3rd – 13th Sept
We breezed back into America-land via the surprisingly pleasant and efficient immigration of Boston Airport. Within an hour we were heading out of the city in the king of hire cars, a Chevy Sonic Turbo. More noise than action, but at least it was wheels. It was early evening, and 32 deg C.
Our first night was booked in a place near the storage unit. It was massive, but deserted. Like a set location for a benign version of The Shining. Today was a Monday public holiday, and there were no business people staying in this predominantly business hotel. 10 minutes after check-in we were at the bar, each had a beer in hand and burgers ordered. 2 minutes after that we had struck up conversation with a lovely chap called Brian. He was a largish gentleman in a neon yellow oversized singlet which nicely showcased his tattoos and underarm hair. 3 years prior he had spent his honeymoon in an area we plan to travel through in a month or so and he proceeded to write us a travel itinerary of ‘things-you-must-see-and-do’ on a sheet of A4 paper. Most of the list was ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet restaurants and bourbon distilleries. It seemed he done a lot of eating and drinking on his honeymoon. I enquired jokingly if he was still married. No, he said with a chuckle.
The next morning we drove up to the storage unit to be reunited with Big Dave and the Tin Can. Despite the fact we had forgotten to remind the manager we were coming, all was well and luckily we were not blocked in. Big D started first time and Tin Can was dry and fragrant. It was like we left them yesterday, not 11 months ago. The plan was now to take them to a local garage to have Big D serviced and a few things done to Tin Can. This was going to take about a week and we had arranged to stay with our friends Greg and Gigi again. Big D and TC were left in safe hands and the Sonic Turbo took us the 200 miles to our next roost, Ridgefield CT.
Our planned 6 nights with Greg and Gigi extended to 9 as Big D unfortunately needed a major steering component replacing. Being able to go in the right direction is an important quality of a road trip, or in fact any motor vehicle journey.
We spent most of our time in CT fairly lazily. It was great to have time and space to gather our thoughts, do some bits of shopping and start to get a bit organised. We caught up with the family Bazarian and tried to be useful by cooking and tidying up a lot. I know house guests have a ‘best-before’ date, and it is usually much shorter than 9 days.
The major fun during our stay was an overnight trip that the 4 of us took to New York City. This is Greg and Gigi’s old stomping ground and after a hotel was booked and Grandma was enlisted to babysit we drove the 2 hours into Manhattan. Nick was last here in 1990 and I came for a day in 1994. it has changed a bit since then. We spent a lot of the day just walking and taking in the sights but the highlight was visiting the 9/11 Memorial. This has been very tastefully done and was quite special. Greg and Gigi were both in town on that day and even 17 years down the line the memories are still raw. It was emotional even for us. We had both done the trip to the top of the towers on our respective visits.
The evening was passed with cocktails, wine and dinner at an old-school New York steak restaurant called Gallaghers. Gigi used to come here as a kid with her parents. The meat is stored in a chiller room at the main entrance for all to drool over. This is not a place with a vegetarian option on the menu.
Nick and I had the day to ourselves the following day as the Bazarians had to get back to work and kids. We hit the streets again and headed up through Central Park to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a a pleasant Saturday and the whole world was out running and cycling in the park. It would have been easy to have been mown down in the rush of athletisism if one wasn’t paying attention. Even the horses drawing the carriages were looking anxious. The Met was enormous. After 2 hours we had seen about 5% of exhibits and were exhausted. We bailed and with weary feet made our way back to Grand Central Station to catch the train back to CT. 5th Avenue and a lot of cross streets were closed to traffic due to a big Workers and Unions march. There were marching bands and big rigs, bikes and cheerleaders. Quite a spectacle.
Eventually we had the news that the work was going to be finished soon on BD and TC and we could collect them on Friday 14th Sept. We bade our farewells to our very generous hosts and headed north again. We booked a night’s stay in a hotel close to the garage and spent the evening watching news reports of hurricane Florence coming ashore in the Carolinas. This is a monster storm and is going to dump a s**t load of rain. Glad not to be down there in an RV.
We were excited for tomorrow. The start of Tin Can Travels proper!