Back on The Mother Road, Route 66

We have driven past lots of cool things on Route 66 including, the Muffler Man, who is actually holding a Hot Dog!, the worlds largest covered Wagon, a Watermellon Monument, a Wagon Inn Motel, the Jesse James Wax Museum and the worlds largest Rocking Chair. This road is amazing and was the original road that pushed west through the USA, it's also the one that features in the Grapes of Wrath. Today I got up and am watching the sun rise. I feel pretty lucky to be on this trip. It really is a trip of a lifetime!

Chicago, Milwaukee and St Louis

On our way to Chicago we went to Warren Dunes, an amazing place on the edge of Lake Michigan, it was weird as they had sea gulls, white sand dunes, and waves, though it was fresh water!! No salt for the first time in my life I got out from a swim dried off and felt like i had been in the shower! It was great.

From there we drove to Chicago, like New York, London and Paris, Chicago is expensive, and as we only had two days there I wanted to supprise Bec with a cheap hotel, well for $25 extra a night I got a sale room at the Hilton! Right in downtown, thought Bec would love it. Unfortunately we fought a lot there, we were still trying to pay off a chunk of money that had carried over from France and it kinda felt like we were going into the red more. As well as that we were getting pretty home sick by this point. Sometime you just fight in a traveling relationship! It's just reality. But we managed to enjoy the last day in Chicago a lot and then headed around to visit Jayden and Cas in Milwaukee. We had a great time with them, after that we headed down Route 66 to St Louis.

In St Louis we saw the Arch, the Chain of Rocks Bridge, Lancelles Landing and Six Flags, we got to catch up with a really interesting couple Robert and Pauline from the Queen Mary 2. They are a couple who direct and stage manage plays in St Louis. Their current one is about Sexual Predators in society, with tasor scenes and such, sounded really edgy. They were soo generous with us and if it wasn't for them we would have seen less than half of real St Louis. Six Flags was great, Bec and I rode rollercoasters and screamed a lot! I rode the batman ride and a crazy old one 'the screaming eagle' 3 times in a row each, as there was no ques due to school being back, haha suckers!

On our way to Detroit

We drove and camped in our tent through Tennessee, Kentucky, indianna, Ohio and Michigan, we got to stay with our friends Phil and Jen as had a great time with them and their twin sons, we saw some great art and culture in Detroit, and thoroughly enjoyed it! 

The Appellation Trail

We headed down the appelatian trail all the way down to Chattanooga Tenessee through West Virginia, Pensylvania , Virginia, North Carolina, and Tenessee. We also went through the Smokey Mountains and did some of the dragons tail road. We then dipped down through Georgia and Alabama. Now it was time to head back up north after some southern food.

New Jersey and New York again

Just had a great time in upstate New Jersey, where we stayed in a real 'American Chestnut ' log cabin, went on motorbike rides, saw revolutionary and civil war weapons, and was given a rare Rolling stones record worth $270! By a complete stranger!

In new York we went to David Letterman, stayed a night in the Marriott Hotel, drove down through manhattan on a Friday in Peak hour over a Bridge that was on fire and stayed more with our friends on Long Island

Time to start our USA roadtrip for real!

Ok well we bought a car! Soo cool, though it freaked us out for the first few weeks because one:  we hadn't driven a car for 9 months! Two: we have to sell it in 3 months, ahh and three: it's on the wrong side of the road!!! So after 9 months of not being responsible for anything traveling, just sitting on the train bus, tuk tuk etc, it was time to drive again. But the upside of all that was freedom!!!! We can do what we want, stay where we want and go anywhere, so we are now USA drive adjusted and loving it!

New York, Maryland, Delaware and DC

We started out USA adventure in New York, Long Island specifically, with friends of Dad and Debs, Heidi, Andy, Joe, Vince and Noel. They were all soo lovely to us and we became good friends in the two times we were there.

We then went down to Delaware for a week and a half, then to Ocean City, Maryland, and after that we went and couch surfed with a cool family on Fort Belvoir in Washington DC! It was a great place to start our USA adventure.

The transatlantic crossing

Well after an amazing time in England including London, Hull, Scarborough, Hastings and York, then a quick trip to Scotland, we set sail on the Queen Mary 2 from Southampton to New York.

We had to buy formal attire, though we loved every minute of the voyage! We met wonderful people, and felt blessed to have a week to relax and be taken care of, it was like a holiday from our holiday. As those of you who travel know, backpacking can get tiring from time to time. And when we factored our daily budget in, the cruise only cost us an extra $100 for the week! Well worth snapping up the sale fares when we were back in Vietnam!