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USA Trip

May - September 2016
A 116-day adventure by Ryan Read more
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  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 32

    New York City, New York

    June 27, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Holy cow New York City, you were awesome!! You were a bit overwhelming and noisy, but seriously awesome. We stayed for 3 nights in Manhattan at the Appalachian State Loft, which is only $40/night for alumni, and is right in the middle of the city. Can't get better than that!

    Since we were there such a short time and neither of us had ever been to the city, we really crammed as much as we could into our visit. The first day we checked into the loft in the afternoon, then got some NY pizza (delicious) and went to Central Park, then explored a bit. At that point it was raining and getting dark, so we got some Asian food to go and went back to the loft.

    The next morning, we went to Times Square all morning. We were originally hoping to get Broadway tickets at the discount TKTS booth early, but evidentially they don't open on Tuesdays until 2pm. So, we wandered around Times Square, got lunch, went to a pub, and got tickets later in the afternoon for Phantom of the Opera. Since Eric hadn't seen it and it was one of the few shows with discount tickets sitting next to each other, we nabbed them! We went back to the loft to freshen up, then went to the (awesome, of course!) show and dinner.

    The last full day, we got up early so that we could make it on the first or second ferry to the Liberty Island/the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The statue was beautiful, and they had these audio tours that were included with the tickets that were really informative and well done. Eric's grandfather came to the US through Ellis Island, so the entire experience of seeing the Statue like they would have seen it, then seeing Ellis Island was really interesting. We had a late lunch at an Italian place we're 95% sure was owned by the mafia, then walked around Wall Street, the Federal Building, the 9/11 memorial park, then went to the 102 story at the top of the new One World Trade Center. We were dead on our feet by then!

    I really do get the appeal of NYC. The buildings are beautiful and diverse, as are the people. There is SO much to do and to see. You could practically live your whole life in a square block or two if you had to, and might not ever get tired of the things around you. Everything is fast and busy and interesting. It's easy to understand that feeling that you can be anything that you want to be there, because when you look around, you see someone who IS the thing you want to be. I liked visiting... But I also really liked leaving and getting back to the nice, quiet country! :)    Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 39

    Venice, Florida

    July 4, 2016 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 28 °C

    In the middle of our travels, we flew down to Venice, Florida for our 2nd annual 4th of July get-together with college friends! We had a really nice week full of relaxation and friends and fun. On our first day, we bought a 10-person float at Costco, and used it on the ocean the whole week. We even floated on it when we watched all of the 4th of July fireworks over the water. Thanks a million to the Steffs for letting us use their house!

    PS- the little bump in the water in the last picture is a baby alligator!    Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 50

    Mendon, Massachussets

    July 15, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    We got to make a stop in Mendon for five days to see Eric's family!! It was such a wonderful visit, and we were so happy to get to see everyone up there.

    We stayed with the Donatelli grandparents, and while we're sorry for bringing in the heat wave, we loved spending time with them and being able to chat for a couple days. We also got to go see Aunt Chris and Uncle Dave at the cafe in Putnam and see all the really great updates, including the new and delicious ice cream bar!

    We were able to get lunch with the Herbert side one day, and had a really nice time with Grandma Marge, Aunt Sue, and Chelsea. We were also lucky enough to be invited to a mini family reunion on the Donatelli side, and had a lovely time there.

    We were sad we couldn't stay longer, but it was a wonderful, relaxing stay!    Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 51

    Plymouth, Massachussets

    July 16, 2016 in the United States ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    We went whale watching out of Plymouth, and man was it incredible!! We had three pairs of mothers/calves that wanted to play with us and kept swimming around our boat, a pair of whale buddies who really liked showing off for us and followed us for a while, and a bunch of other whale friends as well! We saw probably 30+ finback whales, minke whales, and humpback whales.Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 56

    Manchester, New Hampshire

    July 21, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We stayed in Manchester two nights to work. We meant to stay in Maine the second night, but Maine hotels were so offensively expensive that we accidentally ended up at the same hotel the second night in a row! There's not a lot in Manchester, but we liked it more than MA or CT. The roads don't seem quite so much like they were planned by blind people, and the second you cross the boarder it's a lot more open.Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 61

    Acadia National Park, Maine

    July 26, 2016 in the United States ⋅ 🌫 22 °C

    We finally got to our first major national park!! Acadia was absolutely gorgeous. It's on a mountainous island off the coast of Maine. What that means for Acadia is that you have a lot of mountains rising up out of a lot of forms of water, which makes for some spectacular views and great hikes. We were only there for a couple of days, so the only true hikes we did were Jordan Pond loop, the Bar Harbor tidal island hike, and the South Bubble Mountain hike, all of which were beautiful. The Bar Harbor island hike is one that you can only do at low tide, as the path to the island is submerged at any other time. Jordan Pond hike was peaceful and lovely, but South Bubble was our favorite- we loved hiking to the top of the mountain and seeing the mountains, lakes, and ocean all around us!

    Some of the other things we got to do were take a drive through the whole park, explore Cadillac mountain (twice- once during the day, and once for the sunrise. During the fall and winter, the top of Cadillac is the first place in the US to see the sunrise!), saw Thunder Hole and clambered around on the cliffs, swam in Echo Lake (coooold!), walked down Sand Beach, looked for peregrine falcons at Precipice cliff, and walked down to Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.

    And since we're in Maine, there's also a lot of lobster! We got 4 dishes with lobster in it- including Paula Deen's favorite lobster mac and cheese, my first lobster roll, and whole boiled lobsters twice. We learned our lesson after the first time and, instead of paying $25 for one lobster with butter, just went to the grocery, paid $12 per lobster including them cooking it for us, and cooked ourselves some corn and potatoes in old bay seasoning real quick. Pro tip to everyone else, that's the way to go!

    Finally, if nothing else, go to Acadia for the stars. I've been to some remote places, but I've never seen so many stars in my life. Seeing the band of the Milky Way wasn't a challenge, it was practically the brightest thing in the sky. We saw shooting stars nearly every time we looked up. We were lucky enough to get two perfectly clear nights, and I could have stayed out there for hours.    Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    2
    Day 63

    Mt. Washington, New Hampshire

    July 28, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Shoutout to Mr. and Mrs. Carlson for posting about their trip to Mt. Washington, because that's what put the place on our radar. It's a privately owned road that to goes to the top, so it cost us $38. We originally thought that was kind of a racket, but man, it was actually really worth it. It's a narrow, only partly paved road that winds a 4725 foot ascent to get to the top of a 6288 foot mountain. They claim that this road accommodates two cars at all places, and I think I believe them... but passing a car while driving a foot away from a two thousand foot cliff makes one question some things!

    The top of Mt. Washington started completely foggy, but cleared up a bit as we were there, probably due to the insane amount of wind. There was an outpost at the top that scientists live in to monitor the weather at the summit, which incidentally is notoriously insane. There are signs with giant letters that say things like "at any sign of bad weather, TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY!" So that was pretty fun. All in all, the views from the top were stunning, and it was such a cool experience!    Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 67

    Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

    August 1, 2016 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Finally (finally!), we're heading west! We made our way through the absolute nothingness that is Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and got a call from Eric's Aunt Sue when we were in New York, headed to Niagara Falls. It turned out that she and Chelsea were also on their way to Niagara Falls, making a stop on their way south to Oklahoma, and they were so kind and let us stay with them at their hotel! They were on the Canadian side, and while we were actually only planning on seeing the Falls from the NY side, I am so, so glad we went to Canada. The view from the Canadian side is SO much better, and we had such a great time!Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    Day 69

    Chicago, Illinois

    August 3, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    We spent one, super fun day in Chicago. We went to the aquarium all morning and saw some beluga whales, a little otter family, penguins, and lots of fishies!

    Right after that, we went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. It was 1:20 on a Wednesday, but the place was jam-packed with fans. Wrigley was a really cool field, and baseball is way more fun when 1) the place is packed and 2) everyone actually cares! The Cubs were down in the bottom of the ninth, and came back to win it 5-4. When the Cubs win the World Series this year and the Curse of the Billy Goat is broken, you can thank Eric and me!

    We went to a bar in Wrigleyville right after the game and celebrated a bit with the fans, then went to get some Chicago deep dish pizza. It was pretty good, but we definitely like our own regular pizza more. Wonderful day!    Read more

  • Ryan HerbertUSA Trip
    11
    Day 71

    Badlands National Park, South Dakota

    August 5, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    After driving through seemingly endless fields of corn, then dozens of fields of wheat and sunflowers, we made it to Badlands National Park! And let me tell you, our second major national park did not disappoint. It's not the biggest or most exploration friendly park, so we were able to do the whole thing in about three hours. With the exception of seeing bison and doing a 10 mile hike, we saw and did everything. Though not seeing bison definitely wasn't for lack of trying! We got to see a couple of small herds of bighorn sheep, giant prairie dog towns and all of the giant, beautiful rock formations. On the way out, we stopped at Wall Drug (of course) and got our free water, 5¢ coffee, and homemade donuts! For those of you who haven't heard of Wall Drug, in the 1930's it was a failing drug store in the Godforsaken town of Wall, SD outside of the Badlands NP. They realized that the way to draw people to their store was to offer the hot, thirsty people driving through the badlands some free, ice cold water, and man did it work! It's a GIANT tourist trap now, so we were happy to be trapped for a little bit!Read more

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