American Roadtrip Report.

[FoleE]

Okay so I've been meaning to put some actual pictures up in reference to this thread http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...6-Roadtrip-USA and now a couple of months later I'm finally getting round to it but I thought I'd start afresh.

So one night last Christmas a friend who was back from Phoenix on time off, and I trudged to the pub through the snow (effort lol) and there it was decided upon that it might be a good idea to drive across America. All the best ideas involve beer, naturally. A rough route was drawn up overtime:



Said route was debated here and ideas somewhat taken on board. June 29th I flew out to Phoenix, and after a couple of days dicking about trying to sort a rental due to credit history etc, finally got our hands on this beast,



And off we set. Heading out from Phoenix we drove to Flagstaff through Sedona to the Grand Canyon National Park.



My buddy Chris looking like he's enjoying the driving too much.


Amazed to see some roundabouts in Sedona (but not in this pic lol).


Eventually we made it onto the Grand Canyon itself. My pictures don't do it justice, if you want to see it you simply have to go yourself, it's fairly amazing.



Take a step back..


After spending some time there, we got a shuffle on in the direction of Kingman, AZ.





And then onwards to Los Angeles, City of the Angels, or city of the rediculous traffic jams maybe. Glad we weren't there for carmageddon.





We cruised around on Mulholland Drive for some time, fairly epic but the road surfacing was awful, plus we saw a presumably drunk driver nearly crash over the edge.

Gimp.




After this we basically had fun in and around LA for a few days. Pretty cool.



Harr harr


















Saw this being loaded onto a truck later, looked like the hydros/air broke



We also attended the weekly, Cars and Coffee in Irvine, which I was fairly ecstatic over, but Chris wasn't due to having to get from Van Nuys to there fairly early in the morning.

A few of the pictures I took (mercifully not all...nowhere near..)













Afterwards we did more tourist like stuff, Newport Beach etc:





So after LA, our next target is up the coast is San Francisco. Los Angeles was fun, the traffic irked me a little but overall we had a great time there, I would love to go back someday...onwards..

[FoleE]

So we set out up the 101, a road I've wanted to drive since forever. We wanted to hit the beach and stuff however seeming as it was July 4th, everywhere was busy as hell and the sides of the roads turned to parking lots.

Teh europlatezzzz....oh wait that's actually real



Someone on here's maybe? Also saw a clean black mk5 jetta too but alas no pics.



What? I can't pay for my own shrimp?


Santa Barbara


Chris was interested in seeing the Neverland Ranch but it left me feeling a little underwhelmed tbh however to get there you have to drive some great roads including the San Marcos pass which was awesome. Rural California is absolutely beautiful, too bad about the speed limits though.





Then we got onto the part of the PCH we'd really been waiting for. Again fantastic roads and parts still under construction from damage. A lot of people were intimidated by the roads here you could tell, pulling over to let us pass even though we'd always leave a reasonable gap.











A lot of the pictures I have were from either the early stages of the road or when we'd pulled over because I drove the most epic parts and didn't fancy trying to take pics at the same time





Did the 17 mile drive outside of Pebble Beach, golf doesn't interest me in the slightest but I know they hold a car show here and the roads and scenery were fun. Monterey where we stayed was also lovely compared to being just slightly up the coast which was shrouded in fog (Carmel).



Stopped off in Santa Cruz, checked out 'The Mystery Spot.' Quality entertainment, still can't argue with $5



Eventually we made it to our most Northern point out west, San Francisco...

[FoleE]

So San Francisco was awesome. We were staying pretty much right in the centre and had to dump the car at a BART station miles away but it saved us a good amount on parking.

Alllll the touristy stuff:

YU BREAK YU BUY!


Did ALOT of this,










This guy was doing a little photoshoot of his car:






Big-ass trees,


We booked into Alcatraz on an evening/night tour. It was quite atmospheric but unfortunately the gift shop was closed and we were a little rushed, still good though.







Had a great time here, the weather is fairly unpredictable in San Fran though. The level of homeless people surprised me too, I haven't seen so many in a long time.

After this we packed up our stuff and headed towards Yosemite...

[FoleE]

Drove through cowboy country and all the vineyards to reach Yosemite.

It's a stunningly beautiful place, not that you could tell from my pics







We drove out of Yosemite on the Tioga Pass. This is up there on another of the best roads we traversed, climbing up over 9000ft, the scenery is stunning. I wish we'd had more time to maybe do some hiking here but the clock was always ticking unfortunately.

The mean machine third from the left.


The road down towards Bishop, CA.


This was the closest I came to getting a speeding ticket on the whole trip, cops were everywhere on the 395 and I saw him only due to an Audi's brake lights sharply coming on in front. When your descending from 9000ft, you can't help but break the limit, cruise control doesn't slow you down. I was over the limit when I passed him and got the evil eye, but luckily no flashing lights :greatsuccess:

These things are everywhere out West, living the dream. In an RV park in Bishop were we stayed the night.

[FoleE]

So the morning after the night before we headed back out onto the 395 away from the happening place that was Bishop, CA. Going south it's pretty obvious where we'd end up.

Death Valley of course.





I actually feel we were fortunate when we were there. The temperature barely topped 100F so was probably unseasonably cold (but hot enough) and also there was a marathon (lol) going on so there was plenty of folks about. I was amazed by the amount of car testing they do out there, every other car was a mule or camo'd bmw or audi, pretty mental. Mainly German vehicles though.



On our way out:




Little bit of driving later and what's that in the middle of the desert? Oh yeah...

[FoleE]

What can I say about Vegas that hasn't been said before? Not a lot really . We had a lot of fun though, it's like pretty much nowhere I've been before but different to how I thought it would be.

Where we stayed, definitely downmarket, even in Vegas terms but nice enough for me, employees became super slutty at night...awwww yeaah.



Top o'the tower (free admission).


Other end of the strip






I don't want to bore with photos but we had fun. Cirque du Soleil Mystère was awesome too, I highly recommend it if you're ever in town.

Being in Vegas also meant we were close enough to doing something I'd been interested in for a long time, therefore we headed out north one morning.

After a bit of driving we started getting there,



And eventually Groom Rd itself.





Yep this is the legendary 'Area 51', we dared take some photos against the best wishes of the sign, although the original has been plastered over now.

Car got filthy,


We bein watched? Yes, yes I think we are



And back to the land of tarmac'd roads.



Thought it would be a wrong not to check out some of the local attractions.

'Black' Mailbox,




Rachel, NV, of course.



Headed back to base after our 'Alien' burgers, a good day out all round, glad to have not been taken out by wandering cattle, camo guys or extraterrestrials

[palakaman]

Looks like so much fun. I can't speak for everyone but I love hearing about experiences from people from other countries enjoying our fair country.

Looking forward to the rest of your journey.

[hrama803]

[FoleE]

Thanks guys

Anyway after we trekked out to Groom Lake we had one day left in Vegas and then once again hit the road.

Dirty





First thing we did was head for the Hoover Dam. It's a fairly iconic structure but honestly maybe it was just the extreme heat or something getting to us but we left a little underwhelmed. Can't really explain why.



New bridge was good though.


After this we headed out of NV into sunny Utah.



More specifically Zion National Park. This hadn't been my idea and I knew little of what was there but it was very beautiful all the same.





The black hole in the cliff above the car is part of a tunnel that runs through the mountain. At the time the traffic could only be travelling in one direction through it due to the level of RVs around.



So we spent the night just outside of Zion in an RV resort and got back on the road the following day.



We found another dam en route and were more impressed, don't know why





Eventually we ended up twisting back into Arizona where we had started this little escapade not so many weeks before and then back into Utah again.





So anyone who knows this area will be little surprised that our stop off was Monument Valley, a stunning place.







You have to pay to drive around the dust roads in the valley which we were unsure of because people mentioned the surface was dodgy (worse than LA?-no ). Being the fearless idiots we are, we went for it even as a thunderstorm rolled in.





The road surface was bad in places and I wouldn't take my own car on it, but hey it's a rental right

Could have a worse view to wake up to.



We camped this night and it was the only time camping I had trouble sleeping due to the heat. Any RV park we ended up at from Yosemite, to Zion to here seemed to be populated by Germans in hired RVs, was an odd trend.

I watched a program few days back with Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian, travelling Route 66, he stopped off in Monument and said something along the lines of, 'I wish you could be here to see this' and I can totally relate. It's amazing in person. However we had to press on.

[FoleE]

So we carried on East managing to tick off 4 states in one day....slightly cheated though

Swiss bikers at the gas station.



One of my gripes about buying fuel stateside is that you either have to input a ZIP code, which obviously foreign cards don't have, or pre buy the fuel. Not exactly earth shattering but slighly annoying, luckily Chris had a Bank of America account which card we used instead.

Dipping into Colorado, lovely as ever.



Then,



Here's the cheating. Four corners monument, CO/UT/NM/AZ all in a few steps, although we did drive through all four too.



After that we headed south to our stop off point, Canyon de Chelly back in Arizona now for the final time.





Where we stayed the night



An American Indian Hogan, can't say I liked it that much but I'll try anything once (within reason), and it was something to remember.

Our stop here would be the last in Navajo land, which I had mixed feelings about, we'd met lots of interesting people but I wouldn't get bored of people trying to flog crappy jewellery to us at local beauty spots or stray dogs oddly.

This is also the last day we spent with our Corolla. The oil light had come on just outside of Monument and we organised a swap for the day after. In some sense I now regret this decision however at the time we hoped to wrangle some sort of upgrade, which never happened of course

[Dlvdegg]

Ack....where is the rest of the trip?!?!? Looks like you guys a having a blast!!!!

[FoleE]

Ack....where is the rest of the trip?!?!? Looks like you guys a having a blast!!!!

I'm getting it done fella and thanks yeah it was awesome .

[FoleE]

So after an arduous 1 hour trip down a dirt road with no cell coverage (thanks sat nav ) we finally made it onto a main highway and crossed into New Mexico. Here I saw something that I'd never seen before, a McDonalds gas station! Amazing huh . Again bumped into a bunch of Germans, I swear they are everywhere in the south-west!

We rolled into Albuquerque after a while and sadly but really quite unemotionally said goodbye to the Corrolla, swapping it for a Sentra of exactly the same colour. The Toyota was a good car but an appliance and that's how I felt as such. That evening we went downtown and caught Transformers 3D at the cinema, I love US movie theatres because of the reclining seats, we don't have these in the UK.

Morning after we headed up the 2.7m Sandia Peak Tramway to an altitude of 10,378ft which we were grateful for as the temperature at ground level was 113F, and that was just killer.

View from the top was pretty epic.







Alot of the trails up top were closed due to fire risk which was slightly dissappointing but needs be.



Unfortunately on the way back down someone fainted in the tram car due to the height, hope they were okay.

After this we headed South East to our next stop off point.





That stop off being Roswell, of course. This was Chris's idea and a hilarious one at that



I've never seen so much UFO based stuff, maybe unsurprisingly as it is Roswell after all but damn there's a lot! Naturally we had to go to the UFO museum...



Yeah we messed about- quite alot actually









We are sophisticated people I'll have you know.



After the Roswell experience we headed back into the vast landscape that is this area of America. I want to call it nothingness however I'm not wanting to offend people at the same time.



Just before leaving the state we dropped by the Carlsbad Caverns, I would recommend a visit, they were great.





And then onto the big one, the one I'd been waiting for.

[FoleE]

So yep we skipped into West Texas. Against my expectations here we found some of the most polite drivers of the whole trip and the highest speed limits .

Still vast scrubland though,



Stopped over in Odessa. They have the world's largest jackrabbit don't 'cha know.



Yeah? Well you do now anyhow.

Day after we headed east once again.



Slowly the scenery starts to change, and things just become greener and greener.



Anyway we rocked into Austin, TX on the 21st of July. What a cool city, it has a great mixture of different cultures and political persuasions that make it fun to hang out in.

Realised I hadn't put up a pic of the Sentra yet.





Love the country stores.





I bought a cowboy hat here, which obviously I preceeded to try and wear as often as possible. The prices for the nice hats, boots and buckles are something else though, bit too much for a souvenir probably, although that didn't stop us trying to get as much kit as possible.

We ate lots of BBQ, really good stuff.



My favourite place was the Salt Lick just outside the city, great BBQ food, freshly squeezed lemonade and fantastic mustard based sauce. Sooo good, plus live music whilst you waited, this place was in high demand.



A cheer went out when it was found some people 'all the way from' California were visiting. Not being attention seekers we kept quiet

Yeah had a good few days in Austin, went kayaking on the lake (got sunburnt )



Ate out of a lot of caravans,



Saw the largest urban bat colony in America, went to a cinema that served food to your chair (genious idea) and generally had good times all round.



Yeah, Austin was really great

[scandalous_cynce]

Loving this thread!

[FoleE]

Thanks mate

One of the things I notice about the US is the state of some of the vehicles on the road.



Took this in the motel in Austin, think the bumper was tied on and about one snap away from falling off can't imagine a pedestrian coming off well in a collision and I'd imagine running over it when it does fall off wouldn't end well either. Also saw a car parked in Denny's that had a severe side impact, I was surprised it could've even driven in a straight line and I assumed it was dumped there but I later saw somebody drive off in it. Seems crazy to me but hell, land of the free right

Anyway we left Austin after a few days and made our way on the I-35 north to Dallas. There was alot of queues due to roadworks on this section of road and I was impressed to see people in trucks/SUVs drive off the highway through drainage ditches or whatever to reach uncongested roads running parallel to the highway. Very intuitive

We arrived in Dallas getting towards the evening, off the highway it was pratically deserted.



It felt kind of morbid but obviously as we were just passing through we wanted to head to the place where JFK was assasinated.



Obviously the building he was officially shot from is very famous now and the sixth floor has been turned into a museum about JFK and the assasination. Unfortunately they don't let you take pictures from where he was shot however, I don't know why.

X marks the spot as it were.



A lot of conspiracy theories concern the 'grassy knoll'.





There was lots of interesting graffiti on the fence







Anyway after all that we left to get back to the motel and to try and find a Domino's or something. When we were looking we found an Aldi. Awesome never knew they existed stateside lol.

This would be our last whole day in Texas, the day after we had a long drive North East. I was upset to be leaving, I'd wanted to go to Texas for ages and it lived up to my expectations. Don't get me wrong being a tourist and residing are two seperate things altogether but I had a great time whilst we were there.

So day after we carried on up the I-30 headed towards Little Rock, AR whilst taking in the last of Texas.

Got stuck behind this guy for aaaages. Then once we passed he overtook again fml.



Texas's last stand. We went to one of those super Walmart type things here and boy were there some freaks about, got alot of love for the accents though.



Finally,





From what we saw of Arkansas, it was green with straight roads but we just passed through. Although it was here I embarassingly managed to pull onto the wrong side of the road after coming off the highway. It was the only major incident I had all trip and I'll just put it down to tiredness I think .



Back home I live 5 minutes from Malvern, it's where Morgan cars are made. A constant source of interest was seeing British place names show up unexpectedly.



In Arkansas we hit a bad thunderstorm, spray from the wheels of semi trucks really gets bad and it annoyed me that they didn't seem to slow down much when it got heavy. Was kind of funny to see rain again as well, especially considering the drought they were having in Texas.



Eventually we made it to the other side though..



Awaddup Memphis!

[FoleE]

Sooo Memphis, damn it was hot in Memphis. Whereas out west the heat was a dry one, here the humidity really kicked in and it's energy sapping.

Didn't know too much about the place so obviously the first thing to do was to head to Graceland, Elvis's house.



The house decor is still much the same as when Elvis passed.





Obviously some stuff has changed though becoming a shrine to the King.



Elvis and some close family members are buried here too which I didn't know.



Some of his vehicles in the museum.





Didn't know the guy had a tractor



The famous one,



His plane. Yeah they have his plane here too. Infact both his planes, he had two



Left Graceland with more respect for Elvis Presley. The guy certainly achieved alot in his life and the quantity of awards he had is amazing. Plus when we were queuing to get on the bus the Google Streetview car went passed, so I'm hoping to be embossed in the place for a while

The rest of our time in Memphis was spent doing a variety of things.
Headed down to the Mississippi river,



They have a scale model of the river down in the park alongside the real thing.



Beale Street, home of the blues.





Chromed out biatch!



Ended the day on a more sombre note. The National Civil Rights Museum has been built within the motel where Martin Luther King was shot on the balcony. Some images inside the museum seem so alien now and are hard to comprehend.







You go into a reproduction of the last room he stayed in and it's quite saddening. No pictures from the balcony though. You can also go across the road to the bedsit where he was shot from, I had no idea the assasin was caught in England till we read it here.

Day after we visited the graveyard in Memphis that has many graves from the Civil War.



We had intially planned to go to Nashville but being it was 3 hours there and 3 hours back we decided to give it a miss, I'm sure I'll make it someday though. So we headed south to our next destination.

[FoleE]

So drove down to Louisiana through Mississippi on the I-55 south passing a huge Nissan factory alongside the road. We joked that the car was coming home but I googled it and it seems they make mainly trucks there, damn .

Driving over the swamps of LA,



Eventually we made it New Orleans and decided initially to look over the more touristy parts aka the French district.











Diplomat?





Anyway the day after we decided to head off the beaten track and maybe search out some of the areas worst hit by Katrina in 2005 to see how the areas had been rebuilt.

We downloaded a little map off the net and got underway, however as we started our little 'tour' we were surprised to see the amount of devastation still present 6 years later.







Where the levees had broke and the houses been completely washed away new modern pieces of architecture have sprung up but go a couple of blocks down the road and the story can change completely. Obviously some people just never returned.

Some of the roads where the levees broke were absolutely awful, I can't believe they hadn't resurfaced them but I won't even pretend to understand the engineering or political issues here.



Pretty bad all round.



We had intended to stay another day in New Orleans then drive onto our next destination, Orlando FL, in one day however after looking at the length of time we decided to split it into two more managable segments. So once again we hit the road.

[Cooper]

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

I had a business trip to San Francisco a few years ago. Someone out there mentioned that S.F. voted to pay a monthly stipend to homeless people. That only caused a great influx of homeless people to S.F. looking for a handout.

[FoleE]

^ That would make sense then I guess.

Anyway we soldiered on towards Florida passing through Mississippi and into Alabama, through Mobile where I got road raged on for the first time by a guy in a Tiguan from Texas.

We took a little detour to visit a place of my namesake.





Yep I'm a douchebag.

The skies really are blue in Alabama..



Anyway just before passing into Florida we rolled through a little nondescript place called Seminole on the Old Spanish Trail. It was here that the Top Gear crew got stoned on their US roadtrip by good 'ol boys. We didn't stop for fear of death....I kid, I kid, the place was just like any other small town in the south .

Carried on and passed into Florida and into our final time zone whilst in the US.





Made it to our stopover in Tallahassee and then the morning after onwards to Orlando



Hmmmmm.

[LG6R]

Really surprised you haven't been getting more replies. Only got through a few posts so far, I'm saving the rest of the thread for later when I can kick back with a beer in hand. Really phenomenal pictures!!! Many are even better than mine, and I took a LOT when traveling the country myself. Can't wait to finish the thread later.

[Cooper]

This thread reminds me of a friend we have in Germany. She's seen more of the U.S. than we have.

Looking forward to a lot more pictures. Great thread.

[FoleE]

Really surprised you haven't been getting more replies. Only got through a few posts so far, I'm saving the rest of the thread for later when I can kick back with a beer in hand. Really phenomenal pictures!!! Many are even better than mine, and I took a LOT when traveling the country myself. Can't wait to finish the thread later.

Means alot mate thanks, and I'll be sure to check your's too, I love a good roadtrip thread hence why I'm writing this one up .

[FoleE]

This thread reminds me of a friend we have in Germany. She's seen more of the U.S. than we have.

Looking forward to a lot more pictures. Great thread.

The fact that she's German doesn't surprise me at all, they're bloody everywhere

I met some of my buddy's co-workers in Phoenix and many hadn't even seen the Grand Canyon, a few hours away and one of the 'Seven Natural Wonders of the World'. I had trouble understanding that

[FoleE]

So into Orlando. I'm not gonna try and pretend this was some sort of cultural experience it's basically theme parks and cheap eats although you can of course head off the beaten track as ever. It's not my first time here, in fact I've been on 3 previous occasions but it was odd for me to drive there

What it's all about:







The only Opel Corsas in America? I'm not sure how much Corsa was left in them however, stripped out with bike engines in the back powering the rear wheels.





The car parks always crack me up. They're gigantic and you have to take a little train thing to get to the actual parks, hell in one you take a monorail. The beast in situ,



One day we decided to head over to the Atlantic coast, Cocoa Beach to be precise and took in some air boating en route. Our trip to the beach also meant I'd been in the Pacific and the Atlantic within the same trip.



This was just before I wrestled the 14fter



After all our time spent in motels, hostels and camping, Orlando was our little bit of luxury, private villa in a 'gated community'....hell yeah!







Best thing evaaaaar



Sadly eventually we had to get on the road again after a great week in Florida. During our time there we came the closest to stacking the car after a taxi minivan decided he wanted to be in our lane whilst we were occupying it. A lucky swerve avoided disaster as we were alongside him when he pulled that s**t. Wing mirrors are there for a reason jackass



Our next stopover was to be Fayetteville in North Carolina which meant crossing through Georgia and S Carolina in one day, not a fun task but it could've been worse.

Still made time to stop off in Daytona though,



I'm sure the Sentra would've decimated all on track...



And onwards up the coast!

[palakaman]

It's amazing you can keep all our straight roads in order to. I'd be like "hhmmm which picture is next? This one is straight, looks good to me."

Anyways. Carry on.

[LG6R]

Again, really great thread thus far. Top notch.

-How many days in total did this trip take? Approx 6 weeks? How many miles? How many driving days?
-What's the breakdown of lodging? How many night in hotels, how many camping, etc?
-Total cost of the trip? Hotels, rental car, excursions, gas, etc. I imagine it was atronomical.
-Did you go with "just" a friend? Or a friend with benefits? She looks cute.


-Did you happen to go to Glacier Point while in Yosemite? I always rave that it's the best single spot to catch the greatest view you'll ever see in the US.
-The top of the Stratosphere looked awesome. Wish I had gone up there.
-Always wanted to drive on the Extraterrestrial Highway. Jealous. And the Aleinn! That's awesome. Pretty much the only thing out there though, right?
-Agreed with your thoughts on the Hoover Dam. I don't see the appeal of it either. When I drove through there in 2009, is was all a huge traffic jam and that bridge was still under construction. When I drove through there this year, the bridge was finally completed and was a very welcome clear passage right through the area.
-I can't believe you went to Zion but not Bryce Canyon National Park. Zion has nothing whereas Bryce has... well... everything. It's my favorite place in the world. Promise you'll visit if/when you come back to the area.
- Yep, lots of Germans in German-plated RV's. It's very strange. Lots of tourist busses have French people, oddly enough. Or at least was my observation.
-You didn't really stay in that log/mud house, did you? Looks knarly.
-I've heard of Salt Lick before. Now I'm craving BBQ.
-What were your experiences with Texans?
-Lots of Aldi's on the east coast.
-If you want to really see some freaks at WalMart, visit a 24hr Supercenter in the middle of the night. It's like a Halloween haunted house in there.
-What did you think of Arkansas? Anything interesting at all there?
-Overall impression of Memphis?
-Anything to do in Orlando other than Disney? I was under the impression that's all there was and drove right by.

Really looking forward to seeing the rest of the trip.

[22AudiQ]

Great thread! Can't wait to see more!

[FoleE]

It's amazing you can keep all our straight roads in order to. I'd be like "hhmmm which picture is next? This one is straight, looks good to me."

Anyways. Carry on.

You jest but we don't really get such straight roads like you guys do over here in the UK so I found a lot quite mesmerising . For roads with actual corners though California trumped the rest but obviously most our driving was on highways and interstates.

Again, really great thread thus far. Top notch.

-How many days in total did this trip take? Approx 6 weeks? How many miles? How many driving days?
-What's the breakdown of lodging? How many night in hotels, how many camping, etc?
-Total cost of the trip? Hotels, rental car, excursions, gas, etc. I imagine it was atronomical.
-Did you go with "just" a friend? Or a friend with benefits? She looks cute.


-Did you happen to go to Glacier Point while in Yosemite? I always rave that it's the best single spot to catch the greatest view you'll ever see in the US.
-The top of the Stratosphere looked awesome. Wish I had gone up there.
-Always wanted to drive on the Extraterrestrial Highway. Jealous. And the Aleinn! That's awesome. Pretty much the only thing out there though, right?
-Agreed with your thoughts on the Hoover Dam. I don't see the appeal of it either. When I drove through there in 2009, is was all a huge traffic jam and that bridge was still under construction. When I drove through there this year, the bridge was finally completed and was a very welcome clear passage right through the area.
-I can't believe you went to Zion but not Bryce Canyon National Park. Zion has nothing whereas Bryce has... well... everything. It's my favorite place in the world. Promise you'll visit if/when you come back to the area.
- Yep, lots of Germans in German-plated RV's. It's very strange. Lots of tourist busses have French people, oddly enough. Or at least was my observation.
-You didn't really stay in that log/mud house, did you? Looks knarly.
-I've heard of Salt Lick before. Now I'm craving BBQ.
-What were your experiences with Texans?
-Lots of Aldi's on the east coast.
-If you want to really see some freaks at WalMart, visit a 24hr Supercenter in the middle of the night. It's like a Halloween haunted house in there.
-What did you think of Arkansas? Anything interesting at all there?
-Overall impression of Memphis?
-Anything to do in Orlando other than Disney? I was under the impression that's all there was and drove right by.

Really looking forward to seeing the rest of the trip.

Damn fella, you've got me really thinking now and unfortunately there's a few questions I can't answer. First up sadly we've no idea the exact amount of miles travelled on the trip, swapping the cars over midway we stupidly forgot to record the mileage and therefore after that kind of didn't bother measuring. It was enough though .

Costs wise I don't have an exact figure, but I suspect it to be around £3000 ($4800ish) but that includes flights at £500 and car rental at just over $2000 (split between 3) so in reality I don't think I could've saved more money. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I felt the cost was justified.

Trip was 47days long give or take a few time zones and we had the car for 40 of those days but we managed to split the driving quite well. The longest duration was about 8 hours of which I've just chronicled from Orlando, FL to Fayetteville, NC. Outside of NYC the only time the car wasn't at our beck and call was in San Francisco where we had to park miles away due to the cost of parking in the city.

Break down in lodgings is approximate but roughly 21 nights spent in motels (not as bad as some would make believe), about 9 days in hostels, 3 days in a hotel, 4 nights only were spent camping and one night in the Indian hogan....yep we actually stayed in that thing , 7 nights were spent in the villa in Orlando, plus 2 nights initially in Chris's apartment in Phoenix.

The situation with my travelling buddies in complex but in a sadly uninteresting way. Chris is one of my closest friends from back home and as part of his college course he had the opportunity to live and work in the US for a year and ended up in Phoenix with sharing an apartment with someone else from said course, Julia. Anyway she was supposed to head off at the end of the year with her bf to do a similar trip however naturally they split up and she and Chris hooked up unbeknownst to myself untill I flew into Phoenix . Julia didn't accompany us during the first week and half due to being in Hawaii with a friend, neither did she come to Florida as it's not really her thing which I can understand. So yeah no benefits.......for me at least .

-Unfortunately after googling it I don't think we hit glacier point but frankly I found every view there stunning and as I said would've liked to have spent more time exploring.
-Area 51 is the ONLY thing out there. I'm amazed places such as Rachel where the Ale'Inn is even survive. There's not even a gas station there.
-I'd love to go to Bryce, I'd of loved to go to Nashville too, sometimes time isn't on your side but I'll be back for sure.
-Texas was awesome, BBQ is awesome and the Salt Lick epically good, great atmosphere too. Never had a problem with Texans, they were very polite and friendly, not trying to rub anyone the wrong way but the rudest people we found to be in NYC, it was like being home again
-Walmart is awesome. I love it. A supermarket that sells t/y/ires? F**kin smart.
-Drove through Arkansas in a day, stopping once for lunch, therefore my experience is extremely limited. The local Sheriff's message came across the radio and it was one of the strongest accents I ever heard. Therefore in my imagination now I see Arkansas as a kind of Dukes of Hazzard type place with corrupt deputies and good 'ol boys driving orange cars however I have no evidence to corroborate this.
-Memphis was okay for a day or two, any more than that would of been pushing it. Realistically we only went there to meet another of Julia's friends. It was sooo hot and stuffy there though.
-Orlando is Disney. Obviously there are other things to do than theme parks (Disney have 4 parks plus 2 water parks, Universal have 2 parks I believe, and Sea World have a park and a water park too I believe) but not that would justify going there in respect of that. If it's not your sort of thing stay well clear, I kind of walk the line, I love getting out to nature, hiking and stuff but I also love being a bit of a kid again. I've been to Orlando an insane 4 times now but I'd still go back.

Tom

Great thread! Can't wait to see more!

Thanks chap.

[FoleE]

So an 8 hour trip from Florida to North Carolina commenced, originally we'd wanted to stop in Wilmington but time constrained us and we stopped over in Fayettville where we encountered the craziest motel receptionist of the trip who wanted to 'party with us'...ok then .

There was a massive thunderstorm that night for which they put out warning messages on the radio, the first of the whole trip. We tried to find a Walmart but the satnav directed us to a Walmart distribution centre instead we found one eventually though. Another thing about NC is the military presence there, I know the welcome signs said America's most military friendly state but wow there's alot of squaddies out there. The storm knocked out our TV signal when we returned with our spoils from Walmart so we had a boring night. No partying.

Next day got on the road to D.C of course, the nation's capital.



Naturally we programmed the satnav for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and it tried to take us right to Barack's doorstep.

Uh-Uh.



We settled for parking nearby and set out to investigate on foot.

Wahey:



...In reality..







After saying bye to Barack and his security detail we headed over to the State Capitol building. There was a military band playing outside, it was nice.





Great view.





The next day we decided to take the train in and plonked the car in some fairly ghetto-ey area near the motel.

Where we ended up,



We walked all the way along, it was another hot, humid day. Fairly draining tbf.







It was so hot that the reflecting pool had evaporated



The man himself.



After this we decided to head back up to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. This place was awesome and even better, it was free, something I had become unused to in the US.







The freaking moon capsule, sat right there.



Anyway they had much more than that, I could've stayed all day but as ever time constraints blah blah. I'd recommend it though to anyone interested in that sort of thing.

Last thing we did was to visit the Pentagon.



Weren't exactly supposed to take photos....sssshhhhh. You can't tell it's a pentagon from close up (duh you say) and there were lots of important and serious looking people about.

That was pretty much it for D.C, we had an evening and a day and spent it fairly wisely. We wanted to check out Georgetown too but just ran clean out of gusto and made a tactical retreat to Olive Garden (it was okay) then back to the motel. Enjoyed Washington though, it was educational.

[FoleE]

Aah coming to the end game now. The day we left Washington was a sad day, the last with the car, so the end of the 'road' section of our trip and the last motel stay, they had served us honourably.

So for the last time we got a hustle on and hit the road. We had two options, go with the toll roads or without, we decided to go with to save time but fml I spent so much on tolls that day lol.

More long, straight roads, so much busier by the point though. I remembered reading somewhere on TCL that this area was pretty bad for speeding fines and the like so we took it easier.



The states flew by, the traffic got worse.





I like this, with the cop car



We made a criminal mistake in Jersey and tried to pump our own gas and got yelled at I don't really get what the thinking is behind that, and if the attendee thinks he's getting a tip for being rude, frankly he can go f**k himself. Stupid regulations.

Eventually we crossed over a bridge and we could see the big apple itself. The final destination.



We dropped the car off at JFK because none of us were keen on driving in New York understandibly and we knew there was a flat rate taxi charge from the airport.

Once again dropped the car off but with more sadness this time, probably more due to the fact that the roadtrip was over as opposed to being sad at seeing the back of the Sentra. It served us well all the way from Albuquerque and for that I give it a

One flat rate charge +toll +tip () taxi ride and we were in New York eventually, staying at some fleabag 'hotel' in the Bowery area. If you guys thought Motel 6 was bad you should've seen this place haha.

We had these city pass things and we decided the first thing we should do that evening would be to go up the Empire state building. We wanted to catch sunset but didn't factor in queuing and security by which time we had missed it. The view was still great though.





We were pretty beat after but decided to check out Times Square all the same.







Ayyyooohh..meh.



This guy kept circling the square...he loved it.



The next few days we spent being tourists doing touristy things I'm afraid.







Spotted this bad boy in Brooklyn. OHH **** DAWG.











Went to Ellis Island and my name is on the list (Thomas Foley). I'm assuming I'd be distantly related to alot of these people because the level of immigration from Ireland where the Foley name is originally from. Apparentely my name is also on the list of people who died on 9/11 also.









Parking in NYC is bad like Paris and London, not sure I'd be wanting to be parking my Porsche on the street (the Prius's bumper was touching it )





He got so many comments in that shirt go Walmart!!

Our last day in America was on the 15th August and we would depart from Newark in the evening. It had rained literally the whole day and night before and we felt lucky to have the morning to walk around again, therefore we headed to the park.



Now we'd been to where a third person was killed



Not wanting to leave our hats in the fleabag 'hotel' luggage drop off we elected to wear them the entire day



We looked like such mugs but I didn't even care, and they all liked it in security at the airport later....NOT but then again they don't like anything.

Literally the last thing we did was to visit the American Museum of Natural History, the dinosaur exhibition was great, the rest so-so.



And that folks is that, after this we picked up our bags, took a shuttle bus to Newark, caught the plane in the evening and landed in London Heathrow the next morning. Ever felt out of place? Try wearing a cowboy hat through a major British airport (or in Chris's case the whole outfit, including Texas belt buckle and boots).

Overall I had a total blast in the US and would love to do another trip sometime. I loved the people, the food, the CHEAP gas (yes it is cheap), the weather, the scenery and so much more.
I didn't enjoy tipping or adding on taxes when you get to the counter, so f**king annoying lol but apart from that..

I feel that many Americans don't get out and about enough to see their own country which saddens me as there is so much to see but that's their prerogative. I'm just glad I was able to when I had the chance.

Much love, Tom

[Cooper]

Awesome trip.

Yes, the states fly by in the northeast.

We are in MA, and we go to the Outer Banks, NC every year. In 13 hours we drive through MA, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA, and NC.

[Katie-S]

AWESOME trip! Thanks for sharing.

[scandalous_cynce]

So cool! And you're right - a lot of Americans never see the majority of our country. (Myself included!) As much as I'm not a fan of road trips, this thread really made me want to take a cross country trip just to say I did.

[Cooper]

We made a criminal mistake in Jersey and tried to pump our own gas and got yelled at I don't really get what the thinking is behind that, and if the attendee thinks he's getting a tip for being rude, frankly he can go f**k himself. Stupid regulations.

I didn't enjoy tipping or adding on taxes when you get to the counter, so f**king annoying lol but apart from that.

People at tdiclub.com mention that the NJ law only applies to gasoline, not diesel fuel, but they get yelled at anyway.

Did you tip gas station attendants in NJ? A work colleague from Australia mentioned tipping the gas station atttendant. We told her that they don't get tips.

"No wonder they are always so happy to see me!"