USA

From march 29th until april 28th my brother, Jan, and I went to USA to outlive a dream - to drive across USA from east coast to west coast (and back). We flew to New York where we will rented a car and went south to Norfolk, Viginia where our cousin lives. After this we went through: New Orleans - Houston - Grand Canyon - Las Vegas - Los Angeles - San Francisco - Yosemite National Park - Yellowstone National Park - Mount Rushmore - Madison - Chicago - New York.

Crazy?? No, not at all - we are just very happy about cars and driving them :-)

Below you can read our diary and see pictures from our trip.

Day 30 - 27/4-2006: Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania - Newark airport, New Jersey:
Driven today: 71 miles / 114 km
Driven totally: 9682 miles / 15491 km

Today we only had a short drive to the airport where we had to say goodbye to our dear car which has been taking us around US. We came in well before our plane left making sure not to miss it. We flew out of Newark half an hour late but landed as planed next morning at 7.30pm. in Copenhagen many experiences richer.
This is the end of our diary. Thanks to our family and friend who have read our diary through our adventure and excuse us for the times when we didn't have time to update the diary.

Summary:
Totally driven: 9682 miles / 15491 km
Total gas consumption: 320 Gallons / 1220 L
Total amount of states visited: 26

Day 29 - 26/4-2006: Detroit, Michigan - Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania:
Driven today: 524 miles / 838 km
Driven totally: 9611 miles / 15378 km

Sadly we couldn't get a tour at the Ford factory as they were all full. So we decided head on in direction New York as we had to fly back to Denmark the day after. As we came out to the car the read back tire needed air. Hmm... ok...we drove to the gas station to pump some air into it and saw that a screw was sitting in the tire. Not the best thing to find in your tire and especially not the last day of our vacation. We decided to just put some air in and see if it would hold and drove on. We stopped after one hour and couldn't see that the tire had lost air so we didn't think more about it. We ended in Stroudsburg approximately 70 miles from Newark airport.

Day 28 - 25/4-2006: Madison, Wisconsin - Detroit, Michigan:
Driven today: 417 miles / 667 km
Driven totally: 9087 miles / 14539 km

Today we wanted to go to Detroit and see the Ford factory tomorrow. On our way to Detroit we came through Chicago. Here we went for a walk around the city and ended in the top of Sears Tower which has been the highest building in the World. After visiting Chicago we drove to Detroit.

Day 27 - 24/4-2006: Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Madison, Wisconsin :
Driven today: 139 miles / 222 km
Driven totally: 8670 miles / 13872 km

This morning we visited the Harley Davidson factory in Milwaukee. This factoty is the power train plant. We saw a video about the Harley-Davidson history and got a tour around the plant. Very interesting to see. After the tour we thought that a beer could be nice. So we went to a tour at the Miller brewery where we say how they brewed their beer and got to taste some of the beer. When the beer had been drunken we drove to down town Milwaukee to have a look after which we drove to Madison. A friend of Jans, Marie Lousie, studies in Madison and beeing close we wanted to pay her a visit.
Today we have called Avis to ask if we needed to do anything with the car now that it needed service. The answer no even though that we still needed it for approximately 1000 miles. It was great for us because we didn't have to do anything.

Day 26 - 23/4-2006: Murdo, South Dakota - Milwaukee, Wisconsin :
Driven today: 704 miles / 1126 km
Driven totally: 8531 miles / 13650 km

Day 25 - 22/4-2006: Sheridan, Wyoming - Murdo, South Dakota:
Driven today: 485 miles / 776 km
Driven totally: 7827 miles / 12523 km

We begun the day driving through Stugis where there are a big Harley Davidson rally once a year. There are coming half a million people for this rally but outside season like now there is not much going on. So we drove on Mount Rushmore which is famous for the faces of four presidents carved into the mountain wall. Nearby is Crazy House which is the indians attempt to make their own Mt. Rushmore. They are carving Crazy Horse sitting on a horse into a mountain. They have been working on it for 50 years and only the face is done so it will take many years more before it is done. But it is a lot bigger than Mt. Rushmore - 190m long and 170m high. Only crazy horses head is a big as the four presidents!
After seeing enough people carved into mountains we took on and drove to Murdo where we wanted to see a car museum the day after.

Day 24 - 21/4-2006: Jackson, Wyoming - Sheridan, Wyoming:
Driven today: 586 miles / 938 km
Driven totally: 7342 miles / 11747 km

Today we started from Jackson at 8 am and were in Yellowstone National Park at 11.30am. Half of the park opened today after beeing closed for winter. First we drove to Old Faithful stopping on the way to see some of the other smaller geysers. Old Faithful is a geyser that throughs water about 30m in the air every 90 minutes. It isn't the biggest in Yellowstone but the most predictable. After seeing this we drove to Mammoth hot springs where hot water comes from under the ground. Around the park we saw several bisons, elks and deers. There are also bears, wolfes and other animals but beeing spring we didn't see any of these. Yellowstone is very big so when the whole park is open you could easily spend several days here.
After visiting Yellowstone we drove to Sheridan where we found a motel.
Our car is keeping up the pace. But! The car computer is telling us that it only have 11% remaining oil life left (it was 81% when we picked up the car in New York) meaning that we maybe have to get a new car from Avis if they want us to. Unbelievably that this american car can't make it around its own country without service. There is only one thing to say - buy german! (Daniel said this...)

Day 23 - 20/4-2006: Rock Springs, Wyoming - Jackson, Wyoming:
Driven today: 368 miles / 589 km
Driven totally: 6756 miles / 10810 km

Today we got up late because we got to bed quite late last night. We decided to go and see the Flaming Gorge Dam which is located at the Colorado river close to the border between Utah and Wyoming. The area around it has very interesting mountain formations (Red Canyon) so we spent a few hours there and then we went up to Jackson, south of the Yellowstone national park. Jackson is a pretty town mostly with wodden houses and a town sqaure.

Day 22 - 19/4-2006: Salt Lake City, Utah - Rock Springs, Wyoming:
Driven today: 388 miles / 621 km
Driven totally: 6388 miles / 10221 km

The largest hole created by man is located next to Salt Lake City, so we went down there. It's a huge copper mine which also produces other metals like silver and gold. Basically they're digging a big hole in a mountain. The diameter is around 4km and the depth is 1km. It's still active and there are huge trucks going up and down the hole all the time. We then went into Salt Lake City and saw the big Mormon temple and some of their visitor centers. Utah and in particular Salt Lake City is the place of the mormons and around 70% population are mormons. We didn't have anything more planned (and because we wanted to go to Yellowstone on the opening day 21th. of April) so we decided to go to Vernal which has a large dinosaur museum. It was about 3 hours of driving so we got there in the evening. We tried to find some accomodation but everything within a 80km radius was occupied by some mormon convention... Cities aren't that frequent in this part of the US so the only options was to drive 170km north to Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Day 21 - 18/4-2006: Reno, Nevada - Salt Lake City, Utah:
Driven today: 520 miles / 832 km
Driven totally: 6000 miles / 9600 km

Today we started by visiting the National Automobile Museum in Reno. They have around 200 old cars, so we spent some good hours there :) Reno is a gambling town like Las Vegas, just much smaller. The downtown is full of casinos and hotels. After that we started of to Salt Lake city.

Day 20 - 17/4-2006: Sacramento, California - Reno, Nevada:
Driven today: 200 miles / 320 km
Driven totally: 5480 miles / 8768 km

Sacramento has a large railroad museum so we decided to go and see that. It's a very nice museum with many nicely restored locomotives and cars. Afterwards we went for a walk in downtown and saw the state capitol. Sacramento is the capital of California and their capitol looks very similar to that in Washington D.C. Then we got back to the car and drove to lake Tahoe. This is a beautiful lake with nice beaches surrounded by mountains. In winter the area is used for winter sports like skiing, snowboarding etc. In summer the beaches are very crowded. It was rather cold when we got there (around 5 degrees Celcius) so it was a short stay and we decided to go to Reno.

Day 19 - 16/4-2006: San Francisco, California - Sacramento, California:
Driven today: 451 miles / 722 km
Driven totally: 5280 miles / 8448 km

San Francisco is famous for its very steep streets so we started the day by taking a drive down Lombard street. This is the most bended street in the city. It's also one of the steepesst (22% rise) but luckily it's a one way street. This was really fun so we found the steepest street in town (Filbert Street) and went down that. The rise is 32% and when you get to it you can't see the road in front of you. This was even funnier than Lombard Street. When we were done exploring the hill climbing capabilities of the car we got down to Alamo square where you can see some of the famous old victorian wooden housees. Then we went to the Golden Gate park and drove over the beautiful Golden Gate bridge. We took a tour around the San Francisco Bay area and got to the Yosemite national park. Unfortunately it was raining and the visibility was poor in some areas but we did see some of the magnificent mountain formations.

Day 18 - 15/4-2006: San Francisco, California:
Driven today: 0 miles / 0 km
Driven totally: 4829 miles / 7727 km

Day 17 - 14/4-2006: Morro Bay, California - San Francisco, California:
Driven today: 295 miles / 472 km
Driven totally: 4829 miles / 7727 km

Day 16 - 13/4-2006: Los Angeles, California - Morrow Bay, California:
Driven today: 235 miles / 376 km
Driven totally: 4534 miles / 7255 km

Day 15 - 12/4-2006: Los Angeles, California:
Driven today: 63 miles / 101 km
Driven totally: 4299 miles / 6878 km

Day 14 - 11/4-2006: Las Vegas, Nevada - Los Angeles, California:
Driven today: 446 miles / 714 km
Driven totally: 4236 miles / 6778 km

Day 13 - 10/4-2006: Kingman, Arizona - Las Vegas, Nevada:
Driven today: 117 miles / 187 km
Driven totally: 3790 miles / 6064 km

Day 12 - 9/4-2006: Flagstaff, Arizona - Kingman, Arizona:
Driven today: 337 miles / 540 km
Driven totally: 3673 miles / 5877 km

Today we went to Grand Canyon. We parked in the canyon village and took the local bus to some of the view point that are not reachable by car. We stopped at some of the view points and walked between some of the others. This canyon is huuuge! And very beautiful! Can't be explained by words or pictures... you'll have to see it by yourself.

Day 11 - 8/4-2006: Lordsburg, New Mexico - Flagstaff, Arizona:
Driven today: 454 miles / 727 km
Driven totally: 3336 miles / 5338 km

Today we drove to Seguaro National Park which is out in the desert. First we saw a desert museum with zoo where you could see different animals and plants living in the desert. After this we drove through the park and saw many very big cactuses. Some are huge - up to 14m high!
When we got enough of the heat in the desert we drove on north. The nature changed from desert to mountains and we also came through Red Rock mountains.

Day 10 - 7/4-2006: Kerrville, Texas - Lordsburg, New Mexico:
Driven today: 697 miles / 1115 km
Driven totally: 2882 miles / 4611 km

We started the day with takin some smaller road from the Campground in Kerrville to see what Texas had to offer. We stopped by 'Stonehenge 2' which is a copy of the real Stonehenge. Actually it wasn't that impressive. But these smaller roads were. On 100 miles of highway we only saw a couple of smaller (very small) towns, some big ranches and some oncoming cars. There were not many livestock to be seen though. Some deer passed the road and of cause right in front of the only car on the road - ours. But luckily nothing happend. The nature is very pretty.
After the smaller roads we went back on the interstate and head on to El Paso. On the way the nature was changing to more and more dry dessert. Only some trees and bushes live here with mountains in the background. Out here the cities and gas stations are typically 30 miles apart and the rest areas 90 miles apart. On the way to El Paso we crossed a nother time zone. From cenral time zone to mountain time zone. El Paso is placed on the border to Mexico devided by the river 'Rio Grande' (which we also stopped by before entering El Paso) with a part in USA and a part in Mexico. Even though we only saw mexican inhabitant in the american part and everything goes on i spanish. El Paso didn't really have much to offer so we just bought some lunch (of cause mexican). But that wasn't easy. Every sign in the shops are in spanish and neither my brother nor I know spanish. We spoke in english and they replied in spanish. Not very helpfull...
Going from El Paso and further on our trip we took a scenic road on a mountain from where we had a good view over El Paso. We crossed the border to New Mexico and found a motel in Lordsburg.

Day 9 - 6/4-2006: Lafayette, Louisiana - Kerrville, Texas :
Driven today: 502 miles / 803 km
Driven totally: 2185 miles / 3496 km

Today we drove to Houston. A 4 hour drive from Lafayette. We visited 'Houston tunnel system' which is a 8 mile long ( ! ) tunnel system underground connecting office buildings, banks and hotels. In the tunnel there are shops etc. We also went up to 60th. floor in a office buildning from where you could see most of Houston. Not a bad view but i couln't beat New York ;-) Houston don't have a real center in town but is more wide scattered. Also we didn't find much to see so we took of. But the traffic was terrible. With no real public transportation system everybody needs to have a car. The temperature today was 33 degrees celsius and with high humidity. Luckily there were a little wind so it was to bear.
When we a last found our way out of Houston we drove to San Antonio were we saw the Riverwalk. This is a little artificial river loop surrounded by bars etc.
In Texas there is far between everything. When you see a sign that says "Next rest area 123 miles" you know you are out in nowhere.
Now people that we meet think that it's a long trip we are on. Today a guy looked at our license plate as we were filling up the car at a gas station and said "Man - you are far away from home!".
The nature in Texas now started to change to more mountain like. It looks really great and we got the idea to spend the night in the tent that we brought with us :-)
And now it is time to some facts about our car. It is a Chevrolet Impala with a 3,5L V6 engine and 211 HP. It is a big 4-door with room for six people so only beeing two shouldn't cause lack of space. It's comfortable car to drive in which is quite important now that we have more or less moved into this car ;-)

Day 8 - 5/4-2006: Pascagula, Mississippi - Lafayette, Louisiana :
Driven today: 314 miles / 502 km
Driven totally: 1683 miles / 2693 km

We started the day taking some smaller roads to Gulf Islands National Seashore which is a little national park by the Gulf of Mexico. In this park there are a lot of swamp and a kind guide told us that we could see real life alligators. And we did! Two to be exact. The guide told us that the alligators wouldn't harm us but we shouldn't go swimming with them anyway.
Later we drove through Biloxi and Gulf Port which are the cities that were worst hit by the hurricane 'Katrina' in august 2005. It looked bad... really bad. Almost nothing was left. Only ruins of what once were houses and casinos. Two bridges were still damaged and out of use.
Having seen enough destruction for one day we drove across the border to Louisiana to New Orleans. New Orleans also got hit by Katrina but looked ok. Except that it seemed as thoght Katrina only left freaks in town...We saw the French part of town which is the only part that didn't get destroyed by the hurricane. 80% of the city were flodded in august. We wanted to find a place for the night a little farther away and this drive led us over a bridge over Lake Pontcheartrain. This bridge is 22 miles long an completely straight all the way! Going on the bridge you can't see the other side of the lake!

Day 7 - 4/4-2006: Suwanee, Georgia - Pascagula, Mississippi :
Driven today: 413 miles / 661 km
Driven totally: 1369 miles / 2190 km

We started by going into Atlanta where we parked by the Martin Luther King visitor centre. Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta and he was also buried here after being assasinated in 1968. Afterwards we walked to "Underground Atlanta" which is a large shopping centre in 3 stories located under the streets of Atlanta. Atlanta is a car city so most of downtown is car parks. Atlanta is the home of CNN and their headquarter building has a large food court so we went there to have lunch. On the way back to the car we visited the Olympic park and then we went on the road again. People in Atlante seemed friendly. We couln't look a our map for 10 seconds without somebody coming to ask if we needed help.
From Atlanta we drove to Mobile and took a little detour to see some exhibited war ships and planes that were no longer in use. We drove on and found a motel in Pascagula.
Today we passed from the eastern time zone to central time zone. There were no signs on the road the informed of the time zone change so we didn't realize it until five hours after.

Day 6 - 3/4-2006: Norfolk, Virginia - Suwanee, Georgia :
Driven today: 565 miles / 904 km
Driven totally: 956 miles / 1530 km

We started by getting food and drink supplies at the local super market and then we got on the road again. We went through North Carolina, South Carolina and got into Georgia were we found a motel.

Day 5 - 2/4-2006: Norfolk, Virginia:
Driven today: 33 miles / 53 km
Driven totally: 391 / 626 km

Today Christian took us out on a sailing trip in his boat. It has two 225 horse power engines and on full power it goes around 60 km/h - you really have to hold on to something at this speed. We went to see the big military naval base in Norfolk. We counted 4 carrier ships, 2 submarines and 1 patrol boat which was following us - after 9/11 they don't want people coming too close.

Day 4 - 1/4-2006: New York - Norfolk, Virginia:
Driven today: 358 miles / 573 km
Driven totally: 358 miles / 573 km

This was the day we had to pick up our rental car in the airport and start our roadtrip. But first we wanted to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A huge art museum with everything from Egyptian to modern art. It would take days to see it all so we only saw the most interesting things as the Picasso and Monet paintings and the Egyptian part where a whole temple has been brought back from Egypt and reerected.
Now it was time to get our hands on our rental car. We had ordered a 'Full size 2-Door' but they were out of those so they gave us a Hyundai Sonata instead. We explained them that we didn't come all the way to america to drive a Korean car - we have plenty of those in Europe! So finally we got a Chevrolet Impala - a full-size 4-door. And finally we hit the road. The first desitination was the home of our cousin, Christian, and his family. We stopped for dinner in Seaford, Delaware. It's not a place tourists usually come- it's called lower slower Delaware by the locals - so the waitress wanted to know everything about Europe. We arrived at Christians place late in the evening, got a few beers and went to sleep.

Day 3 - 31/3-2006: New York:
Driven today: 0
Driven totally: 0

Today we started by visiting the Empire State building. You can get up to 82th floor from which there is a super view over New York. The weather was quite good so you could see 15 miles away - not bad. After spending an hour here taking a lot of pictures we walked to Rockerfeller Center. This is a complex of skyscrapers with an undergroud mall.
Having seen a lot of Manhattan we thougt is was a good idea to see some other parts of New York. In the afternoon we took the subway to Brooklyn, where we took a walk on the promenade with a view over Manhattans skyline of skyscrapers. We also visited the Transit Museum where you can see the history of the New York subway system. We came at 3.45 pm and the museum closed at 4 pm, but a friendly and wide smiling guard told us: "You have 15 min to run through the museum - free of charge". And so we did. Sadly we couldn't see all but it gave us an impression of how big a job it was to build the subway system, many of the streets were dug up and covered again. In the basement of the museum there's a large collection of subway cars, the earliest one is from 1907.
After the Transit museum we took the subway to Harlem to have a look. Harlem is located just north of Central Park and within one block the environment changes dramatically. From nice houses to the west of Central Park to something closer to slum. Interesting to see but not a place I would go alone by night... On our way home we went by the "Dakota Apartments" where John Lennon used to live and was shot in 1980.

Day 2 - 30/3-2006: New York:
Driven today: 0
Driven totally: 0

Today we had planned a bigger sightseeing. We started early (7.30 pm.) going south to Tribeca, Battery park by the Hudson river and then to 'Ground Zero' - the place where the World Trade Center used to be. Amazing how big an area this building once covered and now there's just a big hole in the ground.
After this we went through Wall Street to East River on the other side of Manhattan. We took a walk on Brooklyn Bridge which is an old and very beautiful bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. We had lunch in Chinatown and after that we walked to Union Square and Madison Square Park with the Flatiron building. The Flatiron is a beautiful triangular building which can't be described so please see the pictures ;) Last but not least we went to Grand Central station. It has extremely big beautifully decorated halls and the tracks are laid in several different levels, taking into consideration that it was built more than 100 years ago it's really impressive. After seeing all this we were both tired - very tired. And our feet hurted like he..
A little ache in our feet couldn't stop us from taking an evening walk although it was a small walk - crazy danish people! We went to Times Square which is known for it's big neon light commercials - an incredible sight! Particularly by night.
This was our first whole day in New York and we must say that this really is a city that never sleeps. There is something going on all day and night. Garbage is beeig emptied at 22:30 pm. Nothing you would ever see in Denmark but the poplation of New York is twice as the one of Denmark! It'a a city you can't describe - you have to experience it!

Day 1 - 29/3-2006: New York:
Driven today: 0
Driven totally: 0

We flew from Copenhagen airport 12:20 and landed in Newark, New Jersey, at 13:45 local time, which actually was 22:45 danish time. The flight went well but 7½ hours is long time to sit still. Not even the Harry Potter 4 movie could keep us awake...
From Newark we took an airport shuttle to our hotel in Manhattan. It was the easiest and not more expensive than going with the train. We arrived at 4 pm. and then it was time to go for a walk :-) We lived 10 min walk from Times Square and 5 min from Empire State Building and just across to Madison Square Garden. We walked to Times Square, Broadway, Central park, Rockerfeller Center and Empire State Building.
From the time you land in this country you see that everything is bigger and different from Europe. All in all a good first day of our vacation.