New York New York!

So it's taken me a while but here's the final step of our trip.  So we spent the last 5 days in New York during which time it was my 26th birthday.  We spent a lot of time walking around the city visiting the sights.  On the first night (Saturday) we went to a live country and western show which was a tribute to Johnny Cash and was a lot of fun.  There was one point however when we wondered if it was the wrong way to spend our only Saturday night in NYC- We were by far the youngest two in the audience by about 40 years, we had opted for a cup of tea and the lady next to us was knitting whilst tapping her toes along to the music.  Not the wild NYC we had envisaged! 

Time Square

Tim treated me to Mary Poppins on broadway as my birthday present.  It rained really heavily for the whole day but that didn't matter as we were inside anyway.  Mary Poppins was AMAZING (although the american kids stuggled with the English accent!)  It was all the original songs plus a few extra and I loved every minute of it- she flew over us for the grand finale too.

Birthday seafood! 

     

Cupcakes! nam nam nam...

I had a huge shock on my birthday too as I had a knock on the hotel room door and a delivery of 6 beautiful and yummy cupcakes from Jane- it really made my day and made me look forward to seeing everyone at home again.  Cheers burd xxx

The view of NYC from the statue of Liberty

We caught the ferry across to Stratton Island one day (and hastily got straight back on it as it was a dodgy area!)  but the view of the city was lovely from there.  We also went over to visit the Statue of Liberty which was one of the most impressive sights I've ever seen, mostly because it's so iconic and the engineering that went into it is amazing.  We visited Brooklyn Bridge and Ground Zero- but as the memorial is being built we couldn't get in.  We saw Wall Street too- yep we were proper tourists for the whole time we were there! 

Statue of Liberty

We spent a great day in Central Park, which is HUGE, enjoying the last of the sunshine followed by a great meal in the revolving restaurant for our final day before heading off back to England.  We had a bit of a struggle with our table at one point as we completely lost it- an more importantly the bottle of wine we had just ordered- as it had revolved away from us! after 3 panicked laps we eventually found it again and had to opt for a 1 at the buffet 1 at the table system from then onwards.  

Central Park

Revolving restaurant

And then it was all over- we spent the last day hungover hanging around the hotel eating deli food and then made our was to the airport to fly home.  It had been the best year of our lives, full of loads of laughs, amazing sights, new friends and had brought us closer than we had ever been before.  We enjoyed every single minute of it and wouldn't change a bit of it.  But we knew we eventually would have to return back to the real world... and as my mum burst through the barriers at Heathrow running to give me the biggest hug ever it didn't really seem so bad! 

Back in Heathrow after the best year EVER!

Washington DC

The White House

So the penultimate city.  We stayed in DC for 5 days and spent most of our time in museums.  There are the Smithsonian Museums which are all free to get in and a lot of fun.  We went to the air and space museum followed by the natural history museum then the next day the holocaust museum and the National Geographic museum.  I especially liked seeing the Hope diamond on display in the Natural History Museum, it's beautiful and for the time being is set in an amazing necklace with lots of other diamonds.  I still prefer my engagement ring though!

The Washington Monument in front of the WWII memorial

  

We toured most of the sights and monuments over the 5 days.  Tim was very miffed as they have dug up the reflecting pool (one of the most iconic sights in Washington!) and are currently re-doing it.  Most of the monuments have rangers with them who give little guide talks so you learn a bit about them too- good for me who knows nothing about American history!  

With our mate Abe

There isn't much more I can say about Washington  really, it was mostly museums and monuments for us.  We had the luxury of a kitchen in our hotel room so had home cooked meals for the whole time- after living off fast food and microwave meals for a while that was a real treat!  We caught the bus up to NYC on Saturday ready for the last leg of our journey...

Washington from the Tidal Basin- the Jefferson Monument is on the right.

New England

View of Boston from Bunker Hill

We flew into Boston but only spent a day in the city centre.  We followed the Freedom Trail through the city and climbed the monument on Bunker Hill, all 294 steps of it, to get a good view of the city.  The next couple of days we explored some of the suburbs including Lexington, Bedford and Concord which are beautiful villages with lots of lovely houses.  We also visited the house where the book Little Women was set and the author Louise Alcott lived.

Camden in the evening

We hired a car and set off to explore some of the coastline in New England and the villages there which were full of more lovely houses and lots of little harbours.

We headed up to Acadia National Park after a day shopping in the discount stores! We stayed for a couple of nights by Acadia enough time to explore the roads by car and some of the old carriage ways by bike.  We hired electric bikes which were a lot of fun especially going uphill past all the professionals in their lycra!  The bikes are power assisted so it made pedalling so much easier and meant that we could go 50 miles in one day and practically covered the whole park! The park was really beautiful with coastline and fresh water lakes too.  

Timmy with his big stick chewed by beavers (really) at Jordan Pond

Bubble pond, Acadia

Electric bikes!

Mount Cadillac at sunset, Acadia

From Acadia we headed west towards the White Mountains, another national park area, via Fort Knox.  It was good to see the place that the saying originates from! 

Fort Knox cannon

We headed east to the white mountains where we stayed for a couple of nights.  We spent a day in North Conway and rode the scenic railway there.  It has restored Victorian style carriages and as luck would have it the day we were there was the 165th birthday so we got free lemonade and cake at the station!  

Conway Scenic Railway

We decided to head back out to the coast again and go to a few more of the outlet stores, Tim just couldn't resist the bargains! But it turned out to be a great choice as it gave us the chance to go to the lobster festival at Rockland which was great- lobster galore! 

Yummy Lobster!

   From Maine we drove down the coast to Cape Cod.  We Stayed at Hyannis on the south coast and spent the first day on the beach enjoying the sunshine but not the water! I think we are now beach snobs having seen some beautiful beaches on our trip, we got about knee deep and as we couldn't see our feet got back out again tutting loudly!  

The next day we drove up to Provincetown on the tip of the cod and made a snap decision to go whale watching.  It was late in the day and we were torn between going then or coming back the next day- it turned out to be one of the best decisions we have made ion the whole trip as we saw about 30 humpback whales during our two and a half hour trip and it was as if they were in a seaworld show! 

Chin breech

We saw every type of behaviour they display (tail slapping, fin slapping, full breech- where they jump right out, chin breech and tail breech) and a mum with her calf who was practising jumping out of the water- with limited success.  The little one was lovely and did some adorable sideways and bum wiggly jumps and looked like it hadn't quite got the hang of breeching yet!  As I am not allowed to be in charge of the camera I was free to watch all the whales without worrying about taking photos which was awesome.  From the photos he got you can see exactly why Tim is in charge of the camera! 

Hello from Joy the whale, who wants to be an acrobat! The lump is her eye. 

Full breech

Tail Slapping

We had a fantastic time and just to show us that our decision was the right one it chucked down with rain the next day and we couldn't leave the hotel! Smug doesn't even cover it!

Luckily the weather cleared up enough for us to spend some time in Sandwich the oldest town on Cape Cod and then Chatham on the beaches.   We got about 30 minutes on Lighthouse Beach before a huge fog rolled in and we had to retreat shivering to the car!

The old mill at Sandwich

Lighthouse beach just before the fog

So with only 11 days of the trip left we flew to Washington DC, the penultimate city, to spend five days there.  

Chicago and all that jazz!

We stayed in Chicago for 10 days.  Our hotel was right next to Grant Park which was great as there were loads of summer activities happening like free live music, open air theatre and even a freestyle yo-yo competition! 

Free music concert + a picnic= perfect Monday evening!

The stage in the park with the city behind

The time went really quickly, we spent a few days on the beach enjoying the heatwave and a few evenings in the park taking advantage of the free live events. The park is lovely, it has lots of different areas and amazing sculptures like the cloud gate which reflects the whole city view.   

The cloud gate- awesome!

We also spent a lot of time walking around the city, doing a bit of shopping and just taking in the architecture which is fantastic.  It is truly a beautiful city.

Grant park

We went to the baseball to watch the cubbies,which wasn't as good as the cricket but still a good night.  The cubs got beat 4-2 and as we got there a little bit late we didn't even see them score any runs but the atmosphere was great , don't think I've ever seen so much food consumed in the time frame- helmet full of nachos anyone?!

Wrigley field

Navy Pier was especially good with fireworks twice a week and live music.  The view of the city is fantastic from there.    

The city from Navy Pier

Navy Pier fireworks

Navy Pier- tacky but fun!

Our best evening by far was our trip up the John Hancock Building where the view of the city is really special.  We did only plan to have one drink but the view was so lovely we ended up staying for 3.. bottles of wine!  I blame the sunset!You can see from the photos how good the view was...

The view from the John Hancock Tower- cheers!

The spit of land is the beach we were on during the day

Another bottle please waiter...

Anuver bockle pleeshe waiter... 

The western states of America and Vancouver- 4200 mile round trip!

We had 18 days to drive from San Francisco to Vancouver and back.  We carried on up the coast to Seattle, via a drive through tree and the Avenue of Giants- a huge Redwood forest drive, we stayed for 2 nights in Seattle then headed on up to Vancouver.

Highway 1 up to Seattle

The drive through tree- with only an inch of room on either side!

The Avenue of Giants

Seattle at night

We stayed with Simon and Rachel there- we met Rachel in Thailand in the first couple of weeks of our trip, and since then she has moved to Vancouver.  It was Canada day whilst we were there and we had a lot of fun looking around Granville Island and then watching the fireworks in the evening.  

Canada day fireworks

We spent another afternoon picnicking by the sea and looking around the city including the park.  The final day we went white water rafting.  It was great, the weather wasn't warm but at least it had stopped raining! The water was freezing and really high which made the rafting better.

Good picnic spot

Team EXTREME!

On the river- the mist was amazing, it covered the river at some points so we couldn't see much!

Tea Break

 In the afternoon we went up to Whistler to have a look around.  It is a beautiful spot which Tim and I loved instantly but it made us miss skiing a lot. 

A well earned beer in Whistler

After 5 fantastic days we had to set off again, and headed down to Montana and the Glacier National Park.  It was really lovely, we had a picnic by the lake which was a really beautiful spot. 

Horse statues: these were on a hill at one of the lookout spots. 

Driving in Montana- Beautiful!

Glacier National Park picnic spot.

Another amazing look out in Montana

Livingston an old western town. 

 From there we drove down to Yellowstone National Park.  We spent a day and a half driving round Yellowstone which was fantastic.  We saw so much wildlife: elk, deer, bison, a black bear and her 2 cubs, and in the evening a coyote.  The geothermal areas are amazing too, and we watched Old Faithful, the geyser that fires hot water 30ft into the air about once an hour. 

Geothermal Mammoth falls in Yellowstone

Stag- just sat by the road

You can just about make out the bear here!

The canyon in Yellowstone

Snow!

Bison

Old Faithful

Elk at dusk

From Yellowstone we drove through Grand Teton National Park where we saw a moose and more fantastic scenery.  We drove from there down to Salt Lake City where we stayed for a night before heading of again in the morning.  We had a bit of time to look around the city in the evening which was beautiful.

  

The church in Salt Lake City

The Salt Lake

From Salt lake City we drove down the loneliest road in the USA which was amazing- at some points we could see for 10 miles ahead and no other cars!  

The loneliest road

We went from there to Yosemite National Park where we spent a day and a half.  We had a picnic by the river in the meadows on the first afternoon and then went to Yosemite village on the second day.  it was really beautiful with huge rock formations and waterfalls.  

Picnic in Yosemite

Amazing rock formations...

and waterfalls!

Finally we drove back to San Francisco and dropped the car off before flying to Chicago.  We have had an amazing time in the western states as it is so beautiful and was made all the better by us getting engaged there!