Today is the last day of my American Roadtrip. It will be spent counting down the next 12 hours waiting to get on the plane back to England.

A clerical error on my part means in 5 hours the car needs to be returnedalt JFK airport, 7 hours later we got which means the last 7 hours will be a slow passing waiting game in the airport. Hopefully we can get checked in real early so we’re not babysiting our suitcases for to long.

Ian.

Our last day of sightseeing in the US was a lot more expensive than expected because of the tools on the route between Washington and New York City. Added to that was the fact that we got lammed twice with the $15 ‘Welcome to New York’ tax twice because we left the main city and went into New Jersey when we went to the Statue of Liberty.

Thankfully when we visited the weather brightened up as en route the weather was a little way as can be seen in some of the cityscape photos. Also on the way we as a very familiar name when we were near Baltimore.

Tomorrow is our last day and we fly home hopefully the folks at Delta won’t be interfering with our flight.

Ian.

With a full day in Washington we had a overdose of American history waiting for us and decided to take a Big Bus Tour to help move us around the city conveniently. Sadly, a single day in Washingon is nowhere near enough to do everything so many things were bypassed as we wnet for the headliners and one of the many Smithsonian Museums.

Ian.

Today we were making our way to Washington and along the route from Tenessee we stopped at the deepest caverns on the east coast of America, the Natural Bridge Caverns.

Ian.

 

Today we set off early for the tour of the Jack Daniel’s distillery which was 20 miles from our overnight stop in Manchester, TN.

We got there in time for the first tour which was perfect as we still had 8 hours driving to do to end the day. The tour was good and highly recommended the biggest surprise was seeing Jack Daniel’s killer, a safe…

Like our tour of the Bayou Rum distillery much of the tour prohibited photography which I don’t understand the reason for but they make the rules 😢.

We discovered that all Jack Daniel’s drinks come direct from the distillery in Lynchburg, TN and each bottle is bottled and packed by hand. Also, I got reminded that Jack Daniel’s is a Tennessee Whisky NOT a bourbon. So take note.

In a lighter moment we made a pitstop in a McDonald’s in Knoxville, Tenessee and found one of the staff picking a pair of mansized underpants from the floor just inside the door. How you and up losing your underpants there I have no idea but it made Louise and I giggle.

As we left Knoxville, TN we got a little rainstorm which forced us to drive at 20mph for 30 minutes. We ended another long driving day in Wytheville Viginia ready to make our push to Washington DC and a third long driving day.

Ian.

We left New Orleans and hit the road to Manchester, TN. It was one of those will days where we did nothing but drive so not much to report. I have included pictures of the drive over the Gulf of Mexico as we drove out of town and then our tea stop in Fort Payne in Alabama and my tea.

We ended the day in Manchester Tennessee ready for the Jack Daniel’s tour…..

Ian.

Today was spent in Nawlins sightseeing maintain the French Quarter.

We started with the Louisiana State Museum that was essentially a Katrina and Mardi Gras museum and if that sounds like a criticism it isn’t it was very good.

This was followed by a brif visit to the Cathedral of St Louis which was OK at best but if you are religious (which I am not) I’m sure it would be a better experience. That said the architecture inside was amazing.

We then visited the old New Orleans Mint, which oddly was also a museum celebrating Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino, before heading off to the WWII Museum.

Ian.

Today we left the deserts of the past week and into the swamp land of Louisiana as we headed off to New Orleans.

With a 6 hour drive and departing at 8am we had a chance to be flexible with sightseeing along the way.

Our first stop was to be breakfast but we couldn’t find anything except chains like Ihop/McDonald’s/Waffle House until almost lunchtime when we got to Lake Charles where we stopped at Luna Bar & Grill and enjoyed a rather fine meal.

After lunch we found a Louisiana Spirits a rum distillery and took their free tour and a few samples which resulted in us buying 2 bottles 😊

Whilst there we were tipped off about a Gator rescue place that allowed you to handle the baby gators and Louise was sold on that idea so off we went to Gator Chateau.

We finally arrived in New Orleans and along the way see a roadside as that made me chuckle as I thought it made the guy look like he had big square Mickey Mouse ears, maybe that is just my odd sense of humour.

Ian.

Houston a fine American city and along with oil it is famous for one quotation, “Houston this is tranquility base, the eagle has landed” as man made their first moon landing and therefore Louise and I could do only one thing here today and that was spend the day visiting the NASA Space Museum.

Sadly this wasn’t as epic a day out as I’d hoped it would be but I was happy I visited it all the same. My recommendation is that if yiure in Texas and travelling get to Houston and do it but I really wouldn’t go out of my way to visit.

Ian.

Today we started early and headed to downtown San Antonio to see the Alamo and the nearby San Antonio Fire Museum.

The Alamo was fascinating because of the story behind it but was a little disappointing because there really wasn’t anything to see and you were not allowed to photograph what was inside. That said it was free and is worth a visit and a donation.

Immediately behind the Alamo is the San Antonio Fire Museum which was also free but full of exhibits and the volunteer guides are ex-SAFD firefighters. Our guide, Joe, was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the exhibits and telling fascinating stories abiut many of them. We left large donation because this personal service is way too good to go unpaid. If you’re in San Antonio give this place a look.

We ended the day with a short drive to Houston and stopped off halfway for dinner at the Oakridge Steakhouse in Schulenberg, TX. This was a real steak experience and not only cheaper than yesterday’s chain experience but much much nicer food.

Ian.

Today was a rather boring day spent driving from El Paso to San Antonio with no stops along the way other than fuel. Western Texas is a rather will place to travel through.

When we arrived in San Antonio we decided that we deserved a steak dinner. The satnav had a steakhouse listed on the way to our motel when we arrived we discovered this was actually a country ckub thst had a steakhouse bar and grill. So we decided that we needed to go elsewhere and ended up at an Australian themed steakhouse chain that while it wasn’t bad it wasn’t what we hoped it would be.

Ian.

Today we headed down south to Do Paso, Texas from Phoenix. Just past Tucson was the PIMA Air and Space Museum and we stopped off there for a few hours and enjoyed a your around the museum.

Ian.