New York, New York

As we left Washington, the Security Officer at the airport told us that “1 out of every 1 person in New York is crazy”.   Something to look forward to.

It seems that Mr President was so upset about missing us in Washington that he followed us to New York. He invited all his United Nations buddies along too, but in the end we were pretty busy so had to take a raincheck on a meeting with him. That’s our version of events anyway. The UN event meant that the streets were full of convoys of black SUVs with black windows – 160+ nations worth of men with curly wires coming out of their ears.  The only other vehicles on the road were yellow taxis, and every car wanted us to know that they have a fully operational horn.

Our hotel was ideally placed to be in the thick of the action, near Times Square. Times Square is an epileptic’s nightmare with strobing, flashing giant neon billboards that turned night into day. Large gangs of cartoon characters and Statues of Liberty roamed the crowd looking for suckers who wanted their picture taken for a fee.  

Times Square

To contrast the madness of Downtown, we sought refuge in the relative peace of Central Park, where we hired bikes and rode around for a couple of hours. I took time to have a short horse ride. 

We followed this up with a visit to the 9/11 Memorial, which is very simple and dignified – very moving, especially when there was a woman’s name, followed by the words “and her unborn child”.

Freedom Tower rises from the 911 memorial

The next day we visited the Statue of Liberty, a familiar symbol complete with size 879 shoes. Close up she’s huge, but compared with the rest of Manhattan she seems tiny. We endured endless “blah blah blah” about America’s freedom and equality – you would think from the way they were talking that America is the only country that knows of such concepts. Somewhat ironically, women were not allowed to attend the dedication of the statue. Please excuse my cynicism.

Big shoes to fill. This is how the copper on the statue would have looked when new

With Broadway around the corner, it would have been rude not to go. We saw the musical “Matilda”, based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name. The lyrics and music were written by Tim Minchin, Australian comedian / musician, whose performances we have previously enjoyed.  Matilda was a super fun show, but a little scary for the young ones – the 7 year old girl in front of us spent a lot of the performance hiding behind her cardigan. Poor love.

I let Mike go to a Very Happy Place all by himself – the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, which had an aircraft carrier, a submarine and the space shuttle Enterprise, as well as many other exciting displays. He had a marvellous time, particularly in the knowledge that he could spend as long as he liked drooling over the displays without being hurried along.   In the meantime, I had a haircut and did a spot of shopping. For 6 months I had been promising myself a big shop in New York so I didn’t have to lug stuff around all over the US, but when it came to it, I didn’t find anything of interest.

One evening we joined a master class on queuing at the Empire State Building.  We had planned for a sunset view, but so had 25 million other people. So we queued for security, then to buy tickets, then to have a cheesy photo which they would sell for a motza, then to catch the lift to the 80^th floor, then the remaining 6 floors to the 86^th floor, then to get out of the door onto the viewing platform and then to get a spot near the balcony. Repeat the process to get back down but the return journey included a compulsory walk through the gift shop. We got a great view of the city eventually, but sunset was long over. Perhaps we should have started our journey before lunch to be there in time.

View downtown from Empire State

Chrysler Building

We went to a wonderful exhibition – The Art of the Brick – absolutely fantastic creations made from Lego. The artist was a corporate Lawyer but much preferred playing with Lego, so he’s made a career out of that instead. Of particular note were the Easter Island head made from 75,000 pieces and a dinosaur skeleton of 80,000 pieces. Very cool. Maybe that’s a career option for me now, with all the Lego Mike has given me for Christmas over the years.

We’re not sure that we agree that 1 /1 New Yorkers are crazy but it’s a close call.  I asked Mike what he thought of New York and he said that it’s like that crazy Uncle with a metal plate in his head, you put up with him because that’s just the way he is.

This is it folks. I am typing this in the departure lounge at JFK airport, as we are about to head home. In a final ironic twist, we hired a black SUV with dark windows to take us to the airport. The driver didn’t have a curly wire out of his ear though. Our epic adventure is at an end, after many fantastic months of seeing some really beautiful places, meeting all sorts of interesting folks and eating rubbish.  Thanks for sharing the journey, and watch out for the epic slide show coming your way. (Cue maniacal laughter).

So long and thanks for all the cheese on tap.

  

I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black

Welcome to Washington DC, the home of the motorcade. Everywhere you go there are convoys of black Chevy Suburbans with blacked out windows, and men with curly wires disappearing down their shirts. Which is about as subtle as a house brick.  

We first had to attend to some business, as you can see.

President Deirdre and the First Pet

We headed to the Spy Museum where we participated in “Operation Spy”, a role-play mission in the fictional but very dangerous Kandar. We had to run around darkened laneways, break into a house and crack the safe, search rooms, eavesdrop on conversations and interrogate our suspect in order to Save The World from Certain Destruction! Aren’t you all lucky we succeeded? It was here that we met our personal operative, code-named “G- Gnome” – spying is in his DNA.  He showed us some of the sights of DC.

We noticed a lot of Secret Police around the place. We wondered if we should tell them that if you emblazon the words “Secret Service” all over your vehicle, it’s no longer a secret. But that’s Intelligence for you. “G” showed us how to blend in.

Washington is brought to you by the letter “M” – chock full of museums, monuments and memorials (not forgetting the Men in Black Cars, and motorcades). We did our best to see as many as we could, walking our legs clean off, but still left many things unseen.  We spent a whole day in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum – interesting even for those of us who aren’t plane junkies. Some of their displays were a little out-dated it must be said – the section on plane design showed how they used the latest in 1980’s computers and stored the designs on microfilm. Hmmm. As we left Washington a few days later we stopped (very briefly!) in at the museum hangar at Dulles Airport and saw the Space Shuttle Discovery and the Enola Gay (plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima).

Lindberg's Spirit of St Louis

Space Shuttle Discovery

Other sites included the Capitol, White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, FD Roosevelt Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King Memorial, several war memorials including Iwo Jima, WWII, Vietnam and Korea, Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon (now we’ve told you we have to kill you) – are you exhausted yet?  We went to Ford’s Theatre where Lincoln was assassinated and viewed a 4 storey high tower of all the books written about Lincoln – 15,000 or so books. That’s some reading list.

Ford's Theatre where Abraham Lincoln was shot

Lincoln Memorial

Marine's Iwo Jima Memorial

Martin Luther King Memorial

Our final museum was the Crime and Punishment Museum where we learned the shocking truth that TV Forensic shows aren’t realistic. Surprise! During our trip we have seen so many different types of police – federal, state, county and municipal all overlapping each other; some like Sheriffs are elected. And then there are some offshoots such as the somewhat strange US Post Office Police (“back away from the stamp, put your tongue where I can see it…”) so I thought mistakenly that the museum would help to clear this up. But no, it remains a mystery – they must all be tripping over themselves. A bit later we realised that the function of the PO Police is to stamp out crime. 

Michelle and Barack were co-chairing the National Book Fair just down the road from our hotel - we didn’t see them but they sure made a mess of the traffic with roads being closed and security everywhere.  Such is life in Washington.

Time for a Tea Party

Back to the US after leaving Canada, destination Boston. Boston was the scene of the Tea Party, which was instrumental in kicking off the Revolutionary War leading to American Independence. The Bostonians were mightily displeased about the British imposition of taxes (“taxation without representation is tyranny”), so when tea was taxed, a pot of trouble was brewing. They made the World’s Biggest Cuppa by chucking all the tea into the harbour.

To find out what it was all about we went to the excellent Boston Tea Party Museum which ran a role-play style tour. We were herded into a meeting room, issued with our Mohawk Indian disguise (one turkey feather) and given our characters. I was Obadiah Curtis, who stole some tea rather than dumping it all (desperate as I am for a good cuppa!), and Mike was Thomas Porter, a Tea Party leader who was also a notorious gambler and drunk. We were fired up by speeches against the British colonial rule (a British couple on the tour kept a low profile!) and with a cry of “Huzzah” we stormed the ships and threw the tea overboard. Conveniently the tea bales were on ropes, so we could jiggle and dangle a giant tea bag to our heart’s content. After that there were a number of displays including holographic characters talking to us about the events of the Revolutionary War which followed as the Brits objected to the actions of the colonial upstarts.  With a slightly ironic twist the tour ended in the tea room with a cuppa. Mind you, it tasted like it could have come from the bottom of the harbour.

Begone evil tea

Do you jiggle or dangle?

The brown and green building is the site of the original Tea Party

Next we did a walking tour with costumed guide – the costume shops must do a roaring trade in 17^th century costumes! Boston has some beautiful old buildings and we gained a good understanding of American history and where all this rampant patriotism comes from. We went to a cemetery where significant historical figures were buried. Many of the graves had skulls on them rather than angels and crosses we see in most cemeteries – apparently the Puritans didn’t allow such ‘idols’.  

The State Capitol with 22 carat gold dome

We finished the day at the USS Constitution, the oldest warship in the US Navy, commissioned in 1797.  We were intrigued by the English cannons in place – shoot those Brits with their own cannons.

We caught the bus up to Concord New Hampshire and met up with Becky and John Blair, ex Flying Padre in Broken Hill. They live in a beautiful shingled house on a ridge in rural NH, with a spectacular view. They drove us to many gorgeous spots in the area, including a number of lakes – the autumn colours are starting to appear gradually so it’s looking really pretty. Mike saw a bear disappearing into the woods but I missed it – how unbearable!

We visited a historic “Shaker” Village with loads of character and gracious old white timber buildings. The Shakers were a religious group known for their vigorous worship, simple community and being up with the latest technology, such as inventing the washing machine. Obviously they were real movers and shakers. Our enthusiastic guide exhorted to “look beyond the objects and see the Shakers”. Not sure what that meant really, but it was an interesting afternoon.  We also went to the historic Mt Washington hotel for great views of Mt Washington, which cheerfully boasts the worst weather in the US. Buildings near the summit have been chained down due to the wind that blows up there. We were fortunate to have a clear and calm day.

Mt Washington Hotel

Hebron Village Green - Becky and John's village

After a few days in NH we headed back to Boston for a brief visit. We fitted in a harbour ferry to Spectacle Island which wasn’t much of a spectacle really – it used to be a glue factory and waste dump before being regenerated as a park. It was a plane-spotters dream though overlooking Logan airport.

The wonderful thing about cities is people spotting, and we have observed some true “individuals”. Boston’s contribution included a gent wearing cammo pants and a hi-vis shirt – to be seen or not to be seen, that is the question. He accessorised with a snake coiled around his neck – at least the snake matched his duds. Another interesting chap was wearing a pin-stripe flared pantsuit with a baggy peaked cap – very natty. We are looking forward to Washington & New York offerings.

A Fundy-mental Bore

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Prince Edward Island (aka PEI) is the sacred land of Anne of Green Gables, be-plaited Patron Saint of Wholesomeness. Holy “Anne” relics are supplied scores of merchandisers – a profit is certainly welcome in this town.  And yes, we too were suckered in, it would be rude not to. Although, being post-labour day (Nth America is now officially asleep), many places were closed so we didn’t do the whole Anne experience. We visited Green Gables House and strolled down “Lovers Lane” before kitting Mike out with the red plaits. Here he is having a sulky moment…….

Yes Virginia, there is an Anne of Green Gables

After this we had some Chocolate Coated Potato Chips created by Anne of Green Gables Chocolate, which helped us to perk up.  Although marginally better than chocolate coated bacon, these were really a ‘lose-lose’ item - diminishing the flavour of both the chocolate and the chips. 

Our spirits were further lifted by a visit to the very a-peeling Canadian Potato Museum.  Marvel at the Big Potato! Be thrilled by the Potato Hall of Fame! Savour the delights of Chocolate Potato Fudge! (Why, oh why will these Canadians persist in ruining perfectly good chocolate?). My suggestion is that they need to put a potato in space – call the spacecraft “Spudnik” perhaps?

PEI North Shore

PEI South Shore- Victoria by the Sea

We crossed over the 13 km long C$1.3 billion Confederation Bridge from PEI to New Brunswick, parting with $44 for the bridge toll. It was teeming with rain and thick fog, so we didn’t see anything for our money. Once over the bridge we edged our way through buckets of rain towards Moncton on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. There were many moose warning signs so we hoped that today was not the day for moose to be on the highway – the cats and dogs raining down kept them away.

The Bay of Fundy is noted for having the highest tides in the world with the record standing at 47 feet tidal variation – to keep it in context the tidal variation in Sydney Harbour is about 4 feet. As the tide travels up a river it forms a wave (or waves) known as a “tidal bore”. The tide running in and out of the bay is gloriously described by Wikipedia as “being as powerful as 25 million horses” (How do they know this? Are these racehorses or Clydesdales? Whatever.)  We had planned to kayak around the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay at high tide, then walk around them at low tide. Again, Labour Day thwarted our kayak plan, although the weather would have stopped it anyway. But we did get to walk around the rocks, paying careful attention to the tide tables so that we went at the time of the outgoing tide. The rain made an exit just in the nick of time. It was interesting to see the water receding like a bath emptying. The rocks are really groovy – kind of Dr Suess-ian.

Here's a picture we stole from the net, showing the high tide and what we wanted to do but couldn't

The highlight was the “Ride the Tide” adventure on the south shore of the bay. Kitted up in our survival suits we waddled for what seemed like several miles to the low tide shore line and loaded up into a Zodiac (inflatable boat).  The river which joins the bay was slow and meandering, and a muddy brown colour – very appealing, not. Nothing much seemed to be happening, and I was wondering why this was billed as ‘exhilarating’. Patience, my dear, patience. We motored up the river to a large sandbank and went for a wander around. Suddenly, the tide starting foaming upriver and the sandbank was soon being engulfed by waves. Time to load up and hit the rapids. As the tide advanced up the river (with the power of those 25 million horses) it formed huge standing waves of 10-12 feet in height, and giant whirlpools, which we rollercoastered up and over and around and around.  We were well and truly soaked with muddy brown salty water – now I know how those potato chips feel. The only thing that stayed dry was our guide’s sense of humour. “Well”, he’d say, “you may feel a bit of spray” just before the boat was enveloped by a giant wave. “Did I mention there might be some spray?”  The tidal range on the day we went was 43 feet. When the tide had finished travelling up river, the river returned to being calm and flat. Amazing! It was a cold wet heap of fun. And yes, exhilarating.

Deirdre holds back the tide

This is what the inside of a washing machine looks like

Here we are in our inflatable submarine

Time to be a little more subdued as we travelled the country roads of Nova Scotia to the South Shore. We drove through farmland, passed beautiful old timber farmhouses, complete with cows, tractors and to our complete surprise……..a black bear standing by the side of the road. All these months in wild national parks with bear warnings left right and centre, and where do we see one but by the side of the road in rural Nova Scotia with not a bear warning sign in sight. It kindly stayed there for some photos then scrambled off into the bushes.

Lunenburg, on the South Shore, is a fantastic town established in 1753 and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The beautiful harbour is lined with colourful wooden buildings, with many restaurants including one promising “freshly made deserts” – would you like sand with that? I’d be sacking the sign-writer if I were them. We visited the Fisheries Museum where Mike assisted in the launch of a schooner. In the evening, a local theatre group put on a performance called “Glimpses” which told the history of Lunenburg with short skits and songs, some funny, some sad. It was heaps of fun - they obviously love their town and love sharing it with visitors.

We followed the shore around little craggy bays and inlets, with quaint houses and boatyards lining the shore. Our destination was Peggy’s Cove which is the poster child for Nova Scotia - a really gorgeous little fishing village with the “Most photographed lighthouse in North America” (how do they know?), and about 10 tour buses when we arrived. It’s those bl**dy tourists again. A fog rolled in, making a wonderful brooding atmosphere which appealed to us photographically, while annoying the other tourists who like having their picture taken in front of things in sunshine.

When you're a midget pirate, Booty is only Shin Deep

Nova Scotia appears to be “Disaster Island” – we visited 2 memorials to the Swissair plane crash in 1998 which went down near Peggy’s Cove. Before leaving Halifax for the airport, we visited Fairview Cemetery to see the Titanic Memorial with graves of 330 bodies recovered from the site of the sinking and then the Halifax explosion mass grave from 1917.  What a cheerful end to our visit!    

SwissAir 111 Memorial, Bayswater. Almost 15 years to the day.

The Titanic graves arranged in a ships bow formation

Unidentified remains, like most here

Not Leonardo Di Caprio's character, actually an Irish Stoker