Sunday, June 26, 2011

New York to New Hampshire (Day four Maine trip)

June 13, 2011 Monday



New York to New Hampshire


Woke up around 8:00am, had breakfast at the hotel and headed to Vermont


for a night of camping (yea right) anyway we got on the road late, somewhere around 10:00am with many miles ahead of us. We arrived at our camp spot


somewhere around 3:00pm it ended up being on top of a snow skiing mountain that now being summer was like a ghost town.


We checked out the camp sites to find out we had the place all to ourselves…Score!!!


Right? WRONG!!! The little wife gave it a thumbs down…she was not happy being the only ones on the mountain (I think she had a doe deer attack flash back). With that said, I snapped a few photos


…sniff, sniff and down the mountain we went, this time with the GPS locked on to New Hampshire,


we arrived somewhere around 7:00pm. My turn to pick the room, I picked The Centennial,


wow did I do good, I got many, many brownie points

on this one. it turned out to be a beautiful place, it was an old antebellum home that was turned into an inn. Really, really nice, breakfast 

 and room service for 119 dollars a night,


I’m pretty sure my wife would have moved in there for good.


More to report next post


Big Al


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Pennsylvania to New York (Day three Maine trip)

June 12, 2011 Sunday



Pennsylvania to New York


Woke up early and headed out of the roach motel


heading to New York.


After many hours of driving, we crossed into New York to our next stop Lake Effect Diner.


Yep you guess it another Diner, Drive-in and Dive. We got to the diner somewhere around 1:00pm our GPS brought us to the diner right through what my wife call the bad part of town;


I just call it old.

Anyway we made it safe and sound, the diner was small, but cool looking. As with the last post, here is a photo, I will be doing a complete story in a post soon.



Next stop Niagara Falls,


it took a bit to find the place (only one of the biggest water falls in the world) but once we did, we got a room at the Comfort Inn right next to the falls (easy walk) we unpacked and headed to the falls, it was somewhere around 60 degree with a lots of wind so we stopped off at one of the many souvenir shops along the way and bought my wife a Niagara Falls sweatshirt to keep her warm during the walk.

The park itself is beautiful, lots of walking trails to and around the falls.


 Well we made our way to the falls, and I have to say the scene from the movie Vacation came to mind.


The falls are beautiful


but seemed kind of small. I guess I had built them up in my mind. We took some photos and a few videos


then made our way around to the other side.


Then back to the room we went for some much needed rest, we had been doing back to back 500 mile driving days.


Woke up around 10:00pm that night to the sound of what I thought was thunder, then I realized it was not thunder at all, it was the fireworks show over the falls. I could see them from my window, the wife was dead to the world never moved out of bed…I guess I need to start calling her MY OLD LADY!!!


Ha-ha.


Till next time


Big AL

Sunday, June 19, 2011

June 11, 2011 Saturday (Day two, Maine trip)

June 11, 2011 Saturday



Kentucky to Pennsylvania


Woke up early, had a quick breakfast of champions



on the road to Wal-Mart.


Stocked up on some food for our igloo for the rest of the trip. Then off to Cumberland Gap National Forest



For a quick hike up to Pinnacle Rock for a view of the near by cities. We road up the mountain 4 miles on tight twisty roads till we reached the top parking lot.


We had the whole place to ourselves (so we thought, dum, dum, Dum!). A quick look over the place then we were off to a beautiful trail

to the top of the mountain.


We were only a few hundred yards into the trail when we found out that we were not alone on the trail…we heard a rustling sound in the near by bushes...the out it came, I had no time to react, it was upon us….a giant killer female deer…

all I can say I was so glad it was not a bear, as when I looked back I found myself standing alone!!! My wife was almost back at the car running for her life


before I could explain to here it was just a doe…so much for backup. Ha-ha. So needless to say for the rest of the trip I made her walk in front…so I could keep an eye on her. Wink, wink. My thinking is if a bear does jump out on us, as she runs by be I could a least trip her. Bear food,


I’m always thinking. Ha-ha.


Well we made it to the top with a lot of huffing and puffing and were rewarded with an unbelievable view of the cities below.


We hiked a little on the upper trails and came across this cannon,


my question is “how did they get it to the top?” so back to the car we went and down the mountain.


Then we crossed into West Virginia


and stopped at another diner, drive-in and dive “Hillbilly hotdog” oh man did we have fun there, it was everything Guy said it would be and more. I’m only going to give you a couple of photos of this as I will be doing a post about the place.



Then we crossed into Pennsylvania


late that night and got a room at the Red Roof Inn


(our only dive hotel of the trip) Construction workers everywhere parting all night,


no elevator had to lug our bags up several flights of stairs.


Till next post


Big Al

States I’ve traveled to over the years

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