Driving in America

I thought I would share some of my experiences with driving in America. Compared to Australia firstly Americans drive on the other side of the road. So obviously the steering wheel is on the other side of the car. The Chevrolet Cobalt I am driving has the indicator stalk on the left side of the column and the wipers stalk on the right side same as the european cars. Also the other thing is about half the cars (mainly the imports - Subaru, Honda, Mazda & Nissan) all have orange indicators front and rear, where as the American cars (Ford, Chevrolet, Buick, Dodge) have front orange indicators and use the tail lights as the rear indicators. They also seem to use the front orange indicators as parkers. It just means you have to look a little closer when behind people and watch for the flashing tailights. There are a lot of 'pickup trucks' over here, Plenty of Ford F trucks and Chev trucks to be seen on the road. I have been on the lookout for Aussie cars and the Pontiac G8s (Holden VE Commodores) in particular but have only seen two G8s so far.



The rear of my Chev Cobalt hire car. Notice the lack of rear indicators





Holden VE Commodore! Sold in America as the Pontiac G8

Washington

My day in Washington didn't start off particularly great, being woken up by the mother of all thunderstorms about 6am. Everytime there was a big crash of thunder this same car alarm kept going off. After breakfast I considered my options how to get the 5 or so ks from my motel to Capitol and the White House. I decided on driving down there. After spending more than an hour getting lost and unable to find a parking spot I gave up and tried to get back to the motel... which took me nearly an hour. Totally frusted I returned to the motel to think of a new plan. In the end I decided to head to the Metro train system maybe 500 metres away. The train system in Washington is very good and frequent and in no time I found myself at Capitol. I noticed some of the police officers there carrying what looked like AK47s and riding around on motobikes but being as this is the heart of America I guess I could understand. Unfortuntely the thunderstoms returned later in the afternoon, making life intersting getting pictures of the White house. I wasn't bothered by the rain itself, it was a nice relief from the hot weather, but I wasn't keen on my cameras getting wet.



Capitol



Me standing in front of the Capitol Reflection pool



The Washington Monuement seen from half way down the National Mall



Capitol seen from half way down the National Mall



Squirrel!



The White House, taken through the fence while surround by other tourists and the secret service.

Horseshoe Curve

One of the things I was really looking forward to about this trip was a chance to see Horseshoe curve. This curve takes trains around 220 degrees of turn as it climbs up the side of the mountain, is a bit of an engineering marvel, located in the Allegheny Mountains. The weather was pretty perfect the scenery just beautiful. Similar to Gumstock Mountain Resort where I went to Soulfest there were heap and heaps of trees covering the mountains providing a beautiful backdrop for massive freight trains. I had to wait nearly an hour for the first freight to show up, but after that they were pretty constant and I saw maybe 8 or 9 Fright trains in the 5 hours there. Whilest there I also meet a couple who were on vacation up from New Jersey and they told me about a tunnel just 10 minutes away. So after Horsehoe Curve closed at 5PM I headed around there and waiting for a train or two to roll through. They also told me about the Railroad Museam in Altoona, which I checked out on the way out the next morning. Heres a few pictures.



The locomotive on display at Horseshoe Curve



The first train i saw with three locos on the front



The second one i saw, a 'HotShot' going direct to LA



The Tunnel



Me standing in front of a rather neglected looking GG1 electric locomotive at the Altoona

Niagara Falls

After spending the night at a motel in Rochester I made the trek across to Niagara Falls. Looking back I wish I had allocated a bit more time for this as the 4 or 5 hours I allocated was not enough to do all the things there. So if you plan to do this sometime, make sure you have a full day to get around to it all. So to the falls. The amount and fury of the water is amazing, so much so that I could see the mist which arose from the falls a good couple of miles away as I made my way through the outskirts of Niagara Falls. The mist makes it hard to see the Canadian falls such is the amount of water rushing over it. I headed across the border into Canada so I could get some pictures from the other side as the American side doesn't give you a great view. Heres a few snaps.



The American Falls, seen here from the American side.



Here you can see a rainbow created by the mist, with two of the 'Maid of the Mist' boats passing in the background



The water rushing towards the American Falls with Niagara Falls (Canada) in the background.



Another view of the American Falls, seen from between the two falls. The fury of the water is seen here.



The mist from the Canadian falls threatens to hide the city from view.



About the best angle of the Canadian Falls. Because of the amount of mist it is just about impossible to see from dead on. Seen from the Canadian side.



Another view of the American Falls, from the Canadian Side.

Soulfest 2010

One of the highlights of my trip was always going to be seeing the O.C. Supertones playing live at Soulfest. Seeing all the other bands was just going to be a bonus. What I had not expected was to make friends with the people on the next camp site who basically, welcomed me into their group and made me feel like one of them. It was great to make some new friends and I even found out one of them had spent 12 months in Australia living in Rowville too. The music was amazing, the scenery was awesome and I truely enjoyed my time at Soulfest. I have heaps and heaps of pictures and video so below is just a small sample.



Gunstock Mountain resort has hosted Soulfest the last few years. Its a ski/snowboarding location during winter and hiking/camping location during summer.



My campsite with the hire car and my $15 wallmart tent with the $10 airbed that was a bit to long (you can see the side of the tent facing the car is stretched).



The main stage. People sat on the hill facing the main stage.



A view from across the small lake with the main buildings and the main stage to the right. It truely is a beautiful location. The blue bus you can see was one of the shuttle buses used to bring people up from the camp ground as it was at the bottom of the hill.



Here is one of the campsites. You can see the hire car almost central. There were a few areas where the campsites were set up. I believe there was about 10,000 people at this event, so there would have been maybe 3,000 people on this location.



What i was waiting for. The O.C. Supertones take to the stage for an awesome, energy loaded show.

Boston

It was so good to get a good night sleep after the plane rides. I caught the hotel shuttle from the airport and back again to get the rental car and i am glad i did. Boston streets make Sydney look like a walk in the park. Its not that Boston is unsigned, there are signs everywhere, but there are so many roads! A last minutes decision to get a different rental car with a GPS was worthwhile. Orginally i had not got one with a GPS and was gonna go with a map in the spirit of adventure, but i reckon I would have struggled to get out of Boston.

From Boston I headed up the Interstate 93 to Gilford and Gunstock Mountain Resert for Soulfest (http://www.thesoulfest.com). I have to say this part of the country is very beautiful and for an Aussie living in the drought striken state of Victoria the dense trees and green was amazing to see. Along the roads in some places it was impossible to see more than a metre or so into the dense trees.



My room at the Holiday Inn in Boston



Looking out the window from my Hotel



Out the front of the Hotel



My rental car '09 Chevy Cobalt

Planes, Planes & Airports

This was always going to be an interesting experience, getting on a jet and flying across to America, given my lack of experience with flying. Initially i was a little nervious watching the wings flop around on take off from Melbourne airport, but my confidence was built when neither plane feel out of the sky with me in it. For a first time I think I got off pretty easy. Both flights experiences very minimal turbulance, only once on each flight was the seatbelt light switched on due to turbulance. The turbulance experienced to me was more like just ridding in a bumpy bus. Sitting around LA airport for 5 hours was really not fun. I was half falling asleep sometimes and other times wide awake. I had the same experience on both flights sometimes feeling extremely tired, yet being unable to sleep other times feeling super awake and alert. I hope as I crawl into bed now after a nice hot shower I get some good sleep before picking up the hire car tomorrow.

A few shots of plans at Melbourne Airport







Nearing LA, seen from the rear door.