Carrabelle Beach, Florida

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We went to Busch Gardens on Friday. The weather was supposed to be better in the morning so we got up early and were in the park not long after it opened. We wanted to go on all the main roller coasters. The best of which was called 'Sheikra'. It was the first dive coaster built in North America. It took you up 200ft and held you facing down a vertical drop for a few seconds before releasing. There were two of these drops and a couple of loops. Probably the shortest ride but definitely the best! ...

There were 4 or 5 main rides plus a few water based ones for us to cool down - it was roasting hot! The park was definitely the better than the ones we went to in LA. The queues were short, the layout was perfect, and the rides were better!

We were done a lot earlier than we thought, so we headed back to the RV park to go in the pool before we went for some Chinese food at P.F Changs (Which is really good by the way). Followed by the cinema.

We were supposed to be going to the beach the next day but the weather was awful. We took it easy and planned our next few days.

Today we had a 6 hour drive up the west coast of Florida to Carrabelle. We found a really nice rv campground right by the beach. The pool was deserted so we had it all to ourselves. The weather was great so we just spent most of the afternoon in/by the pool!

We have a place booked for the rv in New Orleans on Tuesday so we're going to stay here again tomorrow and have a longer drive to get there. But its worth it because its so perfect here!

The Sunshine State!

Big news on this update - we've made it to 10 thousand miles!!!

We left Washington and headed to West Virginia, we stayed at a place just outside Charleston - there weren't many RV parks but we eventually found one that suited our needs. We then had a couple of days of hardcore driving down to Florida, we drove across to Ohio then down through Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.

We stopped in Georgia to go to another outlet mall - these places are awesome - they're big brand stores (Nike, A+F, GUESS etc) but with ridiculously low prices, we did some more shopping here, probably spent a bit much but I managed to get a fair few presents for the folks back home.

I think it was a total of 1100 milles, we arrived in Florida yesterday. We stayed in a town called White Springs before driving down to Tampa today. "The Sunshine State" is certainly living up to it's nickname, the weather has been perfect from the moment we crossed the border.

The drive to Tampa was uneventful and about 3 hours in length. We've staying in a place called Dunedin, about 5 mins from the beach. The resort is quality; it's quiet, no kids and the amenities are clean and modern. The first thing we did was take a dip in the pool! It was good fun and we'll definitely be going in again! Tomorrow we're heading to Busch Gardens for the day, after which we'll go out for some food and a couple of beers, then go to see the new Tarantino movie.

On Saturday we'll be heading to Caladesi Island, home of the best beach in the USA! (according to numerous polls) From the pictures it looks like a tropical island that belongs in the Bahamas. You can't drive to it so you have to get a ferry, luckily we're 5 mins from the ferry pickup point.

After Florida we'll be heading to New Orleans ( Home of Southern Comfort :-D) for a couple of days.

We've also managed to get tickets to 2 more Blink 182 gigs. We've got pit tickets for the gig in St Louis and seated tickets for the gig in Irvine, CA. It's going to be mental! The first one we saw was amazing and we can't wait to see them again!

All in all, we've got a shedload to look forward to in our last month in the US!

Washington DC

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We only had one day to check out the capital, so had to leave the park early to get the metro in to the Mall where all the monuments and museums are. It was really easy to get around..we ended up doing quite a lot of walking but was definitely better than taking a tour bus.

We walked along the mall to the Lincoln Memorial which was at the opposite end to the Capitol. On the way we passed the Washington Memorial and the WWII Memorial.

From there we headed back via the White House. You could get a decent view from the fence, but it was a fair distance away.

We planned to visit two or three museums. The first one we went to was the holocaust memorial museum. It was really busy and we had to wait a while before we could go into the main exhibit. It was really interesting..though it did leave us feeling a bit depressed afterwards!.. but I'm really glad we went in. We had some more light-hearted visits planned for the afternoon anyway!

We went on to the Air & Space Museum next. We didn't spend as much time here as it was pretty crowded..so we just had a look at all the aircraft..making sure we saw all the famous ones!

We then went to get some food and check out a few shops before going to the cinema

We left there yesterday. We're basically driving for a few days now until we get to Florida. We were about 6 hours on the road yesterday, passing through Virginia and we then stayed in West Virginia last night.

Today we had another 6 hour drive to Tennessee. We passed through Ohio and Kentucky on the way to our park near Bristol. Only a 3 hour drive tomorrow to North Carolina! Should be in Florida in 4 days or so.

Blink 182 and on through Delaware

Well we we're getting pretty bored of hanging around RV parks in our attempt to save money and waiting for this Blink gig...so we we're specially excited yesterday when we left to go and set up at the Hershey Park campground. The gig was at the stadium by the theme park at Hershey..(which is where the chocolate is from). There was a free shuttle bus which took us right to the stadium, which meant we could both have a few beers for a change!

It was absolutely boiling when we left, we hadn't checked the forecast so didn't take any waterproofs with us. This turned out to be a massive mistake! About 45 minutes after we got to our seats it started to pour with rain as a thunderstorm moved over. There was hardly anywhere to shelter, but eventually we ended up standing in a couple of portable toilets for half an hour hoping the rain would move on. It eased off by the time the first band started, but just before blink we're going on it got pretty heavy again. The stage was soaked so it took ages to get the band set up.

Eventually they came on and it was well woth the wait! The rain gave it a pretty amazing atmosphere, especially as they had none of their usual special effects and such on stage..just basic spotlights. They played pretty much all our favourite songs and some more. It didn't stop raining the whole time but it was great. As you can see, we were drenched:

We really want to try and see them again while we're here...hopefully we can get some tickets for a gig they're doing in California!

Today we left Hershey early as we had a fairly long drive to Washington DC via Delaware to do some tax free shopping! We weren't at the mall for long but picked up some bargains! After there we headed into Maryland toward DC. We're staying about 10 miles from the centre so will be going in on the metro tomorrow to see the sights and check out a few museums.

Philly, PA and Liverpool, PA

Not much to report in this update - We're just laying low till the Blink gig on 12/08/09 in Hershey, PA. On our way down from New York, we passed through Philadelphia. We went to see the steps Rocky runs up and the statue of him that is now there. We didn't stop in Philly, just coasted through it till we hit some insane traffic (See previous blog entry).

We stayed at an RV park just outside of Lancaster, PA. The park was pretty good - it had good Wi-Fi and a Ping Pong table! It's safe to say that Cory and I are, now, absolute pros at this gentlemen's sport.

On our second night there, we went to sleep at about 1am but were woken up around 2 by some noise outside the van...at first we thought it could have been a raccoon or even a bear! As you can imagine, neither of us really wanted to go outside to check... so we just poked our heads through the window to take a look - somewhat surprisingly it turned out to be...



A massive Skunk!! It was a good job we didn't go outside!

Anyway, to my disgust, we're staying in a place called Liverpool, I can only hope, unlike it's namesake in the UK, it isn't full of bin dippers.

We'll be staying here till friday before moving down the river to a cheap campground for the weekend.

Smell ya later.

New York City: Part 2

We had two days left in New York. The first of the them had the best weather. It was roasting! We definitely picked the best day to go up the Empire State building as we had really clear views once we finally got to the top! We had to queue for about 2 hours starting outside the main entrance, then through a series of rooms and a couple of different lifts. It really was worth it though. The view from there is perfect. We took a few pictures and checked out the view from each angle before heading back down. Thankfully a lot less queueing on the way down!!


We went straight to the Hard Rock Cafe on Times Square for lunch. Food was great and not as expensive as we expected. The memorabilia was pretty interesting too..they even had The Beatles' suits and some of their instruments.

After our lunch we went for a walk to check out some other famous landmarks. First we went to Grand Central which was really impressive, and right next to that is The Chrysler building. We then walked up Madison Avenue to Central Park. After checking out a few shops we got the Subway back to our train for New Jersey.

Our last day was another wet one. It wasn't too bad when we left but we were visiting the Museum of Natural History anyway! There was a lot to see so we picked out the most interesting sounding exhibits...The dinosaurs which were brilliant, and also the mammals which was pretty good too. We wanted to see Central Park in the day so we walked though there after the museum. By then it was raining pretty heavily and luckily we had packed waterproofs..

...unlike the first day when we got soaked! We only had a short walk through and then wandered back toward Times Square, stopping for some food in a pretty expensive place called Lindy's..the same place we went for a beer the first night actually. The food was good enough anyway. We had a last walk through Times Square back to the station on 33rd.

Yesterday we left the hotel at about mid day...this is where we had been parked all 4 days.. The traffic was insane. We had to pass through a few tolls, but it was a Saturday and the weather was good, so I guess a lot of people travel south of the City for the weekend. We went to the cinema and for some food at the cheesecake factory (a restaurant chain). We only stayed one night at the RV park, just east of Philadelphia.

Today we left early to go to our next park, via Philadelphia. It was lucky we left early because the traffic was even worse near the city because of a massive storm which we got caught in. I think there must have been a lot of flash floods as loads of roads were closed off with chunks of pavement and tree branches all over the place. We sat in a queue for a couple of hours before deciding to exit and find a new route. We have no idea if this was quicker...but it was better than sitting in a queue!! We got some supplies and found our park which is pretty nice. We'll probably stay for 3 nights or so.

We've got a few days to fill in before our next gig which is Blink 182 in Hershey on the 12th, not far from here. We'll not do much as we spent quite a lot on the New York visit!