Vacation 2009 Part 1

We are on the way, Sat. Aug 8, 2009, left home 7:40am, filled up at the Irving on the Prospect Bay road. We made it to the Wentworth tolls 9:00am and Moncton 10:20am. Gas prices in NS $1.05 and NB $0.99 / litre, why? Sunny and uneventful so far. 12:50pm NB/US border, 1:06 we entered the US at Houlton. We stopped at the tourist information booth in Houlton and met a very nice funny eccentric employee. She asked where we were going and if we had a place to stay. We are headed to Augusta, Maine and I had visioned us staying at either the Econo Lodge or Holiday Inn in Augusta. She gave us a travel magazine which was filled with coupons for accommodations. If you ever have the opportunity to travel in the US stop by a tourist information booth and get a coupon book, they have them arranged by region and state, it became invaluable for our journey. We ate our previously packed lunch and were on our way again, 1:30pm. Next stop, Bangor, while traveling to Bangor we went through 56miles of construction and 10 miles of pylons, first the left side was closed then the right then the left then the....well you get the idea. Clocks back an hour, arrived in Bangor 2pm. “John” took us to Circuit City in Bangor to buy a new camera, they were out of business. 2:20pm on the road to Kittery, ME. 2:45pm stopped at Dysarts for gas, $748.7km for $47.43 7.4L/100km. On the I95 southbound Max. 65, Min. 45, passed through Scarbourough 5pm. Stopped in Kittery, ME, no hotel rooms. Kittery is the shopping outlet mecca of Maine. Thanks to the eccentric lady at the tourist information booth we have a coupon book, woo hoo! We stopped at a garage to pick up a calling card as using your Canadian cell phone in the US is very, very expensive. At the garage we me Apu, which was not his real name. In the coupon book we found a place that was not to far away and very reasonably priced. When I tried to use the calling card to make a reservation I discovered the number was toll free, so our first purchase in the US besides gas is a $10 calling card that we can't use. Our driving experience so far has been double lane traffic similar to home and this was about to change on the way to Manchester. The closer you get to Massachusetts the more lanes of traffic that open up, before turning north to Manchester we were driving on 4 lanes of a divided highway. Were off to Manchester, NH and a stay at the Airport Hilton $69. We arrived, checked in with our coupon, ate dinner at the 99 Restaurant in Manchester and then headed back to the room for some well deserved R&R. We covered 1130km 2 provinces and 2 states on our first day.

Up at 7:00am, ate breakfast and on the road by 8:30am heading to Waltham, MA. For some reason “John” doesn't like to work today so we are resorting to map reading. We are trying for another Circuit City and a new camera, and this one is out of business as well, I see a trend. We are headed to the Sony Sore in Waltham, MA for a new camera. The Sony Store is closed until noon, a camera does not seem to be in the cards. 9:45am “John” decides to turn on, 10:40am arrived at Mario and Lucille's for a visit. Lela, Lisa, Paul and Rosanne, Lee and John also came and it was wonderful. We had a great visit and a meal and celebrated two birthdays. 3:00pm off to visit Billie in Warren, MA. I90 3 lanes full of cars, we were slowed in the mysterious highway slowdown, no accident or dead animal, just slowed to a crawl and then full speed again. We even witnessed the mysterious slow down on the other side of the median, cars slowed by some force field for no reason. We had a wonderful visit with Billie, we admired his roof addition to his porch all made from Oak. We backtracked to Sturbridge because we had a coupon for the Quality Inn, well we had a coupon for a Quality Inn but it wasn't in Sturbridge. Apu was at the desk and told us we had the wrong book, our book was out of date and no good. What he meant was the coupon was for the wrong hotel, some sort of language barrier I guess. We got it all figured out and got a cheap room and then went to eat at the Piccadilly Pub. Filled the car, emailed mom and in bed by 9:30pm, 597km $32.36.

Up at 6:00am, breakfast and on the road by 7:30am. I84 South through Connecticut and into New York. We entered Pennsylvania at 10:30am, 11:00am 327km $17.18, 11:25am Scranton, PA, 29C with a lot of trucks on the road. We passed a car with a crate in the back seat with a hole in the top and a head sticking out, the head of a duck to be precise. The duck was positioned in such a way that it's head was was between the seats looking forward out the windshield like a dog would. No towns or houses, just trees and ski hills. We had a state trooper behind us for a while and he wasn't interested in stopping any speeders. We were doing 70 miles/hr and there were people passing him and us. One memorable thing about driving in the States is that people in the outside lanes will move over when faster traffic comes up behind them, this does not happen very often in Canada. 12:30pm Leighton, PA, 31C and a tunnel with warning to turn or your head lights while entering the tunnel which was expected. But a warning to turn off you head lights while exiting is a little much don't you think? Listening to the Spinners, is there a girl in the group, I say its a back up singer Arlene says they were no girls just guys, will have to Google when we get home. 476 to Allentown, Pa, you remember the town made famous by Billy Joel. 12:55 Allentown 32C, 222 toward Lancaster which is our first secondary road. We were slowed by construction and got see some scenery not blowing by at 110km/hr. They sell “Frieworks”, Quilts and Pigeons and have lots of grape orchards in the area. 2:10pm Lancaster, PA, 33C, Amish families with horse and buggies. Lancaster is the town where Harrison Ford filmed the movie Witness. There are a lot of concrete highways in the area. 4:00pm checked into the Comfort Inn in Harrisburg, PA. We had an amazing dinner at an Indian restaurant next door to the Comfort Inn. 6:00pm the local news was having a slow news day, they were reporting that it was hot enough to cook cookies in your car and they did. 8:00pm we planed our next day and booked a room in Washington, DC from our coupon book.