East or West Coast?

On 3 Mar 2006 11:11:48 -0800, wrote:

I think my heart is currently leaning to a couple of days in
Washington, Philly and then a drive up Route 1 through the New England
area.

New England is quite a long drive from Philadelphia. Also, make sure
you don't take Route 1 until you're well north of Connecticut. It is
very slow going between Washington and Connecticut. Instead take I-95.
However, even that is slow going in the vicinity of the larger cities.
You might want to take the train to Boston, where you could spend a
day or two, then rent a car.

Since you only have two weeks, I would suggest flying into Washington
and flying out of Boston. Then you could spend 3 days in Washington, 3
days in Philadelphia, 2 days in New York (to see the things you missed
on your earlier trip), 3 days in Boston, then a 3-day drive through
New England. I didn't include travel days, as all of these places can
be reached by train in less than half a day from each other.

If you don't want to stop over in New York, add a day to one of the
other stops. I would add it to the drive, which might be your mother's
best opportunity for shopping. In the US, the center cities are not
generally great shopping venues, with the exception of a few cities
such as New York. What you might want to find is a good mall in New
England, or an outlet center.
--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it.

I have 2-1GB cards...
Between them I have the capacity
for about 5,000 stills at 1024x768.

I agree that memory cards are a convenient solution if you've got the
capacity. However, 1024 x 768 is pretty low-res by today's standards.
Most cameras these days are 3 to 5 megapixels, which means considerably
few pictures could be stored on a card of that size.

Jim

few pictures could be stored on a card of that size

Oops, I meant "fewer" pictures. You could still store a lot; just not
as many as with smaller-resolution pictures.

Jim

"Doug McDonald" wrote in message
...
PeterL wrote:

Not really enough information to give you any advice. A lot of places
fit your mom's criteria. "Real America" as most people defines it is
small town USA. If you go down the east coast you'd be sure to find
that, also in California.


"Real America" can also be big cities ... just not coastal ones. Des
Moines, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, even say Akron or Manchester and many
more are "real America". New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Denver,
Los Angeles and
San Francisco and all in between on the coast, and Seattle
are not "real America".

Doug McDonald

Yea thats a real no brainer....... skip Boston, NYC and
Chicago...........you'll have a much better time in Little Rock or Des
Moines.

someone wrote:

New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Denver,
Los Angeles and San Francisco and all in between on the coast, and
Seattle are not "real America".

Oh, I'm in Seattle - am I in "fake America?" What is so unreal about
anywhere you named above? Even large metropolitan areas have
neighborhoods with distinct identities and attributes where "real
Americans" live.

How do you define "real America?"

On Sat, 04 Mar 2006 14:29:20 +0100, B wrote:

On 3 Mar 2006 11:11:48 -0800, wrote:

I think my heart is currently leaning to a couple of days in
Washington, Philly and then a drive up Route 1 through the New England
area.

New England is quite a long drive from Philadelphia. Also, make sure
you don't take Route 1 until you're well north of Connecticut.
[snip]

Route 1 in Connecticut may be slow, but it is picturesque.

I'd suggest taking the train from DC to New York and not renting the
car until the original poster gets to New York.

Michael

If you would like to send a private email to me, please take out the NOTRASH. Please do not email me something which you also posted.

Carole Allen wrote:
I'm in Seattle - am I in "fake America?" What is so unreal about
anywhere you named above? Even large metropolitan areas have
neighborhoods with distinct identities and attributes where "real
Americans" live.

From my post of March 3 in this thread:
I think there is no such thing as "the real America" meaning the USA.
Each region of this vast country has its own cuisine and culture within
the general cuisine and culture. The variations get greater as the
geographic location gets smaller.

-- __________________________________________________ ______________
A San Franciscan who's visited 49 of 50 US states.
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ --- http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 ------- IClast at Gmail com






































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On 3 Mar 2006 17:08:52 -0800, "
wrote:

lthough she's a "young 62", it can be pretty tiring to take a 2-week
trip in which you're constantly on the go.
For Heaven's sake !!!!!!!!
My husband and I are 68 and 66 respectively and do two week tours in
the USA often and don't find it tiring at all-------------we always
drive ourselves.

A wee bit ageist methinks :-)

For the OP----------I would suggest the New England area for your
trip.

Fly to Boston, hire a car there after a few days taking in the Boston
area , Make sure you book the car in the UK ( trail finders give the
best deal ) and wander around Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, all
are magical
Elizabeth in Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Removex to reply

On Sun, 05 Mar 2006 07:41:26 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:

I previously suggested continuing on the main line toward Boston; it
now occurs to me that an alternative is to go north by train and then
switch to car. The railway up the east side of the Hudson River is
quite scenic and it's mostly scenery you can't see by car (be sure to
sit on the left going north). On Amtrak there are several trains
per day to Albany, which takes about 3 hours; you could get off at
Poughkeepsie (pronounced "p' KIP see") , which is about halfway there.
(Both cities are large enough to have car rental offices, but I don't
know how near the train stations they are.)

This strikes me as an excellent idea, given the desire to see small
towns. One could continue up through NY state on Route 9, cross into
Vermont at some point, and continue the trip through New England,
ending up in Boston for the flight home. There might even be time to
see the Maine coast, which is very nice, especially Acadia National
Park. I would almost suggest skipping New York City altogether, since
they've already seen it, and limiting the stay in Boston to a day or
two.

My new suggestion is:

Fly into Washington, spend 3 days there.
Train to Philadelphia, 2 or 3 days there, maybe rent a car for one day
to see Pennsylvania Dutch country
Train to NY, 1 or 2 days there
Train to Albany, rent a car there, travel up through NY , perhaps to
Lake Champlain, cross into Vermont, stop for the night there, or
somewhere on the way
3 or 4 days in New England, ending in Maine, Acadia National Park
2 full days in Acadia National Park
drive back to Boston, fly home








Separate trains from New York as far as Poughkeepsie (using the same
riverside tracks) are also operated by the Metro-North commuter
(suburban) railway; they're cheaper, more frequent (I think), require
no reservations, and probably keep better time, but Amtrak has more
comfortable seats and on-board refreshments, and Metro-North trains
will be pretty full if you travel in the busy direction at rush hour.
Metro-North trains start from the beautiful Grand Central Terminal,
whereas all Amtrak trains (including the one you'll arrive on) use
Penn Station, about a mile away.

--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it.

On Sun, 05 Mar 2006 07:41:26 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:

"Michael":
I'd suggest taking the train from DC to New York and not renting the
car until the original poster gets to New York.

And I'd suggest (indeed, I already did) that if you're doing that, it
makes sense to continue by train to some place beyond New York so you
don't have to start by driving in the city -- unless you want to, of
course.
[snip]

Agreed. Rent the car in Westchester County.

Michael

If you would like to send a private email to me, please take out the NOTRASH. Please do not email me something which you also posted.