3 weeks Northern USA States

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Northern American States Part 1

In 2008 we spent three months in the USA in preparation for our longer trip, 7 months on a ticket to fly around the globe. The majority of the time in the USA was spent in Florida, however we spent three weeks in the middle of it up in the northern states, this is the first leg of that Journey.



On October 18th we flew from Orlando to Newark, from there we hired a car and drove the seven hours up to Niagara Falls, we stayed on the Canadian side of the falls in the Sheraton on the Falls hotel, very comfortable! If you have never been to Niagara you cannot imagine the experience of standing at the top of the falls and hearing all that water rushing over the rim, neither can you imagine what it is like to stand at the foot taking the spay in your face, until I had experienced it what I imagined did not even come close. Whilst at Niagara we both sailed on the Maid of the Mist and took the walk through the tunnels behind the falls, both of which I would recommend to anyone visiting the area. When on the platform at the foot of the falls Charlotte's plastic mac gave up the ghost and I got some great video footage of her running around the platform trailing her mac and getting absolutely soaked. Luckily it was remarkably warm for the time of year whilst we were at Niagara and even though we all got wet we did not need to rush back to the hotel to dry off. The Falls take on a whole different perspective after dark, floodlight from the Canadian bank in an ever changing sequence of colours the spectacle is very distinct from that you see during the day. We took the opportunity of walking up the bank and observing, plus photographing, the illuminated falls from many perspectives again it was unseasonably warm.

We spent two nights at Niagara after which we drove down for another seven hours to the village of Duxbury, just below Boston on the New England coast. Here we had rented a house for eight nights to use as a base for our exploration of New England. The house was great, very comfortable though possibly a little cluttered. It had been the owners house before he moved out though he had left many of his personal possessions in the house for renters to enjoy, maybe a few too many. At the end of our stay there it was hard to see what was about the house that was ours as there was so much spread about. Whilst at Duxbury we journeyed into Boston, drove to the tip of Cape Cod, visited Mayflower II in Plymouth and Plimoth Plantation and took some delightful walks in the vicinity of our house. Boston is a city I had visited before, though Lisa and Charlotte had not, it is a city I very much wanted to introduce them to and share with them, they were not disappointed. Whilst in Boston we walked the freedom trail, as most tourists in the city do, and took in most of the historic landmarks along its route. We combined this with some history for Charlotte on the American revolution and why it, and wars in general, happen at all. Both the area our house was in and Plymouth presented a great opportunity for teaching Charlotte some American history and the story of the Pilgrim Fathers. We had started this in the UK before we travelled to the states and picked up the thread whilst in this area. We toured Mayflower II and discussed with her the hardship of the voyage and then introduced her to how the newly arrived pilgrims would have lived by taking her to Plimoth Plantation. Again our experiences here did not disappoint, we were very impressed by how thoughtful and thorough the recreations are. Near to the house we had rented was a grave site for some of the early settlers so this also provided a focal point for us to explore and relate to what she had learnt.


Cape Cod was somewhere I particularly wanted to visit having regularly read stories and seen films set along it's shores. We also wanted to explore the links with the West Country in the UK, our own home base, we especially wanted to visit Barnstable, even if they do not know how to spell! We drove from Duxbury out to the tip of the Cape, stopping off a few times along the way. We spent a few hours in Provincetown at the end of the afternoon before we set out to drive back down the other coast. The coastal roads provided some of the best scenery we would see in New England and in many ways the seasonal weather making for a harsher environment added to it, couple that with the amazing colours you see in the trees throughout New England in the fall and it really was a drive to be remembered.

Before heading North we had decided to be more relaxed on Charlotte's schooling for the three weeks and treat it as a mini holiday for her, we therefore did not find ourselves having to make time for lessons everyday and were more able to go out and about. As already mentioned the schooling we did do was in the main relevant to the area we were visiting, thus we could combine a day out with her education. After our time in Duxbury we headed across into Pennsylvania and drove for eight hours again, this time to Hummelstown, a small town adjacent to Hershey, the home of American chocolate. Our time here will be the subject of a later post.

In addition to a great day out Cape Cod also gave rise to my favourite photo from our entire trip, a shot of Charlotte stood in a Pumpkin patch in a new coat we had bought her as the ones we had travelled north in were not substantial enough for the temperatures we had to enjoy.

Part II of our trip up North to follow ...

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