East Coast Vacation 2012

Wow, I can’t believe we’ve been back from our 12-day trip to the East Coast for two and a half weeks already. Yes, it has taken me this long to upload all the photos I took and write this entry because life has been so busy since we got back. This is gonna be a long one, but if you’d rather just look at the photos, skip down the end of this entry where I provide links.

9/22 – Saturday – Travel

We left around 8 am with the intention of driving as long as we could stand it before stopping for the night to find a hotel, so we ended up driving through all of Ohio (loved their rest stops or as they called them, Service Stations, by the way) and most of Pennsylvania before stopping. We had trouble finding a hotel with vacancies in Bloomsburg and the only available rooms were ridiculously priced. We finally found a Holiday Inn Express for $99 night in Whitehaven, PA. We learned from the very friendly manager that a motorcycle event was going on in the area that weekend which explained why so many of the hotels were booked solid.

9/23 – Sunday – New Jersey

Since we had kept driving east the night before we were only an hour and a half from New Jersey when we left in the morning. I spotted a baby black bear along the road who ran into traffic and luckily make it back into the woods without a scratch. Unfortunately that would be the only true wildlife we’d see during this trip, but it was pretty cool and unexpected because I had no idea black bears were indigenous to New Jersey.

Since we arrived too early to check into our hotel, we decided to visit Liberty State Park in Jersey City where we stumbled upon the ferry to Ellis Island and Liberty Island to see the outside of the Statue of Libertyy. It’s currently under renovation so we couldn’t go inside but it was really cool to see the statue up close. After reading that you have to climb 393 steps to reach the statue’s crown I’m fine with the fact that we only saw it from the outside. I get easily winded climbing stairs anyway.

After we returned to the mainland we had lunch at Hard Grove Cafe which was recommended in the Food Network app I had installed on my phone. I drank the best mango mojito ever and I don’t even like mojitos! And yes, I got “drunk” because I rarely drink so I’m a lightweight. Joe found it very amusing.

After lunch we checked into our spacious hotel room (Hyatt Place in Secaucus, New Jersey). We got at a great rate thanks to my connections at work which made the room even that more impressive. After checking in we walked around the plaza area and ended up grabbing drinks, appetizers and dessert from a restaurant called The Urban Plum which is located in the Holiday Inn Express near our hotel. It was deserted when we arrived seeing as though it was a Sunday night but I didn’t mind. The food and drinks were just ok, but the cheesecake we shared was pretty good.

9/24 – Monday – New York

We hopped on the bus outside our hotel in Jersey and which took us through the Lincoln Tunnel into the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT for short) in New York where all the train and bus lines seem to converge. From there we took the Red 2 subway train to the Bronx Zoo. It was a pretty big zoo, complete with a monorail. It reminded me a lot of Milwaukee Zoo in the way it was laid out. After what for us was a record three and half hours at the zoo (which didn’t open until 10 am, mind you, and we got there late because the bus/train ride took longer than I expected), we took the train back to Manhattan and visited the 9/11 Memorial.

Beforehand we stopped in a little hole in the wall place called It’s a Pizza that had good reviews on Yelp. We bought a few slices of pizza including one called mashed potato which was out of this world. I nearly choked to death on the wonderful stringy cheese, and unfortunately that’s about the 3rd time in my life that has happened. I had to pull the cheese out of my own throat (ew!) and then later Joe pointed out a paramedic was sitting right by us. Wonderful guy that was not even noticing someone choking to death. So that’s another vacation where I had a near death experience (the other being our honeymoon when I almost drowned at Discovery Cove when water went into my snorkel – someone keep me inside where I can’t hurt myself).

Something to note: You can’t just walk up to the 9/11 Memorial. First you have to go to a particular location to get tickets for an entry time (hence why we had time to get some pizza), then walk several blocks to the entry site, go through security, and then walk a few more blocks to the actual site which cannot be seen without doing all this as it’s surrounded by walls. Nonetheless it was a very moving site and brought tears to our eyes.

By the time we left the memorial it was around 7 pm and we were tired so we nixed our original plans to visit Coney Island or walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. There’s only so much you can do in New York in one day since the city is ginormous.

When we got back to the PABT, I thought we were going to be waiting in line for hours to get on a bus back to Jersey because the line was the longest one in the place but luckily they had several buses lined up waiting to take everyone across the river. They just cram people in like sardines too, including standing in the aisles of the bus which would freak me out since they are on so many elevated roads with ramps and whatnot. I think we made it back to the hotel within a half hour which wasn’t bad at all.

9/25 – Tuesday – New York

Once again we hopped on the bus to the PABT, but this time we rode the Yellow Q subway train to Central Park to visit the zoo. It’s really small but the polar bear was awesome and had to be the biggest one we’ve ever seen. His exhibit was cool because you could see him at all angles. The zoo also has red pandas which are the cutest little creatures ever.

After we tired of the zoo we took the subway to Times Square and marveled at the buildings and went inside the massive Toys R Us. Afterwards we walked around looking for somewhere to eat. The problem with New York is that we could not get our bearings and it felt like we were walking around in spirals most of the time. We’d look up a place on Yelp and try to pull up directions on the maps app but it wasn’t really helpful for walking (thanks for nothing, Apple, with your shitty iOS 6 maps update).

We finally ended up eating at an overpriced shitty cafe chain called Europa which I would not recommend to anyone (which is also why I’m not linking to it). I also got a stomach ache, which I’m not necessarily saying was related, but another problem with New York, like any big city, is that public restrooms are scarce. I finally found one at McDonalds in the nick of time and apparently caused quite the line to build up while everyone waited on me (there were two stalls but I guess a lot of people needed to go too because when I finally came out there were a good 10 people waiting).

From there we walked to 30 Rockefeller Plaza where we passed Jane Krakowski filming a scene from 30 Rock. We could have been on tv (they were lining tourists up behind the stage Jane was on so they could be “extras”) but skipped it as my stomach hurt. Once we made it inside the building we asked a security guy for directions to the nearest restroom and he was very helpful because my stomach was not letting up even after eating some Pepto-Bismal. I was really starting to worry we were not going to be able to make the Jimmy Fallon taping.

Once I finally emerged from the bathroom we high-tailed it upstairs to stand in line and it was looong. I started getting a sinking feeling that we wouldn’t get tickets but luckily we did. We were asked to come back in an hour and to make sure we had used the restroom by then as we would not be permitted to get up at any time during the taping. I returned to my post in the bathroom a few more times and slowly my stomach started feeling better (thank you sweet Jesus).

The taping of the Jimmy Fallon show was awesome! First a very funny comedian came out to warm up the crowd and give instructions. Then out came… Jerry Seinfeld! It was fun to hear them talk about stuff that never made it air (which is why they don’t allow anyone to take photos and they make you turn off your cell phone completely while pages stand in the aisles watching everyone like a hawk). The male cast from the new NBC show, Guys with Kids, came on next and did this awesome music skit of old theme songs with Jimmy which concluded with Jimmy coming up the aisle and standing about two rows in front of where we were sitting (my niece was able to get a very unflattering still image of us which I am NOT posting here – haha). We didn’t get a high fave from Mr. Fallon though even though he went down our aisle. I admire the amount of energy that man has (they ended up doing the musical number twice) but felt rather bummed not getting to interact with him at all when three different girls jumped on him and got hugs.

Overall impression of New York

No thank you! It is way too crowded and fast-paced but the people are all nice (save for one NYC police officer who yelled at Joe when we tried to walk down a street that was blocked off (it looked like the street was blocked; not the sidewalk)). I’m happy that we visited since everyone talks about New York and it’s featured in so many movies and TV shows but I was also happy to leave that hustle behind.

9/26 – Wednesday – Boston

We got an early start and drove through Connecticut and Rhode Island to Boston, stopping in Providence, RI to visit Roger Williams Park Zoo. It was ok, nothing too fabulous, but what I found most interesting is that the people there had thicker accents than in any of the other places we had or would visit during our time away.

After arriving in Braintree, MA and checking into another Hyatt Place hotel (whose Wi-fi was MUCH faster than in NJ, BTW), we decided to head out for some food. On the way there we spotted the cutest dog I’ve ever seen in my life. It had the body/face of the smallest Maltese I’ve ever seen by the coloring of Shitzu (it was white and grey). I ended up rolling down my window to ask the couple in the car next to us what breed it was and they said they had no idea, nor did the pet store where they bought her from. I think her name was Penny because I remember thinking that was funny since my mouse has the same name and is also white and grey.

We ended up eating at Wahlburgers which is owned by Mark & Donnie Wahlburg’s older brother, Paul. I had bookmarked the place in Yelp after Mark had mentioned the place a month or so back on one of the nightly talk shows. The Thanksgiving turkey burger was delicious!

Once we got back to the hotel we decided to check out South Shore Plaza, a mall across the street. Joe bought me three awesome Kipling items (a messenger bag, a backpack, and a wallet) at Macy’s that I just love. I say that he bought them for me because they are not cheap and I would never buy one for myself but he insisted since I liked them so much (and the backpack was 30% off so that wasn’t bad either). Well, I ended up taking one of them back the next day because I realized it was too small and wouldn’t work for what I had envisioned using it for, but the wallet and the backpack are perfect, especially for travel. I had brought a small Chicago Bears drawstring backpack but the nylon rope was digging into my shoulders so the new backpack was a godsend. Plus it held a lot more but was way more comfortable to carry around and get things out of thanks to all the different pockets it has. But I digress…

We picked up some chicken from the food court and brought it back to the hotel to munch on since our lunch was a bit late in the day and we weren’t that hungry.

9/27 – Thursday – Boston

We took the free hotel shuttle to the red line “T” (as they call their subway system) to Fenway Park for a tour. It was really cool and made up for the fact that we didn’t end up going to their last home game the night before (it looked like it was going to rain so we skipped it). We had purchased tickets the night before for a Trolley package so we hopped on that at Fenway and took the trolley around Cambridge (right through the M.I.T. campus which was pretty cool) and Boston, learning about the city as we went.

Once we hopped off the trolley we ate at a little place called James Hook + Co. where we had the best clam chowder (or chowdah, as they like to call it) and lobster roll. I’m not a big fan of lobster but that sucker was delicious!

Walking around the city I tripped on one of the curbs and fell on both my knees so THAT was awesome. Seriously, I am dangerous on vacation!

Anyway, we took the trolley around the loop again and visited the grave site of Samuel Adams and John Hancock before getting tired and heading back to the hotel where we had dinner at a restaurant in the mall at a place called Joe’s American Bar & Grill (was ok, but not that great so they don’t get a link, haha).

9/28 – Friday – Boston

The morning started out the same as the day before – taking the hotel shuttle to red line “T”, but since it was raining we decided to pursue indoor venues. This required switching trains (from the red to the orange to the blue) to get to the New England Aquarium with the least amount of outdoor exposure as possible. The ticket booth at the aquarium is actually outdoors but has a covered roof, and behind it is an exhibit with seals in it. Across the way is an iMAX theater.

The first thing you come across inside the aquarium (after the restrooms) is the touch tank that holds stingrays and sharks. Nearby is a smaller touch tank holding sea stars and urchins. The way the aquarium is structured, there’s a huge tank in the middle going up three stories with a ramp that spirals around it and then branches off at each level to more exhibits. This is similar to the Tennessee Aquarium but on a smaller scale. Due to the renovation going on at the aquarium most of the penguins were taken off-site so that was a bummer. Plus the sea turtles were put in the former penguin tank instead of the big tank in the middle so you could only view them from above. I really enjoyed the jellyfish collection (including some I’ve never seen before) and the seal exhibit that is at the back of the building and technically outside on the water but is covered (which was nice since it was raining).

Once we tired of the aquarium we walked across the street to Legal Sea Foods for lunch. Joe had fish and chips and I had a dish that consisted of grilled shrimp topped with monterey jack cheese over a bed of jasmine rice with broccoli around the sides. It was delicious, as was the Bloody Mary we split. It was spicy enough that I didn’t mind the tomato juice which I typically hate. If all Bloody Marys tasted that good I would probably become an alcoholic. ;)

After lunch, since it was still raining, we took a cab (the first and only one during our entire trip – and with good reason – due to my phone’s map program I could tell the driver took the long way so it cost way more than it should have) to the Museum of Science. We got in free thanks to our membership to Cosley Zoo which was nice. The museum isn’t huge but it’s actually pretty cool. They have a live butterfly atrium but I’m rather burnt out on butterflies so we skipped it, but we happened to come across their electricity exhibit right before a live demonstration called lightning so we stuck around for that and it was pretty cool. On their site they describe it as “indoor bolts produced by the world’s largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator spark exciting explorations of lightning, electric charge, and storm safety.”

After the museum we decided to try our chances in the rain and walk to the “T”. On our way there a sightseeing trolley passed by and this dumb blonde chick spotted our umbrella, gave us the thumbs down, and yelled, “boooooo White Sox”. Don’t you just love people?

After getting back to the hotel we drove over to the nearby mall which has a Target as an anchor store and grabbed some lunchmeat and cheese to snack on in the hotel as we weren’t up for a big dinner.

Overall impression of Boston

I was a bit disappointed. I’m not sure if the weather on the second day contributed to that feeling, but I was hoping Boston would be more like Chicago but it wasn’t. I can’t quite place my finger on it, even after being home for more than two weeks, but I guess I just found the city to be boring. Maybe we didn’t see the right things but I’m glad we didn’t reserve any additional time to spend there because I felt I had seen enough once we left.

9/29 – Saturday – Bar Harbor

Immediately following breakfast we started our 4.5 hour drive to Bar Harbor, Maine, arriving around 2 pm to clouds and rain. After checking into our hotel and dropping off our luggage we drove into town and grabbed lunch at The Side Street Cafe where we shared the buffalo chicken dip appetizer and a lobster roll. Neither were that impressive. The blueberry pie we shared for dessert was pretty good, but overall the place was underwhelming.

We walked around the harbor area and took photos and checked out some shops, then got some soft-serve frozen custard (mine was blueberry flavored and awesome) before heading back to the hotel.

9/30 – Sunday – Bar Harbor

We made a point to get up early to see the sunrise but couldn’t see much due to the dreary weather. There were a bunch of travel brochures in the area where they serve breakfast at the hotel so we decided to go on the Downeast Scenic Railroad to have something to do. I really did not enjoy the experience because:

1) The tickets were $15 per person.
2) The train cars do not have heat in them and it was cold. I had a tank top, long-sleeved shirt, and a jacket on and I was still cold.
3) The train goes 2 MPH one direction, then stops, then the engine goes past us, hooks up to the other side of the train and we go back the way we came (and then a little further up to a “train yard”).
4) There’s not much that is scenic considering this is called the scenic railroad unless you are dying to see Ellsworth’s high school and the blueberry factory. Yes, we went past a swamp area where there was an eagle’s nest but I didn’t see any wildlife at all.

Obviously they cannot control whether there’s wildlife around but I think they are rather misleading calling the ride scenic. Call it what it is – a chance to ride in a historic restored train. At least let people know what you’re really about because I’m not into trains and was hoping for a nice ride.

I will say, the all-volunteer staff was great, but I wished we hadn’t bothered going. It was the only thing during the entire trip that I regretted, however, so I guess that’s not bad.

After riding the dumb train I was so cold and depressed we went back to the hotel and I took a nap. Later on we went back into town and had some great pizza at a place called Rosalie’s.

10/1 – Monday – Bar Harbor and Portland

The weather was clear in the morning so we finally visited Acadia National Park. We made our way up Cadillac Mountain but the higher we got the colder and more windy it got, plus the visibility started to drop, so we weren’t able to get all the way up and see anything, but saw some great views on our way.

We did get to visit the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse which is the only lighthouse accessible by car. Unfortunately the rain wasn’t gone for good and it got foggy and started up again so we gave up and left at 11 am for Portland which we arrived in around 2 pm.

Our hotel (a Clarion) in Portland was the worst of the lot. Small, dirty, and had a broken light-switch in the bathroom so the light was always on. After checking into the hotel we went into town and got some lunch at Becky’s, a diner featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, but I wasn’t that impressed. Afterwards we found a really great gelato place called The Gelato Fiasco that made up for it, however. I had the dark chocolate hazelnut and kalua flavors which were the perfect combination.

After dessert we went down to waterfront and walked in the park along the water. We saw a cruise ship (Jewel of the Seas) that tours the New England area and this little train they call the Polar Express that they only run in November and December of every year. The views of the water were really nice because the weather was clear and sunny unlike Bar Harbor.

Overall impression of Maine

I liked the area a lot and would love to go back someday when it’s not so rainy and the Fall foliage is really at its peak since it was behind schedule (I purposely chose the time we went to coincide with what was supposed to be the peak period but you can’t predict nature, unfortunately). I would like the opportunity to see more of Acadia National Park as well. I felt the weather cheated us a little but at least now we know it’s worth returning and I would really love to stay at this awesome-looking hotel that was fully booked by the time I discovered it.

10/2 – Tuesday – Niagara Falls

We woke up super early for 10 hour drive to Niagara Falls, stopping at a local donut shop to pick up some pastries first. I had the best chocolate chip muffin ever from that place. It was so moist and yummy. Sigh. I love food too much sometimes.

Anyway, after the long-ass drive we finally made it to Canada and found our hotel. We drove down to the falls because the weather looked threatening and we were having a hard time determining how far a walk it was from our hotel to the falls. Parking by the falls is ridiculous – the lot closest to the horseshoe falls is $18 and you have to drive past the falls and then walk back and walk through all the mist the falls are kicking up (and we didn’t have any raincoats). We found some limited parking on the opposite side, closer to the American falls (still in Canada, however) where you pay ahead of time by the half hour. So we paid $15 for an hour and a half and only spent maybe an hour because we didn’t want to go on the boat ride that goes right up to the falls. We basically just viewed the falls from this park-like area and lookout tower. Neither one of us wanted to get wet and frankly I thought the American falls were prettier (not to mention easier to view) than the larger horseshoe falls.

After we got tired of taking pictures we drove back to our hotel and then decided to walk down to a close bar that had been recommended on Yelp. We were the only couple there besides two girls so I was starting to wonder if we made a mistake but my food proved otherwise. I had the yummiest Philly cheesesteak there and then we walked around and came across the main area where all the attractions are. The only way I can describe the area is like Vegas meets Branson, Missouri. Lots of lights, lots of little attractions that cost $10-$15 per person, and lots of people milling about.

We ended up taking a ride on the SkyWheel – a big ferris wheel that is so tall you can see the falls illuminated at night. They were hard to see due to all the reflections and I didn’t care for being up that high so I wouldn’t do that again, but it was definitely something different.

We almost ended up staying in Canada the next day instead of leaving in the morning for the 10 hour drive back home because I learned that nearby was an amusement park / aquarium that has beluga and killer whales. I decided against it after reading the reviews online about how they treat the animals. Plus it seemed like the main attraction were the roller-coasters which I hate, so we decided not to go.

10/3 – Wednesday

Our drive home started in Canada for about an hour or so and then was mostly Michigan until we were about two hours away from home. I made sure to grab a hot spiced cider from Tim Horton’s before we left Canada since I wasn’t sure how far they extended (later learned they are in Michigan but not Indiana and definitely not Illinois which is a bummer because they are good). We got home around 3 pm and immediately took a shower and then I started on laundry and the long task of going through all the photos we took. Since we had stuff going on the rest of the week it took me over a week to get all my photos posted online and even longer to write all this which is why this entry is so late.

Summary

Overall I really enjoyed our trip, but as always I tried to cram a lot in little amount of time resulting in me getting inadequate sleep (plus hotel beds suck). I don’t regret driving, however, or all the places we visited, because it gives us a good idea regarding which places we’d visit again (like Bar Harbor) and which ones we would not (Boston was more boring than I anticipated and while I didn’t care for the hectic New York vibe, I’d probably go there again just because we didn’t get a chance to see everything).

Here’s a link to all the photo sets up on Flickr from our vacation:
» Statue of Liberty
» Bronx Zoo
» 9/11 Memorial
» Central Park Zoo
» Times Square
» Misc New York Pics
» Roger Williams Park Zoo
» Fenway Park
» Misc Boston Pics
» New England Aquarium
» Bar Harbor and Ellsworth Maine
» Acadia National Park
» Portland, Maine
» Niagara Falls