After the included breakfast we headed to Cedar Point for some fast paced actioned packed adventures. Heading to the biggest rides/roller coasters first we go off to a good start. Starting with 'Rapter' a roller coaster with your legs dangling we then headed to the 'Top Thrill Dragster'. This begins by accelerating you to 120miles and hour in 4 seconds, shoots you straight up then straight down with a few twists. A lot of G forces to get the adrenalin going, all in about 20 seconds. A few other rides later we got to the Maverick. Yet another roller coaster, added to the park in 2007. This proved a bit to much for Fraser's dodgy fruit he had as part of breakfast. With Fraser not well Sarah and Aaron continued on the numerous roller coasters etc. Aaron even found time to go on the old fashioned Carrousel. As the rain started and the rides stopped we went and saw Snoopy on Ice, then had lunch. We filled in the rest of the rest of the afternoon going from ride to ride and repeating some of the better ones - not the old wooden ones that shook you to pieces, the new faster smoother rides have certainly come a long way since the park opened in the 1800's. Definitely worth a visit and puts NZ's Rainbow's End to shame. Ceder Park 67 rides including about 17 roller coasters. After 8 hours of fun, throbbing heads and an upset stomach we left the park to get some tea and a hot chocolate.
Up early to try and beat the heat we headed off to see the White House. Obama was out so we didn’t stop for a coffee. A look through the White house information centre to find out the history and names of all the past presidents. Then to the Holocaust Memorial Museum to join the lines before it opened to get the tickets. A short wait we were in disbelief as to the treatment of the people by Hitler. We stood at the base of the Washington Monument and marveled at the height, and sheltered in its shadow. We headed west to the WWII memorial fountains and continued alongside the reflecting pool to the Nurses Monument and the Vietnam Veterans Memorials. This memorial is in two parts, one is a wall of all the names of those who lost their lives and the other a bronze statue of three men. At the end of the reflecting pool is Lincoln Memorial were a lot of the famous presidential speech's occurred. A giant statue of Lincoln sits upon a chair with two of his famous speech's engraved on the walls "Four score and seven years ago.." Walking up the other side of the pool we passed the Korean War Veterans Memorial and World War Memorial. A stop at the Smithsonian Castle for lunch provided our feet a great rest and helped empty our wallets. At the National Air and Space Museum we saw the second plane to fly - The Wright brothers plane, despite them saying it was the first but we all know Pierse flew first. Numerous planes and space rockets full this huge museum. At the other end of the Plaza we walked around the US capitol, heavily guarded with police with guns and spare clips in full display. About this time Aaron's camera battery went flat after about 300 photos so a quick swap around and the photos continued. At the National Museum of Natural History (Yet another free Smithsonian museum) we saw the bones of the Kiwi, Moa and T Rex (The tuatara bones had been removed). The 45.52 carats Hope Diamond. One of the most flawless gems. Back at the hotel for an hour then a drive around the main monuments for night photographs. Washington, US Capital, Marine Corps Memorial, Lincoln and the White House. What a long day walking in the heat.
Day two in DC we headed to the National Museum of American History. From C3PO, model boats, Lincoln's top hat, the giant US flag "The Star Spangled Banner" that lead to their national Anthem. Kermit the Frog and Oscar the Grouch also made an appearance including the Ruby Red Slippers from the Wizard of Oz. A stroll to the National Archives we saw the original documents - Magna Cata from 1200 something. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the USA and the Bill of Rights. All this on the day Edward Kennerdy died. Back at the hotel we meet up with Frasers work mate Brian Gadde and had a dip in the swimming pool before pizza with his wife and daughter. To work off dinner we walked to the Washington Monument and White House.
Today we drove north for 7 and a half hours to Lake Erie and the town of Sandusky. A small historic town dating from 1818 - and it shows, its a bit run down in the Historic Town centre. Not to worry the hotel is nice and not too far from tomorrows adventures.
We got up early to try and get away from Manhattan, we rang for the car and then called for the bellman to come get our luggage. After waiting for the bellman we reloaded the car in the systematic way to make it all fit in. Leaving NY City was fine with Fraser managing to not run anyone over, honk his horn or get lost. Back through the Lincoln Tunnel and one last glimpse of the NY skyline and we were off south just after 8:15am. A quick stop for Burger King as it was the cheapest snack we could find. We made it to Washington DC at 12:40pm after four toll roads/tunnels/bridges just to help suck the bank accounts. After unloading our luggage at the Washington Plaza we drove to Arlington National Cemetery. Covering 624 acres and 20-30 burials a day it continues to add to the already 320,000servicemen and woman. It is also the resting place of many other Americans from JFK, Pan Am Flight 103, Space Shuttle disasters and many many more. A sad but impressive sight, row after row of headstones covering the landscape. We watched the changing of the Guard of the Tomb of the Unknowns. Carried out to high military standards, as was expected. The drive back to the hotel gave us a drive by glance of just some of the National Monuments we will be exploring over the next two days. A walk to the supermarket along the highly original named streets (We walked down 14th to P St) Yes numbered streets run North South and the alphabet East west. Had Popeye’s for tea (KFC not spinach) and a restful night planning the next few days in the air conditioned hotel room. The windows down as air conditioning in the car is just not as nice.
At the United Nations building we didn't get to see Helen Clarke but outside Madame Tussauds we saw Samuel L Jackson in wax. The Empire State building is still tall and impressive, but not as decorative as the Chrysler Building. The Flatiron building only lives up to half its name, flat, no iron in sight. And numerous other sky scrapers, gold capped roofs, NY Library... Time Square has everything from the Naked Cowboy to Elvis impersonators and elmo. Chocolate madness at the Hershey's Store and the three story M&M store in Time Square. A few souvenirs and the must have 'I love NY' T-shirts later we headed back down town to Macy's for Sarah to look for a dress, Aaron and Fraser sat at starbucks. From there we walked back up Madison Ave through the markets that spanned from 42nd St to 57th St (Yes the markets spanned 15 blocks). After dinner we went up the Rockefeller before sunset (and the shower of rain) to get a few snap shots before the sun went down and the night lights came out. What an impressive view of the Empire St building and Central Park. A stop in at Lindy's for a New York Cheesecake capped off yet another busy day in downtown NY. Next stop Washington DC
Began with the subway trip to the south of Manhattan and the walk through Battery Park to the Staten Island Ferry. This free ferry ride the photo opportunity of the gift from the French, The Statue of Liberty. Saw the Bronze Bull, the NY Stock Exchange on Wall Street, George Washington Statue where he first took the oath in 1789to be the US first president. The Trump Building and into Trinity Church. Went to Ground Zero, the site of the Twin Towers. As Aaron looked around the tribute/museum of the September 11th Sarah and Fraser went to Century 21 (Not the real estate agency, although we would like to think we could afford a place here). The pictures and missing persons posters at the tribute place is so moving.Wreckage of the plane, twisted steel beam, firefighters jackets etc is just unreal. The firefighter bronze memorial on the side of the fire station next to the site also highlights the tragedies of that day in 2001. The three of us walked around ground zero where they have began building the foundations and buildings for the tribute on site. Explored St Paul's Chapel that has extracts of the fence that lined the site with peoples tributes. This is where the firefighters and others rested after the attack. Continuing North we went through City Hall park to walk half the length of Brooklyn Bridge. A subway stop at Grand central station for lunch before entering Central Park at 7th St. After a small detour we found Strawberry Fields (No strawberries here though). This is rather a mosaic memorial to John Lennon who live near by in the Dakota apartments, still owned and occupied by Yoko Ono. Further exploration of Central Park took us to Bethesda Fountain (Think this is the one in the Friends TV show), Bow Bridge (A large cast-iron bridge and Belvedere Castle. A quick outside look at the Metropolitan Museum before the walk back to our Hotel via Fifth Ave which is full of the top end stores. A delicious meal at Heartland Brewery capped of a busy day in the heat of New York City.
After bacon and eggs and a good cup of coffee at Lisa's we crossed the Canadian USA boarder at Buffalo. Thanks to me (Aaron, the new chief blog editor) it was not the fastest crossing. One and a half hours to tick a few box's have a photo taken and finger prints taken. Then began the uneventful drive south east passing from New York state, through Pennsylvania and back into New York. After numerous road works we made to New York city at 8:30pm and into our hotel for the next three nights. Wandered down to time square and through the big Toy R Us store and a few tourist shops comparing prices. Its true this the place that doesn't sleep. After a long day and plenty more to do we're now settling down watching Ryse Darby on TV. Fancy coming all this way to watch a Kiwi entertain us on TV.
Well we are all now in St Cathrines, it is raining, but it is good to catch up with Lisa, the girl we met in Cuba. We went to Niagara falls last night and it rains but we dropped Aaron off to take some pictures then all headed to the Rain forest Cafe for dinner, was not to bad a place heaps of things like lightening storms and animals that moved every 10 minutes or so. Today we head for New York about a 7 hour drive from here.
Anyway back to leaving Ottawa, my last night at work was good and the guys presented me with a flag and plaque which was a surprise and also some maple syrup. It felt strange leaving the station for the last time. I got home and we packed the car and then Mike and Kathy turned up to say good bye and we had lots of hugs and tears. We then called in to see Dany and Rosa for a bit and had the same thing, we did not think it would be that hard to leave, but it is good to know we have made lots of new friends in the time we have been here.
Well hopefully our next month is going to be amazing and we are going to be having a good time, and hopefully Aaron will keep up with our blog incuding pictures....
Where to start really, I guess the big thing is how fast this year has gone by, it seems just like the other week we were meeting Mike and Kathy in Vancouver and now in less than a week we will be leaving Ottawa for the time being(not for good as we will definitely be coming back). So what have we been doing for the last month, well we now have Aaron here but I will get back to that.
At the beginning of August we decided that we would go and check out the highland games in Glen Garry, which is odd as we have never even been to the waipu highland games at home, To get there you head for Cornwall and a small town called Maxville just before Cornwall, we arrived early and looked around at the different things happening and talked to people and looked at all the tartan, and i even got offered a job in the RCMP(not to sure on that but). We found a good spot to sit down and watched both the men's and the women sports everything from throwing the stone to tossing the shet, to the caber toss, it was a really good day and the weather was even better which made it worthwhile, the best thing was the women's caber toss, as the caber was to long so they had to take to it with a chainsaw before anyone could get it over completely.
The next night we headed for Dow's lake on the Rideau Canal for the lights parade. We found a good space and sat and watched the boats all lit up with lights go around the lake for everyone to see, this was only one part of the canal festival that had been on, all the boats followed each other around the lake with only one incident where a boat hit the back of another and one of the people on the front fell into the water, but no one was hurt. The night was rounded off by fireworks but as you could imagine after Boston on the 4Th July it was just not the same, but we did get a really neat pictures of the fireworks.
Which brings me back to Aaron, Aaron arrived here on the 4Th August after doing a contiki trip in the Rocky's, we picked him up from the airport and it was the busiest we have ever seem it, might had something to do with the lightening storm that had just gone through Ottawa. The next day we all headed into town and the changing of the guard on Parliament hill, it was a nice day and we even got to see one of the guards faint and get carried away. That night we went to Lac-leamy on the Gatineau side of the river for one of the fireworks competition shows. We arrived early and set up the seats and relaxed and enjoyed the music until the fire works show started, we had gone to see Germany and their 8000 pounds of fireworks, it was a good show and all done to music which made it more interesting.
We also went to Omega park about an hour east of Ottawa on the Quebec side of the river, it is an animal park where you drive around with the animals. It was a good afternon for all of us with the highlights being the bears and the bisson that would come up to the windows, there was heaps of well feed deer at the entrants to the park as everyone feed them carrots
On the 9Th Sarah, Aaron and I all piled into the car and we headed back to Quebec City for the third time for Sarah and I and first time for Aaron, the first day we walked around the old city and looked at all the sights and showed Aaron all the places we had found before, the next day we drove the car along the St Lawrence river and stopped at Massif, a big ski hill in the winter, the difference here being that the car park is at the top of the hill and you ski down. From there we got to La Malbaie before heading back to the hotel and the surprise for Aaron. We went and got dinner and then walked around the port and tried to make it look like we were just walking around not going to Cirque du Soleil new show but we got lost a bit and Aaron figured it out, We had got front row tickets to the show and it was worth it and to be so close to every thing as well. We headed back to Montreal in the hope of seeing Kathy's aunt, but things did not work out so we spent the day in the old part of town before continuing back to Ottawa.
On the 25Th of July Sarah and I Met Catherine(mikes mum) and Andrew in Preston street at Pub Italia for dinner followed by a free concert at lebreton flats. The pub has over 200 beers so s you could imagine it took longer to decide what beer to drink than what to eat. After dinner we drove the car down the road a bit closer to the park and walked into the park to find a good spot to sit and watch the show. The main performer was a person called Natalie MacMasters a fiddler from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, although Sarah and i were not to sure about the music, it turned out to be a good night and was also good to hear some of the music from Cape Breton as when we were there it was the wrong time of the year. We managed to get our seats set up in the middle about 30 metres from the stage so we got a good view of everything happening. As well as Natalie MacMasters playing she was backed by the Ottawa NAC Orchestra, the entire concert was 2 hours long it did not self to take that long, Everyone in the crowd loved the music and lots of little kids were up the front dancing away the whole time she played the fiddle.
