more dogs

How we ended up at the Mississippi State fair is too long a tale to tell, but we did!

Assuming it would be a bit like the Little Eaton carnival as Davenport was not dissimilar. We trotted off for some nasty out of date carni food and prepared to be fleeced at every opportunity.

I could not have been more wrong and shocked to the core. All what was missing from this side show was a lady with a beard and I am sure she was just in the bog.

We saw sick animals with all sorts of strange things growing out of their foreheads, crocodile wrestling, elephant rides, a live pony carousel, and a nasty looking dog walking a tight rope.

The children would not move and plonked themselves down on the front row to see the dog in a tutu climb a ladder. It was a truly hideous experience but like any good train crash it becomes impossible to look away.

In the evening there was a band on, but as it was only Fridayy the organiser said it would not be a as big a band as on the Saturday and we should definitely stay until then.

It was ZZTop for Christ's sake!

Salt water taffy.

I read some where that one of the most important things to do before you die is eat lobster in Maine. I wish I had written that book, to sell to sad middle aged thrill seekers not dissimilar to myself.

Having consumed many lobster in Maine, I felt that as a responsible parent, I would take my children to consume one of the may wonders of the world. I thought it would far out weigh any hanging gardens!

We headed off from Salem and Darcey stashed a couple of packets of cereal for the journey. It was the mini boxes of variety packs which have always held immense fascination for me as well. When I was little fruit loops were not heard of, it was more frosties, coco pops, corn flakes. I used to eat the who collection in the space of a day. Just because..........

By the time we got to Freeport Darcey was going mad. Mad like I have never seen. LL Bean will never be the same again. It was like watching the Tasmanian devil rip the store apart. I managed to catch hold of her after about 20 minutes and her eyes were flashing like head lights on high beam. I stuffed her in her push chair and bought her a pair of Reebok's in pink to go with her new red neck image.

I didn't really enjoy Freeport this time. It took Darcey hours to calm down. Darcey is currently banned from fruit loops.

We plumped on Kennebunkport as the closest town in Maine next to the New Hampshire boarder and hit the road.

Kennebunkport is famous for may things, President Bush's holiday home, clam chowder, whales and salt water taffy............what..........salt water taffy...........

We stayed in a hotel on stilts, ate lobster, Ben and Jerry's then got drunk and made fun of the shop assistant selling salt water taffy. I had the girl say taffy at least 10 times before we decided that she was actually saying toffee. It has never seen any salt water, and didn't taste like doggy Dutch toothpaste. The kids hated lobster.

Cape Cod & Drive In's

Tempers back to normal this morning.

Breakfast wasn't quite what I expected it to be, cereal in reception around a table which was basically a wobbly plastic patio table. But its an econolodge, what can you expect. Claire skipped breakfast and I thought she went for a walk, it wasn't until many months later that I would find out what Claire was actually doing. It turns out that after my excellent display of driving the day before, Claire decided she would spend sometime practicing driving around the carpark, stopping, starting and reversing etc.

We spent the morning having a look around Mystic which is best described as quaint, ie it was old by American standards. At one time Mystic was a bustling seaport reflected in the large 19th century maritime museum that is located on one bank of the river. It included whaling boats and the like, we went and had a look at all the free bits but in typical Jonas style we didn't pay to get in.
In the centre of Mystic there is pretty cool draw bridge, which was actually still in use to allow the boats in and out of the sheltered harbour, I made everybody wait as it opened to let this piddly little boat out and then closed. This is more like it, yesterday the Empire State, today moving bridges cool buildings and stuff. I'm going to enjoy myself on this holiday.

The kids were taken with these brightly painted little whales that were dotted all over the town, can't remember why they were there or how many, they just were.

From Mystic we headed towards Providence and then onto Cape Cod. Lots of places we drove by had cool sounding names such as Taunton, Tiverton, Barnstable and even better Falmouth and Truro, it was just like being at home. We stopped off and drove down this long dead end to a jetty and small boatyard/marina, across the water was Martha's Vineyard. We were right near to a place called Woods Hole which I have actually heard of, although I don't think Claire was really interested in my fantastic trivia. But Woods Hole is home to a number of Oceanographic Centres and other places that do research into the seal. I know this because I read Clive Cussler.

We stayed in a motel well up into Cape Cod near Welfleet, it was a right touristy area with motels and campsites dotted all along the highway along with garages that sold beach tat. You know the stuff, brightly coloured inflatable rings, lilos, nets, buckets and spades,which are just there to entice you in, Claire and the kids were in heaven. I kept driving.

Whilst driving to the motel we passed a drive in movie theatre so after having dinner we drove down and found it was open it was 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' followed by 'The Fantastic Four' double bill, so we paid and parked up. Then moved to a better spot then turned around and sat in back as everyone else was doing. With the radio tuned in and the film about to start Darcey went to sleep and Piper was flagging. I'm sure I was asleep by halfway through the film, I definitely missed the end. I wanted to stay and watch the Fantastic Four but Claire was having none of it.

Slightly different, I think!

Well as I remember...............

We arrived at JFK, it was hot and I was bothered in a way that only a harassed mother of two can be on a long haul flight via CDG for the sake of saving a quid.

Roland it seems has no trouble what so ever sleeping on flights which leaves me to entertain a four year old and nine year old little poppets.

It always surprises me that neither little darling ever wants to fiddle with Daddy's hair or sit and chat about views from the aeroplane window with him. I am not sure if its because he always sweats like a drug smuggler who has a kilo of crack in his anal cavity or his strange west country come mid shires accent makes him stand out from the crowd.

(He has had the same stand out affect on work men who come to quote on work we have needed doing on the house over the years. They never show up after the briefest of conversation with him on the phone.)

So, we are in New York, its hot, I am bothered and quit frankly Roland's driving scares me to death. This is the man who almost broke his wrist trying to reset the odometer whist turning sharp left onto Charnwood Street.

I popped into the car hire shop to view the saloon that I had arranged for our 3 week adventure.

Never was I going to drive such a tiny car along the streets of America when the opposition where driving the equivalent of tanks. Before you could say SUV, I had whipped out the credit card and the saloon was no more.

After a long hot drive across town we were introduced to our home/friend/dinner, which was a brand new Jeep. In WHITE.

As Roland Kangarooed out of Manhattan, I thought I would get over the forehead bruise from repeatably hitting my head on the dashboard. The whiplash I am not so sure about. Roland didn't seam to notice his poor, poor driving but I was beginning to feel like the National Lampoons Summer Vacation.

Looking back I think its easy to say we should have stopped long before we got to Mystic. Tempers were frayed and the children were desperately hungry and Darcey as always thirsty as a fish.

Whilst everyone had a sleep late the next morning, I practiced driving the automatic around the car park to insure a smoother ride. I cracked my head more than twice!

Kangaroo petrol

We walked along 57th street then down Broadway until we found Times Sq, took some photos and that was about it. I imagine it is much more impressive all lit up by neon at night but at 9.30 in the morning it seemed well, ordinary. The real binding memory of Times Sq was Piper getting her ears pierced at Claires Accessories which we do not seem to be able to pass anywhere in the world without having to enter and buy some jewelry rubbish. The joy of daughters I suppose.

It didn't take Claire much to persuade Piper to have them done as she had mentioned it previously, so she sat on the stool clutching a cushion as the assistant went to work. She winced big style as the first ear was pierced and looked at us as if being tortured, Claire said 'cry if you want to, I'm sure I did when mine where done', just the cue for floods of tears.

We continued on our way to the Empire State Building to do some proper sight seeing. We joined the queue which didn't appear to bad, just around the corner and halfway up the block. It didn't take to long to get inside and join the queue proper, it was like being at Alton Towers, back and forth, back and forth. At the top the view of Manhatten Island was really impressive with the grid layout of all the blocks, interesting fact the block layout of New York is actually based on the city of Mannheim in Germany. Its not until you get to the top that you really appreiciate the scale of New York, downtown where the next group of large skyscrapers are look a considerable distance away.

It was finally time to go and pick up our car in which we will be living in in close proximity for the next three weeks. It caught my notice how many 4x4s or SUVs there were in New York, in the country perhaps but not in New York and they all seemed much bigger than the cars especially our medium sedan that we had booked. I never said anything to Claire but I think I wanted a SUV rather than a car. You cannot imagine my pleasure when Claire came back from the office and said that she had changed the car to a SUV. Yes!.

Hmm, it hadn't crossed my mind that the car was going to be an automatic, can't remember the last time I drove one, well why not refresh my memory in the centre of New York full of speeding taxi drivers and one way streets. Therefore out of the garage and faces against the window as I used my left foot for breaking. We continued kangarooing down the street much to the amusement of the kids and the consternation of Claire. 'Do you know where you are going' she said 'Yes' I replied 'Straight on'. Straight on, staright on, straight on until we hit a dual carriageway that would take us out of the city.

Eventually we stopped outside the town of Mystic made famous recently by the Julia Roberts film Mystic Pizza which was set in the town. Although it turns out Mystic is more famous for the Mystic Seaport which is a 19th century maritime museum with a collection tall ships.

Anyway before we found somewhere to stay the night I took a couple of wrong turns after we left the interstate, missed some perfectly good motels and was generally pissing Claire right off, I could feel Claire's rising anger in the seat next to me. I feel three weeks of arguing intermingled with periods of the silent treatment. By the time we got back to the 'Econolodge' (sounds like my kind of place) which was the first motel we passed 'Don't come back without a room' was the command, so I was well pleased when the rate included breakfast. I dragged the required bags up the stairs and into the room, by the time I finished Claire and the kids where asleep.

I was looking forward to getting into bed but I was thirsty, then it went dark, not just any old dark but absolutely pitch black. Shit what now, I didn't know these rooms had a electric meter. Looking outside it was also completely dark with a faint glow in the distance, remembering I had packed a torch even after being ridiculed at home by Claire for wanting to bring it. Now I just had to find it.

Outside people were turning on car headlights pointed at the motel to lighten things up, other people were lounging around on the balcony drinking beer, couldn't really tell if they where unsavoury characters or not, I wondered off in the direction of the light. The light was coming from a garage which turned out to have its own power supply, it also seemed to be the main attraction at the moment and was pretty busy. Apparently there had been some accident somewhere and it would be a while before the power would be back on. I bought a load of junk food and returned to the motel.

New York the city that never sleeps.

Believe you, me it Kipp's like a lazy piss stained hobo on a park bench in Central Park

It was a Monday, so perhaps I was expecting too much of NY. I saw no chinky food in Chinatown and no pasta in Little Italy.

Even the few taxis we saw that night had to dodge the tumble weed.

On our revisit at the end of the trip it was entirely different snapping turtle...

Like a Dream or a Nightmare?

Well we have arrived in New York and its bloody well hot, apparently the North East of the United States is having some kind of heatwave and I can see us all getting teasey with each other over the next three weeks. This holiday is going to be a benchmark for future holidays we are either going to get along like a dream, or its going to be one hell of a nightmare couped up in a car together for three long weeks.

Last year we didn't have a family holiday as such, Claire had some time off, I had some time off and the remaining time the kids went to Cornwall, it was actually quite miserable we never did anything of note just little things, I think this inspired us, Claire especially to make sure we had a big holiday adventure every year. Thats' how we find ourselves in New York with a partial plan Jasper in Chicago and Uncle Len in Iowa, dates to be confirmed.

The flight went OK, although the in flight entertainment didn't work at one of the seats, so we had to have a shift around and yours truely had the bum seat. I was expecting longer queues at JFK considering what I had read about their new imigration controls, Everyone went through passport control easily although he seemed to pause at mine, which would become a bit of an occurance.

We rode into New York in a big yellow cab, the children seemed excited but a bit overwhelmed, heat, skyscrapers, no idea where we were going. The hotel was one block down two across from the corner of central park, so while Claire rested up, me and the kids strolled upto the park had a hot dog and looked at the fountain.

In the evening we travelled to downtown on the subway, and if it was hot during the day the subway was seriously hot and dragging Darcey round in her pushchair, carrying her up and down the stairs.
At the end of the line we did the cheapskates harbour tour by taking the Staten Island ferry out pass the Statue of Liberty to Staten Island, where else. I was slightly disappointed with the night skyline of New York, I was expecting it to be more lit up another knock on from the terrorist threat I suppose. After coming back on the ferry we walked up through Wall Street and on to Ground Zero.

Ground Zero was eerie, there where lots of people around even at midnight just looking at the pictures and lists of the dead. The site was much smaller than I imagined but I suppose skyscrapers dont take up much ground area.

Claire suggested that Chinatown is the place to visit so at midnight we set off on foot and could we find anything open, could we bollocks. We walked around for about an hour and nothing we ended up walking up the Bowery for some distance. By now I think we had all had enough Claire because she had been raving that Chinatown is a happening place to be which at that moment in time was anything but, poor Piper was just knackered as was I, but I also had the hinderance of pushing Darcey. Also it was still hot.

We flagged a taxi down and returned to our hotel.