Highway 95
Come in Big Daddy, this is Rubber Ducky….We spent most of today driving on up the Interstate from Washington DC to the big smoke -New York-and we shared the road with many a CB wielding trucker and plenty of buses and BIG cars (Americans really like their cars big). For most of the way it’s a sixteen lane highway (they like their roads big too) I had my iPod blasting out a special playlist I’d made, containing songs that mentioned all the places we were driving to and through. There was Allentown, Philadelphia Freedom and James Taylor’s dulcet tones, singing about the New Jersey turnpike. The drive was littered with place names from songs we’ve grown up singing, which was very cool. Being so used to seeing the Aussie bush whiz by as we look out the window on one of our usual roadtrips, it was very different to gaze out and see the beautiful autumnal colours of the big variety of deciduous trees here. We motored through the pretty countryside of Virginia, Maryland, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Jersey, just to name a few.
All along the “interstate” (or Beltway as it’s called in some places- probably because you’re belting along at such high speed) there are signs advertising lodgings, food and gas (hopefully not the food-inducing kind). We decided to exit the mega-highway and investigate the food options on offer. Spoilt for choice, we narrowed it down to McDonalds, Burger King or Taco Bell, each with their own variety of enticing saturated-fat-laden delicacies. In the end, Burger King won out, with delicious Whoppers all round. Our petrol…sorry - gas - stop was fun too. The lady in the petrol station insisting Ross hand over his credit card before he was even allowed to start pumping. She obviously had some serious trust issues. Molly, Sam and I popped across the road to go to the “bathroom” in the Diner - a classic, straight out of Back to the Future, with shiny vinyl booths, stools at the bar and chequered black and white tiles. It even had juke boxes on each of the tables.
If you are thinking of taking this drive in the near future, do make sure you stock up on cash beforehand. We must have spent about $40 in tolls today, each toll a steep $5-$8! Thankfully, unlike in California, the toll booths were all manned by real people so Ross’ life of crime and toll evasion was stopped in its tracks.
The car we had today was pretty fancy too. The kids were quite taken again with the automatically shutting and opening doors. It had nifty little hatches below the floor where you could stash all your bags. Maisy kept herself (and the rest of us) amused by chatting incessantly to us (and herself) all the way in the car. Obviously quite taken with (or terrified by) the haunted house at Disneyland she could still recall every last detail of the ride, able to give us a blow by blow description of the whole thing. Memories of the haunted house, along with the fact that Halloween is looming, with spooky decorations and paraphernalia absolutely everywhere, have caused our youngest daughter to be somewhat uneasy with all things “horror”. When, just in passing, we mentioned ‘Baltimore’, Maisy freaked out, thinking we had uttered the name of he that cannot be named (ssshhhhh…Voldemort) On the plus side and quite amusingly for us all, the occasion has spurred Maisy on towards developing an impressively large repertoire of witches’ cackles.
For the first time, when booking our accommodation for New York, I delved into the wonderful world of online holiday apartment lettings; a little daunting to say the least. Having had close shaves with potential scams, prior to settling for this one, I had been extremely sceptical about it all coming to fruition. Regretting the fact that we had no backup plan, I was unsure of whether our so-called host, ‘Caesar’ would even materialise. As we were approaching the Big Apple, the Empire State Building firmly in our sights, my anxiety levels were increasing…almost as much as the traffic. It was mayhem! Ross did an amazing job of driving through the crazy, busy metropolis, avoiding collisions and remaining calm, despite the cacophony of excessive horn honking from all sides.
Somewhat miraculously, we got to the specified address, buzzed on the door…..and to our great relief, were met by none other than Caesar himself. He introduced himself and proceeded to show us through our home for the next few days. The apartment was incredible - right in the thick of things - with loads of room and great character. We were so pleasantly surprised that it actually looked just like the pictures on the website. “Hail Caesar!!”. The “aportmint” is equipped with three bedrooms - each with a plasma screen - a full kitchen, two bathrooms and a really modern loungeroom. It’s also right in the middle of “Restaurant Row” in Hell’s Kitchen and is walking distance from everything. Ross reckons he could kick a football to Times Square from our front steps.
We walked around tonight to get some pizza and just loved listening to the New York accents everywhere! The pizza joint had exposed brick walls, Mr New York himself – Billy Joel - on the stereo and some authentic Italian New Yorkers asking us what we’d like on our “pizza pies”! We can’t wait until tomorrow when we can have a better look around.
