USA & Canada 2016 - the long trip back to the coast and the last few days

This is my last post in the series detailing our trip to the USA and Canada. It was six weeks ago today that we arrived back in the UK.

As mentioned in the previous post, we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge next to Niagara Falls and started the 300 or so mile trip across New York State.

Before we left Canada we went to a rare Canadian IHOP, where I had the healthy breakfast. It had fruit on it and everything.

(Here's some proof it was Canadian - the Maple Leaf in the O of IHOP)

Our destination was Albany where we were going to stay the night before driving across Massachusetts the following day. Unfortunately the motel we had booked there was not a good place. It was the same chain we had stayed in back in Niagara, but in Albany the building and bedroom was filthy. We checked in and then we did something we had never done before - we checked back out again! There was another hotel across the road, and we got a room there. It wasn't great, but at least we didn't feel like we would wake up murdered.

We got out of Albany pretty quickly the following morning. We had quite a bit of driving to do. Cathy took a lot of photos out of the windows because there was always something to see. Whether that was the expanse of sky over the open country...

...or flame-decals on big red trucks.

We stopped at one of West Massachusetts's biggest tourist attractions: the factory outlet for the Yankee Candle company.

If you like Yankee Candles, then you need to go to Yankee Candle Village. Even if you don't, it's worth a visit. They have a year-round Christmas village full of decorations. O gauge trains run overhead in many of the rooms. They have a great toy shop, which includes this Lego model of  the 'Village'.

Eventually we got back in the car and drove back right through Boston and up towards Marblehead, a little town on the coast. We had much nicer lodgings here, in a B&B.

There isn't much in Marblehead.

But they do have a very nice headland, that is peaceful and scenic.

It has this oddly-constructed lighthouse on it.

There's also a fort and a harbour. There is a lot of history in the place. The first ship commissioned into the new United States navy after the declaration of independence was from Marblehead.

It's also just down the coast from Salem, which is of course famous for one thing - the witch trials. The town now is full of occulty shops selling witchy tat. It also has a statue of America's most loved witch, Samantha from Bewitched.

And it's not all witches. There were a number of churches too.

We had lunch at the sci-fi themed Flying Saucer Pizza Company restaurant. They did vegan pizzas. Their decor was all kinds of ace.

As was their signage.

The following day we headed back to Boston to the airport, stopping on the way on another headland called Nahant, where we got a view across the water of the Boston skyline in the distance.

Soon we were driving back into Boston. On the way to Marblehead we had passed this gloriously named place.

On the way back we saw this confusing signage that I'm sure had a deeper meaning.

We were leaving Wonderland and coming home. It had been an epic 17 days and it was all over far too soon.

USA & Canada 2016 - More bits from Boston

You can't really do a city in an extended weekend and Boston is several pretty big places rolled into one. But we did manage to do more than the Freedom Trail and watching the Red Sox. Here are 5 more things we experienced.

1) The Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library. This was unique and very cool. In the 1930s the Christian Science church erected a hollow stained glass globe that you can walk through. It's several metres across. Illuminated from the outside you can see all the continents, even if the old colonial and communist borders no longer exist. Well worth a visit.

The big Christian Science church on the plaza is the epicentre for the organisation as well. It's an impressive building.

2) Harvard. We went for a wander around the famous university campus.

But the main reason we went all the way out there was to visit the Curious George Shop on Harvard Square. It was something Cathy had wanted to do since seeing it on her first trip to Boston 11 years previously. So we ticked that off the list!

3) Went to a Vegan Diner. Walking away from Harvard on Massachusetts Avenue we went to Veggie Galaxy.

We got talking to the waitress there who described it as a "diner for fat vegans." Here's one of them waiting for his vegan pancakes.

4) "Let's go to the mall!" It was raining one day so we went for a drive to an out of town mall in Braintree, to the South of Boston. It had a Lego Shop. It would have been rude not to go in.

Big shout out to Dave who works there, who was ace (I should have got a photo with him!). He hooked us up with some Lego Store passports. These are only used in North America and are supposed to be for kids.

5) Ate some crazy food. One evening we went to Trident Booksellers on Newbury Street. We had fried pickles as a starter...

... and then for a "main" I had the lemon riccotta stuffed french toast off the breakfast menu. It was basically a main course of cake.

I should add a picture of where we stayed. It was the Beech Tree Inn in Brookline. A lovely B&B!

When we arrived on our very first day we spotted a chipmunk as we pulled up and parked. Before we even checked in we'd wandered around half of the exterior of the Inn trying to get a photo of him.

There's a whole load more I could say about Boston, but after some jam-packed days we were heading West to new adventures.

USA & Canada 2016 - First day in Boston

I'm going to do a few retrospective blog posts about the trip Cathy and have just come home from. Here are some photos from our first full day in Boston.

We were staying in Brookline, East of Boston. About a twenty minute train ride from the centre.

We got off to visit Boston Common - the oldest city park in the USA - and the statue commemorating 'Make Way for Ducklings', a famous children's book. Cathy posed with Momma Duck for a photo.

Boston Common is right next to the bar that the sitcom Cheers was based on.

We walked across the Common to start the Freedom Trail that takes you round the key historical sites in the centre of Boston. This is where the Revolution kicked off, after all.

We took a detour to visit Bromfield Street!

It's very different to our Bromfield Street.

We managed about half the tour, ending at the Faneuil Hall, which is now a market, and the Quincy Market, which has the most amazing array of food vendors imaginable. It's also crowded to near impossible to take photos inside. Pretty grand exterior, though.

I will be posting a few photo updates. Stay tuned.