pennsylvania and it was a great drive. When I got some fuel, I was momentarily a bit nervous when a tattooed redneck walked over to me, but it turns out that it was a “full service” station and he worked there. I had already started pumping the gas myself, but he just wanted to check that I was alright and didn’t need help.

Not much else of interest happened on the drive, but I really can’t emphasise how great it’s been driving through New York and Pennsylvania. The forests and mountains are amazing to drive through, even on the expressways. I arrived in Harrisburg at half past six, checked in and then had a delicious dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Tomorrow I will be heading to Gettysburg, taking a slight chronological detour into the American Civil War.

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Photos

The car
A Volkswagon Jetta

Minuteman statue
At Lexington Green

American and Bridal Veil Falls
At Niagara

Horseshoe Falls
At Niagara

Comments

[Jenny]

What beautiful scenery where you were! Niagra Falls look absolutely stunning and I love the pic of the road to Saratoga Park. Don't know how you drive on the wrong side I'd end up having an accident I think!

[deejayvee]

It's really not that hard - driving straight is easy, it's only when turning corners that you have to think about it. Besides, most of the time there are other cars to follow. The biggest problem I have is that I still go to get in the passenger seat because the driver's seat is on the other side of the car!