We took full advantage of the Sleep Inn’s late checkout policy, and left at noon, rested and refreshed. Rather than hang around in Mountain Home, we kept ourselves going with Goldfish Crackers and set course for Boise. Boise is of course named after the character in popular TV comedy series Only Fools and Horses — […]
After our exertions in Yellowstone, we wanted a nice relaxing day today. We would find a motel for around 5pm, and relax. Remember that.
We took advantage of the hotel’s breakfast, which turned out to be a good idea — they had make-your-own waffles. You poured a ready-measured cup of batter onto the iron, closed it, […]
We meant to get up early this morning, but failed, and left the hotel at 10:45. First stop was the Subway sandwich shop in the Walmart nearby. We bought bagels for breakfast and sandwiches to pack up for lunch.
The drive from Cody to Yellowstone’s East gate was very attractive in itself, and we wondered how […]
At Granny’s Donuts, this morning, we didn’t have donuts. Debbie was proud of her restraint, having only a bagel and cream cheese — although she did order extra cream cheese. I revelled in my ham, eggs and hash browns, and my toast. I gave Debbie some of the toast, to bulk up her meal a […]
The first business of today was to post our postcards — bought way back in Iowa. We located Lusk’s post office, and waited our turn behind a redneck of very few words:
"What can I do for you?" "Book o’ stamps" "Certainly sir, would you like regular ones or ones with American flags on them?" "It […]
The weather was unimproved this morning, so we decided to do our laundry. Many other people had made the same decision, probably for the same reason, so it wasn’t a particularly relaxing exercise. While the clothes washed, we had a light breakfast of a cookie and a drink at the Songbird Cafe, while taking advantage […]
On I-90 yesterday, we saw many, many roadside adverts for "Wall Drug". We didn’t know what it was. Apparently it was "world famous". It turned out that even Road Trip USA found it worthy of a mention, even though its dozens of miles from any of the documented routes.Our motel had a menu from the […]
Breakfast was the first order of the day, so we drove to Karen’s Kitchen in O’Neill. It turns out that Sunday is a bad day to try and get a mid-morning breakfast in Northern Nebraska, and the place was closed. Instead we bought donuts from the nearby Rodeo Stores (a supermarket, not a shop selling […]
Debbie started the day by making me go and fetch her some orange juice and a muffin from the hotel’s breakfast room, which I did because I am kind. I got a coffee and a danish pastry out of the deal.
After checking out, we got in the car. Debbie prodded the "scan" button on the […]
We got straight to the hard work of enjoying ourselves this morning, because we had an urgent place to be by one o’clock.
First though, we had to visit Dubuque’s funicular railway, because the Terrace Motel people were very keen that we should see it.
We went up, we took in the view…
… and we went down. […]
Last night saw some excitement, when Debbie closed the motel room’s bathroom door behind her, and we found ourselves locked out. After a little prodding around, I put some clothes on and went to get some help from the office, but there was nobody there. Nobody answered the phone either.
Eventually, I prised away the part […]
We didn’t hang around in Elgin long: we got straight on the road, looking out for a place to eat. It was brunch time by the time we passed one, and brunch we had. While we ate, yet another thunderstorm passed over. The locals were glad to see it: they’ve been suffering through a drought.
We […]
We left Al and Sally’s Motel and did some driving before breakfast. We started off with a detour along the lakeshore, to get our fill of prettiness before entering the industrial wasteland between here and Chicago.
We rejoined US-20, and got to Portage, "Steel City USA" before we saw anywhere suitable for breakfast. Denny’s, as it […]
Our laundry could wait no longer. The bag of dirty laundry was keeping us awake by rustling at night. We had noticed a coin laundry in our circuit of Wauseon looking for a motel, so we went back to it.
With three machines washing our clothes, we walked to the closest food outlet - a combined […]
Today can be summed up very quickly:
Eat red meat based meal until we could barely waddle back to the car
Drive through Northern Ohio (6 hours)
See (1)
Here’s the slightly longer version.
For once we got up quite late. We knew there was a Steak ‘n’ Shake nearby, and this is Debbie’s favourite American restaurant chain, so we […]
I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s entry, because the phone call over which I uploaded it cost $34.23. That was quite a shock when we checked out from the hotel.
We were up with the lark this morning, so we could eat breakfast at the hotel’s very own Denny’s before being picked up for our tour at […]
When we awoke, I peered through the curtains to see how our lovely view was coming along. What I saw was mist or cloud.
Breakfast was provided in a little paper bag, by the motel office, because the Howe Caverns restaurant had ceased to serve breakfast, guests are likely to be wanting to stay for the […]
Well, last night’s plan was to enjoy a full evening’s American television. We didn’t find very much. I think it’s the "mid season" mocked by the Simpsons.
On a current events programme on MSNBC, they were talking about the London bombings. Apparently:
The British have "finally woken up to the fact that evil lives next door"
The reason […]
We were just in time for our complimentary breakfast, and by 11am we were ready to hit… The Mall. Debbie was determined to do some clothes shopping. The drive to the mall took us throught Providence’s quaint downtown area.
While Debbie went off shopping on her own, I spent a while in Borders, browsing books, of […]
We were up in time for our complimentary breakfast, but Debbie did not take her planned dip in the sea, because the tide was out, and our private cove was a muddy flat.
After checkout, we drove into Provincetown, where Debbie bought some comfy Merrell sandals. The shop assistant was horrified by the state of Debbie’s […]
I fell asleep within minutes of finishing last night’s diary. Not even new Family Guy or the prospect of a reality TV programme about Hulk Hogan could keep me awake.
After a great night’s sleep, we checked out of our hotel, and set of walking towards the train station, where Hertz had told us to collect […]
Jetlag did not stop us from getting up at a reasonable hour, and once we were dressed, we were out and about in Boston, looking for breakfast. It seems many of Boston’s cafes are shut on a Sunday morning, but we found plenty of food at Quincy Market, next to Faneuil Hall. On the way, […]
Just past noon, and we were packed. We just had a bit of tidying up to do, to make the house habitable for Laura, then we could get going. As you can see, we packed light. Both our bags can be held in the palm of a hand.
Steve showed his face at 2:00, and after […]
This is our neighbour Steve. He’s looking rather brown, don’t you think? This is because he’s just back from holiday in Rhodes (whenever I think of Rhodes, I hum the Portishead song of the same name). He has a pained expression, partly because there is a flash going off in his face, and partly […]
We had Laura round last night, so that:
We could feed her dinner
She could fill Debbie’s head with seditious ideas of working part-time
We could explain to her the various foibles of the house, since she will be occupying the house while we’re away.
Here she is doing some last minute revision.
These are our main resources:
Road Trip USA - a reliable mainstay that we’ve used time after time.
Rand McNally Road Atlas - We keep buying them from Walmart.
Lonely Planet New England - I’ve got quite fond of Lonely Planet recently.
Berlitz Boston Pocket Guide - These small city guides are very good if you’re only spending a […]
Saturday is the big day — we’re flying to Boston, where we’ll stay for a couple of nights, then we’ll get a hire car and drive it to Provincetown, on the very tip of Cape Cod, . That’s the Eastern end of our 4,000 mile, four week journey to Cannon Beach, Oregon on the West […]