PhotoKingH Blog

vrijdag 19 september 2008

Test if sending pictures to blog works

Heading North East

Hi,

I have some internet access on my mobilephone again ...

we are fine and had much fun already.
Washington DC, williamsburg, philadelphia , Amish land, shenandoah, gettysburg, Luray
Caverns, lancester, Niagara falls and more.
We are now just for a sleep in Ruthland,VT... We hope to see nice covered bridges and than we will be heading east, washington mountain, cape cod and acadia park lateron.
Than going south to boston , new york etc.
I hope to post you next week again, we seem to be a little ahead of our "plan" at the moment.

Ps its fun to get some sms or calls from my mom and dad, who are traveling at the West right now. They too have an excellent time in the States.

Well... we are packing the car and hitting the roads again!

Marcel and Sheila

dinsdag 16 september 2008

20080915 Letschworth Statepark

A bit broken backs, from the too soft beds in the Hotel in Bath, we drive to Letschworth Statepark. The weather is very bad, with heavy rain on the Interstate. As the clouds seem to come from the North and heading south we take a gamble and go to the park. And we "won", because the rain had stopped and sometimes the sun was peeking through the clouds.
We buy a ticket of $6, drive to the Dam Viewpoint and check the maps. As we didn't have breakfast, we went to a picknick point with a great view on the canyon. Small detail, nobody else was there, but the eagles catching height. So relaxed.
As we entered from the North Main entrance, we are driving south, upstream. It is a very green and wonderful park. You can tell, a remainder of Ike past her last night, many wet places and lots of branches and some fallen trees on the roadway and the trails. Park rangers are clearing the roadway in some places.
We had sun in the park, it was getting gray, but it remained dry.
We take small (1-2 hour) walks towards the lower, middle and upper falls. Also the inspiration point has magnificent views on middle, upper falls and the old railway bridge. Many pictures taken, also a little practice for Niagara falls ;-) .
We exit the park via the south gates and cross north west through the country site(we always avoid the interstate as much as possible to see something of the country and villages) towards Niagara falls. A 1.30 hour drive, where we again had lots of rain during the drive, but not when we arrived.
From a distance we could already see the mist of Niagara falls. Our preferred Hotel (with coupon) has vacancy, so we again needed only 1 shot to hit the hotel target. In the west, last year, it was much harder to get a hotel.
We unpack and go to Denny's for a nice meal. Within 3 minutes is a outlet, that we "just wanted to look at"... So I come back with 3 tees and new sneakers.LoL. Its than already 21:00 so Niagara falls will be lighted by colored light beams, so we drive to the falls. A 15 minutes drive through the city. The circus at Canada side with casino, hotel skyline and disco lightning can be seen way before you reach the falls.
Great view and I take many pictures. Some with exsposure times of 20 seconds. Cool effects. I talked with some cops that seemed to be garding the air, but appearently "goodmorning america" is broadcasting tomorrow morning from the watch tower. We go back to the hotel and sleep arround 23:30.

zondag 14 september 2008

20080905 Zaandam

We are up very early, I get up and start collecting electronic equipment to charge all batteries. Photo cameras , video camera , TomTom navigation system, GPS device, etc. I also burn a couple of cd's with music.
I arrange with my brother, that we drive to him tomorrow and that he brings us to the airport.
Sheila's father brings us a visit for thee and cookies after dinner.

20080911 Skyline drive

Its gray and a little rain falls down. We eat microwave heated sausage on white bread with our honey mustard.
We start the drive to the national park and pay $15 entry fee.
The Views are blocked by the rain clouds and in the afternoon we can barely see the road unfortunately.
We decide to take a detour and visit the Caves. Asking about AAA gives us a 10% discount on the $19 entry fee.
We get a guided tour of ote than 1 hour and walk a lot. It is indeed a beautiful cave wit astonishing views. A lot of pictures were taken. A tripod would have been useful, but I managed with a monopod, vibration reduction and creating very steady positions.
After that we decided not to continue over the skyline drive, due to the Bad weather, but to drive 2-3 hours over the interstate. We got new hotel coupons and Travel Lodge still had very Nice rooms for just $45. The best of the deal? Denny's was just arround the corner, so we went there for a traditional dinner. All stuffed, and after watching some presidential tv shows, Ike hurricane news and noting down everything in the journal again, we went to bed.
Tomorrow we are going to check out the historical war battles fought on US soil. Hope it will stay dry, dispite that they forcasted thunder storms and rain again.

20080910 Williamsburg

Gray sky and not so hot as previously. Today we visit the first British Colonies founded in the USA. Tickets to visit the almost 20 buildings inside were 38$, but we did not want to get inside them all.
We walked through the visitors center towards the old town. +/- 15 minutes walk. The town is lovely and you get a nice impression of that time, especially because people are dressed in costumes of that time frame.
We picknick in the other old colonial villages near the ocean. A bit colder.
We drive to Budget inn where we arrive arround 6 and sleep for just 45$. We eat for $18 at a Nice mexican restaurant, just on the other side of the road.

20080909 South of Washington

Weather was gray and some showers came down in the afternoon.

Econolodge we showered and had breakfast with some tea.
Headed off to the shopping mall at 9.20.
Shop until you drop? We did not drop... Yet. Shopping was fun and we did find some clothes. Gyros wraps were very tasting. A little more than 2 hours drive took us to Motel 8, we caught lots of folders with discount coupons for hotels, in williamsburg.
Tomorrow we will visit the historical colonial center.
In the evening managed to get my PDA online on the internet via a free WiFi hotspot.

20080908 Washington

Woke up at 6, started to charge the batteries and had a great homemade eggs and bacon breakfast.
Walked to the metro and went to the Zoo. Great free parc, where we saw Pandas! We were very lucky to see them, as they only showed themselves for a couple of minutes. We saw most of the other facilities and animals. We also had a concert of screaming monkeys, which was really great. It was very warm and sweaty weather.
We walked back to the metro and headed to the National air and Space Museum. A really nice (again free) museum near the Mall in Washington. From the first Wright Brothers flying, to warplanes, crossing soundspeed and landing on the moon. We also went to a Nice iMax movie "to fly" and had a noisy Mcdonald menu.
Driving through busy traffic south, through the old town and to a motel near the shopping mall, we want to visit the next day. Went to bed early as the feet were killing again.

20080907 Washington

Up very early, but took a lot of time to get prepared. Took a nice long shower, tea with dutch cookies and planned what we wanted to see in Washington.
We walked in 20 minutes to the Metro and after a good and friendly explanation of a Metro employee we bought for 15$ two day-passes.
Metro proofed to be an easy and handy transportation in Washington for us. In the end we still walked many miles to see the sightseeings. We had our breakfast and lunch all together in a nice 21$ chicken fries and soda combos. Arround 20:00 we were back and went to buy a lot of groceries in the subway supermarket.
We had a salade, roasted toast and nice cool orrange juice. We to bed arround 23:00.

20080906 Zaandam

I woke up very early this morning and I continued packing and checking our luggage. We drove to my brother, who we rang out of bed. At the airport both suite cases were with 21Kg just below the allowed 23 Kg. The self service on the internet safed us a lot of standing in the cue time.
The flight itself was very good, also the food and movies were Ok.
The last 30 minutes were unpleasant due to the fact we were flying through the remains of Tropical Storm Hanna. So we had a lot of turbulence and many people turned white and were throwing up. The landing was on a very wet track and much moist was flying around when the engine reversed to brake. But we made it.
It took a very long time before the luggage arrived, but at the customs we needed less time than last years.
At Herz there were problems. First we were picked out of the cue, as we had to use self-service machines. After being almost at the end of the process it stopped. At the counter the problem was determined that our prepraid order was not in the systems. A big problem, that the Herz employees had seen a couple of times. It took about 60 minutes before the broblem was found, phoned with Hertz headquarters,Visa and manually re-ordered again. After some negotiations I was able to get from a 100% fill the gass, to return the car with just 1/8 full. And they picked up the car for us, so we did not have to search it.
I do not know what is wrong with these rental car companies... 2 years back Budget in San Fransisco had an odd parking lot at a Hotel, where we had to pickup our car, and after 2 hours of phoning and fake promises they did not show up.
Last year our Expedia order with all inclusive with Avis, appeared to be wit out ensurances so 35% extra had to be paid all of a sudden.
And now this bs with Herz...

Anyway in 45 minutes we were at the suites and were helped very friendly. The rooms were big and very nice. We fell asleep arround 20:00 and slept until 6:00.