A Capitol Destination

We've made it to DC after a bit of a slow start - plus I slept in the car most of the day. No worries, Gar was driving and Rach was keeping him awake.

I've missed a few bits along the way that I thought I should mention (or other people thought I should mention). Oh, and I haven't forgotten any physical items lately. OK, maybe I forgot the US power strip in Toronto, but otherwise...

On that topic my Aunt Maureen shipped my shampoo, honey (I forgot I'd forgotten that) and some manuals (ditto) down to Florida. Which was very sweet. And no Paul, I am not leaving a trail of bread crumbs to find my way back to the start. :^p

Gwen gave us a tour of Detroit (hey, there should be an architecture section in that article! hint!) which is a very beautiful city in spite of its reputation. Plus she did a better job of conveying my reaction to corn on sandwiches and pizza than I ever have. Note to Americans reading this: in the UK and Ireland corn is offered as a topping on sandwiches and pizza. Note to Irish people reading this: that's really weird. Feel free to debate this in the comments.

We met up with Danny (and also Mike and Remy and, uh, some other people (help?)) in Toronto. Thanks to him we got to see an onion volcano and a British pub. Not all at once mind. And I think while waiting for us at one point, Danny and Mike met some interesting local talent but I'm not sure I recall the details...

On the way from Toronto to DC we stopped at a number of places. The full journey was around 550 miles and we went a different way than Google maps suggests. We went via Batavia in NY and Gettysburg in PA on mostly back roads - by this I mean US highways, not this.

We went past my old university for a quick driving tour (why are they already doing construction on the "new" Math/Chem building?). Then we met up with Nicki, Mike and Ian for dinner at Applebees. Not exactly to plan (I had meant to go to Duffs but forgot), but I finally had Buffalo wings in Western NY. My lips recovered a few hours later.

We stayed at a really nice hotel in Williamsport and did laundry until about 4am - hence my napping all day yesterday. We stopped in Gettysburg - which was OK though a bit hokey. Finally we made it to a nifty hotel just a few blocks from the White House and met up with Diane. Today the four of us will be exploring DC - or will be when everyone wakes up!

BTW our trip has been pretty well planned, but we've had hiccups and bumps along the way. Everyone we've met up with or stayed with has been great about being flexible which has been awesome. I hope we haven't been too much of a pain in postage or time off work or showing up at bizarre hours of the night or anything else.

Reno!

Just for the record, this wasn't us.

We made it to Reno last night and Gar drove the bulk of the way. I think he finds automatics + cruise control amusing the same way I do, "why are you changing gears that way?" You could almost get into a conversation with the transmission. Not that I've ever done that during long drives, nope. There were a lot of chances to ask it though as we crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The last (only?) time I did serious mountain driving (no, not the Wicklow Mountains) was in a Ford Escort. The Toyota Sienna seems much easier.

Rach has now been to Wendy's and has learned that most Americans don't understand that chips are french fries. I haven't told her yet that cheese and onion flavor crisps are pretty much non-existent (and there's no Tayto). In other shopping news we've seen Target (didn't go in) and went to a Fry's. That last one explains why we now have a GPS - apparently Australian accents work best with text-to-speech systems.

Hotels!

So we're booked into the Hotel Triton in San Francisco for our first two nights. Still trying to figure out the car. We've been looking on Car Hire 3000 and Kayak.com for cars. For car models the Toyota Sienna seems good for a minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica seems good for a "crossover" (uh, isn't that just a bulky station wagon? OK, apparently not.) and for large sedans the Chrysler 300 and Buick Lucerne seem good.

Anyone have any opinions? This will be for three people, their growing amount of luggage ($1.55 to the euro? shopping fever!) over 4,500 miles so a Dodge Neon is not on the cards. Or a Miata for that matter (*sniff*).