Journey Journal Online

In this episode of the podcast I’ll tell you about a road trip I took in a large loop from my home in Cleveland, OH to Savannah, GA and back. There are some fun places to visit in between, and I’ll tell you about a few of those too. Also I want to give you some of my tips for taking a road trip.

So why don’t I start there.

My wife Becky and I have taken a lot of road trips. From our home base of Denver, CO for a few years we drove all around the American West, and the Southwest. We would take a week long vacation and pack up the car with camping gear, suitcases and coolers of food to go see some of the sites that are spread out around South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. We also made the trip back and forth from Denver to Cleveland, OH a couple of times to visit family back home. If you own a car that gets decent mileage, taking a road trip can be a good opportunity for budget travel. Plus it can turn into one of those situations where the journey is as much fun as the destination. I still like taking a good road trip and exploring small towns across America. When I hear the term Main Street, I have a picture in my head that is some combination of a lot of places I’ve been with 3 story brick buildings lining a road with parking on either side and quirky little shops here and there. Of course there is always a corner bar, and sometimes an old movie theater remains. Cheap food can usually be found in diners and pizza shops that have either been around for decades, or maybe just moved into a downtown that is having a resurgence in business.

Planning with a map

When you plan a road trip you don’t need much more than a map. I think a road atlas works well for laying out the route you want to take and getting a general sense of distances you want to cover. You can use online map sites like Google Maps or Mapquest, too, but my well worn Rand McNally road atlas has been one of the best tools we ever invested in. I think mine is from the 1990’s and I probably need to get a new one. I would also like to say that GPS is one of the most amazing and useful tools invented for finding your way around, but don’t rely on it without looking at some kind of map first. When you plan with a map you can look along your route and realize things like, “hey if we just go a little out of our way we can stop in Nashville for a few hours”. If all you do is hop in the car and plug in your destination to the GPS you might miss some great opportunities. I also like to get an idea of just how many hours I want to drive each day and plan out some towns to stop in overnight.

Getting free maps along the way

Besides my outdated Rand McNally Road Atlas, I always stop at the first rest stop after crossing a state’s border. Most of the time they have a welcome center and will give out free state maps. These are the up-to-date paper maps for a state and usually have detailed sections for many of the major cities in the state. You can also use these welcome centers like you might use a tourist information office found in cities and towns across Europe. They will usually have a volunteer staff that can answer some questions, and they have brochures for all kinds of attractions. Now, Some of you may be saying, “No Duh, Lee we all know about rest stops”, but not everybody may know about getting the maps, since you sometimes have to ask for them. Also, I have actually seen a few International downloads of the podcast, so for you listeners around the world, I hope this helps in case you are unfamiliar with the freeway system in the US.

Packing food so you don’t blow your budget or your health eating fast food

One of the other things that I have always done on our road trips is to pack lunch and snacks. This doesn’t have to be complete junk food, but I find that eating a little something every hour or couple of hours helps to keep me more alert. We pack sandwiches and fruit for lunches, and we will either eat them while driving, or picnic somewhere along the way. This helps keep costs down, and is also healthier than eating nothing but fast food. That’s not to say we don’t get fast food, especially if we end up using a fast food restaurant just for a bathroom break. A handy thing to have if you think you want to do a few road trips is a cooler that plugs into your 12v cigarette lighter power in your car. These come in different sizes and will keep things cool, not ice cold. Its not as messy as dealing with bags of ice. Just remember to turn it off or unplug it when you leave your car. You don’t want to come out from a restaurant break and find your battery dead. With food on the road, I think the rule is “keep it simple”. Fruits, trail mixes and nuts, crackers or pretzels, and water bottles. Myself, I like to have a stock of diet soda too in case I need a caffeine jolt. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches seem to travel well too, but we have gotten as exotic as making and eating hummus wraps.

Travel with pets

One advantage to taking your own car is that you can take your pet along. If your dog or cat travels well in the car around town, they should be fine in the car for a big trip. We have taken our cat across the country a couple of times, and once he got used to the fact that he was going to have to sit in his cat carrier  for a while, he quieted down and seemed to enjoy the ride. If you stop at hotels, be sure to tell them you have a pet. Most will charge an extra fee or damage deposit if they accept pets, but have higher charges if they found you with a pet you didn’t tell them about ahead of time. One other thing to know is that state laws differ when it comes to leaving your pet in the car. Certainly on a hot day, leaving your cat or dog in a car with the windows closed could kill them. You should always make sure there is enough air circulation and provide them with water if you have to go into a restaurant or a store. If it is the middle of summer on a sunny day, just cracking the window an  inch isn’t enough either. Just be smart about it, and also I will put a link in the show notes for a site that describes what laws are in different states pertaining to this.

http://www.animallaw.info/articles/qvuspetsincars.htm

Camp, budget hotel, or B&B, or luxury

Road tripping gives you a lot of choices when it comes to lodging. Camping, budget hotels, Bed and Breakfasts, or luxury hotels can all be found on the road. If you are in a small town you might not get that luxury hotel, but if you are on the other end of the spectrum and want to camp, I have found that planning to stop at state parks, or national forest land can be nicer than the big name campgrounds like KOA or Jellystone, but they will do in a pinch.

One quick note, is that traveling by car with kids can obviously be much cheaper than buying airline tickets for the whole family. I don’t have kids, so you can take my advice with a grain of salt, but my suggestion would be to keep them occupied with portable DVD players and video games. Things have come a long way since the days I had to either read a book or play I spy in the backseat with my sister. Also remember to shorten the distances you travel each day and make some fun stops.

Car checked out, check all fluids, tires and emergency supplies

I am a planner and I’m all about being prepared for emergencies, so I always check things out on the car before a trip. If you don’t trust yourself or your car, take it to a mechanic you trust – I hope you have one – and just tell them your are going on a trip of however many hundred miles, and would they check it out. Probably fluids, brakes, tires, belts and hoses will be mainly what they are looking for. You can do mostly the same thing yourself. At a minimum, check the oil level, coolant level, and tire pressure. Put an emergency kit in the trunk that has jumper cables, tape, flares or orange cones so that if you have to pull off to the side to change a tire you can be seen. If you want more peace of mind, you can get roadside assistance insurance either on your auto policy, through some credit cards, or a club like AAA, which has a lot of other benefits like discounts at hotels and attractions.

The route and itinerary

So now that we’ve planned the route, booked some hotels along the way and checked out the car, lets get on with the trip. When my wife and I decided to go to Savannah, we had a seven day spring break in which to do it. We also had a few sites and people to visit along the way, but with more time, we could have taken a few more side trips. Our route was planned out as Cleveland to Bowling Green, KY and Mammoth Cave, then on to Chattanooga, TN, and finally arriving in Savannah for several nights. After that we stayed overnight in Charleston, SC and then headed back north toward Cleveland with a last night left up in the air. I think of these quick stops like sampling at a buffet. Most stops are too short to explore a place in depth, but I get to breeze through and find places I might want to return someday and spend more time. I also kept the driving to about 5 hours a day, because I didn’t want to spend all day every day of my vacation in the car.

Day one Cleveland to Mammoth cave in KY

Our first day was a pretty easy drive through Ohio, skipping Cincinnati, and ending in Bowling Green, KY. I have a cousin who lives there so we met at a nice Italian restaurant called the Brickyard Cafe.Look for the link in the show notes for their location and menu. http://www.brickyardcafe.net/

Bowling Green is a college town, home to Western Kentucky University. There is a large teaching hospital where my cousin works as an ER nurse. Another attraction close by is the Corvette museum and plant. A lot of car aficionados come here to see where their Corvette was born, and to get a look at some of the models through the years in the museum. Also, my wife made sure to remind me that there was a big flea market at the same exit as the corvette museum. She saw it from the freeway and had to stop. She is a collector of well, lets just say stuff. If you’re a fan of any of the shows that feature pawn shops and American antiques you’ll love these kinds of places, and really that’s what road trips are all about. You can stop and check out something that interests you, and not necessarily what an organized tour will steer you towards.

Mammoth cave

Also very close is Mammoth Cave National Park. http://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm This is a place that we had been talking about coming to for years, and this trip was the perfect excuse. This is a huge cave system under Western Kentucky and I mean really huge. The main room looks like it was blasted out for tourists enjoyment, but it was slowly carved out by an underground river that is still flowing. There are a couple of different tours offered by the National Park rangers, and the one we went on was called the Historic Tour.  It led down to a low point in the cave where we could see the river running across the rock, and the ranger explained that the room we were in at that point is completely underwater seasonally when the river is running full. There are stairs to climb on some of the tours, and if you visit the website located in the show notes, they have listings of each of the tours with details about how long they are and exactly how many stairs ar on each one. If you want to get into spelunking or caving, they even have an intro to caving tour that will lead you a little off the beaten tourist paths in the cave.

Nashville

After leaving Mammoth cave, we headed south again and stopped in Nashville, TN, known as Music City. The plan was to stop someplace interesting for lunch, but things didn’t go exactly to plan. It was Sunday and we were a little early for lunch. In the middle of Printers Alley which is supposed to be one of the hot spots in the city everything was closed. When I say everything, I mean everything. I eventually spotted a Starbucks, but it was also closed. Tennessee is on the north side of what can be collectively called “the South” here in the United States. People here are very passionate about their religion and church on Sunday. If you are traveling on a Sunday you can expect that many businesses will be closed, and there just might not be that much to do. If we had more time I would have stopped overnight for some fun at the bars and honky tonks or maybe a performance at Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry. I’ll probably even do a show just on Nashville eventually because I have stopped there with my family on another trip. It’s a great town for live music.

Chattanooga

Instead of staying in Nashville, we opted to go a little further south and east to stay overnight in Chattanooga, TN. for many people the only reason they may have heard of this place if from the old song Chattanooga Choo Choo. Historically, the city was a manufacturing center and they now have a great preserved downtown. There are a bunch of different museums and some natural attractions and parks just outside the city. We just used it as an overnight stop but we did try out the Terminal Brewhouse downtown, and had a very good dinner in a multi story converted industrial building with some amazing craft beer. https://www.facebook.com/terminalbrewhouse  They don’t advertise public tours, but I asked the server if there was anyone who would give me a tour of their brewing setup located on the ground floor below the restaurant, and one of the beer geeks there was happy to show me around. It just goes to show, all you have to do is ask and many times you can get a little extra fun in your experience. This stop was short, but mainly because it wasn’t the final destination but that is up next.

Savannah

Savannah is why we were headed down South. Originally neither Becky or I knew a whole lot about it, but we had some recommendations from friends and family. Savannah is on the eastern coast of the United states in the state of Georgia. It has history that includes being an important port in the 19th century and it was said that during the Civil War, the Union general Sherman who had burned Atlanta and everything else in his path on his march to the sea couldn’t destroy Savannah because it was so beautiful. It’s historic old town is laid out with streets lined with historic homes that open up to park-like squares every couple of blocks. You can navigate around the city by the square you are at with names like Chatham, Lafayette, Orleans and Madison. These squares are a perfect spot to sit in the shade of the huge live oaks and just take in the architecture around you. Even at night, it’s scenic and especially peaceful.

This also makes it a very walkable city. There are only a couple of boulevards that aren’t broken up by these squares, so its easy to cross the streets and just wander around and find some hidden shops and museums. For literary fans, Savannah was the setting for the novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which was made into a motion picture in 1997. It tells a semi fictional tale of the local characters around Savannah in the 1980’s.

What I found to be the most interesting thing about Savannah, was that it has a mix of history, preserved architecture, and a weird individuality of a creative liberal culture in the heart of the American South. There is a River walk down by the Savannah river which used to be the main port for trade that originally fueled the wealth of Savannah. It is now a touristy line of bars restaurants and shops. You can find some pretty good seafood and southern cuisine here for lunch or dinner. An interesting fact is that it is legal to walk around with an open beer or alcoholic beverage. This is not typical of many places in the US, so I was surprised when a bartender asked me if I wanted a beer “to go” while we were on our way out the door.

Like many rehabilitated old town cities, Savannah has a fair collection of art galleries. All kinds of fine arts and crafts can be found both down by the river and scattered around the old town. If you see one while walking around just pop in. You don’t have to go with the intent of buying something, but its nice to look at.

There are also a lot of Bed and Breakfasts here. These are great for a weekend getaway or a week long visit to explore the area. Most are in historic buildings and you can get a little bit of history with your stay from a friendly owner. We stayed at the Savannah Bed and Breakfast Inn they have rooms spread out over several buildings very near Forsythe Park. We found that we could wander from here to visit the squares, the park and cemeteries, and with a bit of a longer hike, all the way to the river. This is great if you are going to visit some of the bars and have a few drinks, you don’t have to worry about drinking and driving. If you want to help pay for the costs to bring you this podcast and book a great B&B, and even the one I just told you about, you can go to www.journeyjournalonline.com/bandb . If you click the link there to go to one of the companies listed there it won’t cost you any extra money, but it tells them that you heard about them through the Journey Journal, and I’ll get a small commission to help me pay the bills so I can keep telling you about great places to visit. These are companies I have used myself, so I trust them to find a great deal for you too.

Overall, I would recommend Savannah as a destination for history buffs, or couples looking for a romantic getaway. You can get yourself lost on purpose and relax here. That was the best part… just relaxing.

Charleston

We somehow missed what was supposed to be a big attraction in Charleston which was the City market. It seems online like an interesting shopping trip, but instead we wandered around looking at the houses and gardens all around the old city. We also just hung out at the White Point Garden Park at the tip of the peninsula that contains the entire old town. We saw some very upscale shopping areas and ate at a very nice restaurant serving “low country” cuisine. One of the crafts that the area is known for are sweetgrass baskets. Handmade by locals and available in just about every size and shape imaginable, these baskets can be found for sale in galleries or directly from the maker on the side of the road. We bought one from a woman who had a shack at the edge of a supermarket parking lot, in the shade of an old tree. She sat and worked on one of her baskets while talking to us while we picked out one to buy and take home. They make a nice souvenir to take back and put in your living room, and I felt like I was helping out the local economy just a tiny bit.

My highlight of Charleston was Patriots Point, which is a museum consisting of a docked aircraft carrier, submarine and destroyer. These Naval ships are World War II era craft that served even later into the 20th century. The self guided tour of the ships was really informative, and you get to wander the inside corridors on your own while imagining what life must have been like being out at sea for months at a time with a big crew. If you like aviation, there are also static aircraft displayed both in the huge hangar deck and on the flight deck. The only disappointment for me was that the destroyer was out for refurbishment, and my grandfather served in the Pacific on a destroyer in WWII. As of 2013 it is back and on display for tours so that just gives me a reason to come back, and I definitely want to. The submarine is a diesel sub that is much smaller than the Nuclear cold war subs you might have seen in the movies. Unfortunately it is also in need of an overhaul and its future is uncertain. Neither the museum nor the state of South Carolina has the funds so they are soliciting donations today to save it from becoming a reef off of the Florida coast. You can go to http://www.savetheclamagore.com/ to donate or find out its fate if you are listening to this sometime in the future. You can also visit www.patriotspoint.org to see pictures of the USS Yorktown carrier, USS Laffey Destroyer, and the USS Clamagore submarine.

On the same day as Patriot’s Point we also visited Boone Hall Plantation. This is a working plantation still producing crops today, but also provides tours of the manor and grounds. The house is a reconstruction built in the Georgian style in the 1930’s but probably the most impressive aspect is the approach to the house. The long drive is lined on either side by massive live oak trees. Each row arches over the driveway to form a tunnel that frames the view of the house as you approach it. The tour of the house was interesting, but you only get to see the first floor, decorated as it might have been in the early 19th century. The house was featured in the 1985 TV miniseries “North and South” starring Patrick Swayze. this was part of the tourist draw for my wife who had watched the show when she was younger. Along the driveway is an area called slave street. These are cabins where the slaves of the plantation lived. The self guided tour lets you walk in and around the cabins, and has artifacts original to the plantation. There’s also an educational tour focusing on the historic Gullah culture. There are more historic buildings beside the house including the cotton gin house dating back to the mid 1800’s. The tour was topped off with an open air wagon ride through some of the plantation grounds highlighting the crops that used to be grown and the new cash crops that still sustain the plantation today such as strawberries, pumpkins, and other vegetables. If you are into Southern history, I’d recommend this stop for a nice afternoon.

Road stop in VA

Our route home from Charleston was a long one. We were both out of time to spend away from work and school, so we took the most direct route home. Unfortunately there wasn’t a good destination stop that we knew of anywhere close to the halfway mark so we ended up picking a budget hotel just off the freeway. It was fine for what we needed, which was a rest and a bed for the night.  There would be other options if you wanted to take a more scenic route. Asheville, NC would be a great option. I would allow an extra day if you want to go to Asheville, just to go to Biltmore Estate. Another option could have been to pop over to Roanoke, VA for a day. As it ended up, we found a nice park and took a walk, and ate at a local Mexican restaurant.

Home

The hidden gem on the way home is something we had passed several times on our way through West Virginia, but never stopped at before. It was the Tamarac Arts and Crafts showcase. Becky is a big craft person, so I relented to her pleading and stopped. It is a single large round building right off of the freeway exit that is a shopping stop for anyone who likes artisan handiwork. They have artist in residence in studios inside, and feature wood crafts, pottery quilts and clothing as well as other art and sculpture.

After that it was home to our cats and chickens. Some people don’t like driving, so I can understand a road trip might not be for everyone, but if you have a willing travel partner, especially one who can share in the driving and the navigation, road trips are a really affordable way to get up close with an area of the country that you might not see if you just jet from big city to big city. Our trip took us over 1800 miles and we both had a wonderful time and discovered that we want to return to Savannah for a longer stay, so when I get there I’ll be sure to let you all know so you can stick with me and keep listening.

I appreciate every one of you who are listening and if you like it or you know someone else who might like it, please share me with your social network. The blog is at www.journeyjournalonline.com, and I am on Facebook at facebook.com/journeyjournalonline.

I am also listed in the iTunes podcast directory, and if you use iTunes, please stop by and give me a rating. That would really help me to show up when people search for travel related podcasts and tell my stories to even more people. Thanks again, and I’ll talk to you soon. Until then, enjoy your journey.

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A call out of the blue

US Passport

A friend called me up on the phone to ask if I had a passport. I replied that I did not. “Go get one NOW and get it expedited if you have to”, he said. “British Airways just started service from Denver to London and they have a crazy introductory fare of $300.” This friend, we’ll call European Bob, was living and working in the London area at that time and he would be there for another couple of months before he had to return to the United States. I was faced with a pivotal opportunity to hop on the adventure train with a passport, or let it pass by and wonder what could have been. An offer of a free place to stay, incredibly low travel cost and my first international trip outside of North America was too much temptation so I grabbed it. The first moment I could I went to the post office branch that housed a passport acceptance office and got the forms. I then went to go get the mysterious passport photo taken and developed (yes, film). I turned in the filled out form, photos and the extra fee for expedited service to our federal government, crossing my fingers that I would get it all back in time for the flight I had booked in about 6 weeks.

Why I didn’t already have a passport in my twenties

At that time, passports were not required for US citizens traveling to Canada or Mexico, so most people, including me, never bothered to get one. Travel outside North America was always a someday thing for me, and I really didn’t know much about how to get a passport. Even now only about one third of US citizens have passports, but travel to exotic places outside of the US is something that most people have on their list of things to do in their lifetime. Since a passport lasts for 10 years before it has to be renewed and you now have to have it even if you are driving over the border to Canada or Mexico, why not get one? The renewal process is easy once you have one and it could be the one thing that changes your life and opens your eyes to the possibility of seeing the world.

The passport application process

Here is my attempt to demystify the passport application process:

New York Sunrise by JefferyTurner, on Flickr

Journey Journal Online Episode Six – New York City

Welcome to show number 6 of the Journey Journal Online Travel Podcast. My name is Lee Wiegman and I’m here to tell you about traveling, vacations and to share my experiences. Hopefully, I can bring you something you didn’t know before and might give you that little push to go visit someplace new. Today I’ll be talking about New York City. I’ve been there several times each in a different capacity. I know that someone from the east coast or someone who’s lived there for a while might be more qualified to give you all the nitty gritty details, but my perspective is that of a visitor for a short time. I just wanted to be upfront with all of you because New York is so densely packed with things to see and do that you can probably go a dozen times and not even begin to scratch the surface. Well here goes…

First Adventure Trip to NYC

The first trip I ever took to New York was not a pleasure trip, but it was an adventure. I was in college and a friend’s family business needed some goods driven to NY on short notice. My friend was sent on the trip and I was paid $50 to ride along to keep my friend company and make sure the van didn’t get vandalized in the city. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about that since I was a college kid who had never been to New York and I didn’t know if I was going to be fending off street gangs with spray paint or what. While we were there we were to pick up some Persian rugs for his Uncle’s business. Our vehicle was a large cube van and we drove straight there and straight back from Cleveland, OH. After the 10 hour drive to the East Coast we had a quick introduction to New York traffic. From the passenger seat, I remember going past the large metal globe structure in the Bronx from the world’s fair and seeing the jumbled Manhattan skyline from the freeway, all things I recognized from pictures, but had never seen in real life. We dropped off our cargo in Brooklyn at a flooded loading dock where I dutifully stayed in the truck. After that we navigated the maze of thruways to Manhattan. Here was the real driving challenge. I’m glad I was a passenger in the 24 foot box van as we triple parked it on the street in a section of the city that seemed to be dedicated just to selling Persian rugs. I don’t remember now exactly where we were I just knew I was supposed to stay in the truck in case… well I don’t know in case of what. After some time passed my friend came to get me and we both went inside. One of the things I’ll never forget was the Jamaican freight elevator operator who had his own side business selling colognes and perfumes out of the elevator. We went up a few floors to a dark room filled to the ceiling with rolled up Persian rugs. Several middle eastern looking guys in fancy shirts open at the chest were trying to work out what we were supposed to be taking. Eventually we got whatever it was we were supposed to get, because we left and drove straight back home. It think the whole trip from Cleveland to New York and back was done in one shot with no overnight stop. I didn’t get to be a tourist but it was definitely an introduction to the multiculturalism of the city.

Going to a Convention in New York City

My second trip to New York I got to wander and see a little more of the city. I went to a convention for the Audio Engineering Society while I was still a student. A group of us from my college program road tripped and stayed on both Long Island and Staten Island with the families of some of the students. This was my intro to all of the transportation options in the area including commuter trains like the Long Island Railroad, the Subway and the bus system. While the convention was on we stayed on Staten Island with a fellow student and took the ferry over to Manhattan every day. I’m sure locals are used to it, but I think it was a pretty scenic commute sailing past the Statue of Liberty each day. From the ferry terminal we took the subway up to midtown Manhattan. At first the map and routes were confusing and I couldn’t tell which way was up or down, but after a few trips it got to be old hand pretty quick. Growing up as a kid I had always heard about how the subway was dangerous and I had this image of criminals and gangs I suppose, but I think by the early 90′s it was OK and once you learn to read the map and recognize the subway entrances it’s not so bad. The convention was held at the Javitz center near the garment district. It’s a huge glass and steel complex of a convention center. On breaks from the conference we ate at delis and pizza places nearby for lunch. Unlike my city back home there seemed to be a little place around every corner. It was good that we had a local along with us, because he grew up knowing the layout of the streets so we were much less likely to wander up and down looking for something. One evening we went to Greenwich Village to go find the famous music club CBGB’s where famous punk acts got their start. We did find it but I don’t think there was anything going on that night so we ended up in a small blues bar somewhere in the Village. It was some of the coolest sounding blues in the most intimate small place I’ve ever been and I have still never been able to find that experience again even though I’ve looked for that bar on other trips. This was one of the first trips to a large city I had ever taken on my own as a young adult and it proved to me that I could go out and explore and come back to tell the tale.

New Year’s Eve in Time’s Square

New Year’s Eve in Times square is one of those trips that a lot of people have on their bucket list. When I decided to go in 1996 it sounded like a great idea at the time, but the trip was poorly planned and executed. Becky and I were newly married and we decided to visit a friend working at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. We figured we might as well go see the ball drop in Time’s Square just like we had seen it on TV our whole lives since we had an offer of a free place to stay. We started off the day of December 31st sightseeing. We took public transit in and were hitting the typical NY landmarks. We tried to go to the Statue of Liberty, but a government shutdown due to a budget crisis had closed all National Parks. This is something that could easily happen in 2013, so keep that in mind for your trip plans. Always have an alternate! Almost as a consolation we went to the World Trade Center to ride up to the observation deck of the towers and take in the city from above. I know now that I will keep that memory with me for the rest of my life since it is an experience that can never be repeated after the 9/11 tragedy. Afterward we zig-zagged through the city to visit St Patrick’s Cathedral which is a great free attraction. The Gothic architecture is impressive and in stark contrast to the modern buildings that now surround it. There are 7 masses a day during the week and 8 on Sunday, and there was a mass on when we visited. We just quietly watched from the back of the nave and walked along the side with our friend who lit a candle in one of the small side chapels. In the early evening a group of people with us were going to see Blue Man Group in Tubes which was this strange thing off-Broadway at the time. This was before they got really big, but we thought it seemed too weird so we ended up wandering Greenwich Village while our friends went to the show. Little did we know that weird little show would become a world-wide franchise. I don’t remember exactly what we ate while wandering around, but I’m sure some pizza was involved since it’s Becky’s favorite food, even though she complains that she doesn’t like New York style pizza. We met up again with our friend and decided it was time to start finding a spot to stand and watch the ball drop. The packed masses were already back to 53rd street, if I’m remembering right and we joined the crowd there on Seventh Ave which was not even the main strip on Broadway! Becky and her friend were both not feeling that well and we had been sightseeing around the city all day which can make you really tired. We had nothing to eat or drink for the next four hours while we stood around with a bunch of strangers. We were all packed in like sardines and could barely see the ball in Times Square. I do remember some nice people sharing some cinnamon schnapps with us, but those couple of sips were all we had. Then the ball dropped and we rushed off to try and get back to NJ. The ball dropping was, by the way a non event from as far away as we were. We could barely see the thing because it seemed tiny and I remember doing a countdown but that was it. We couldn’t hear music and we weren’t on the right street for confetti. It seemed like at that point everyone in the entire celebration tried to crowd onto the same train. Becky was terrified, but eventually we ended up navigating back across the river to New Jersey. We then had to find a bus back to Seton Hall and our beds for the night. We were waiting at the bus stop but the bus never came. Then all the people at the stop started vying for taxis. All the taxis passing by were either already in service or not stopping, and with a crowd of a couple dozen people it would take a lot of taxis. We finally found one around the corner from the bus stop. It seemed to be the worst taxi in New Jersey. It had holes in the floor and cracks in the windows, we asked the driver who’s first language was obviously not English to get us to Seton Hall University. He sped off and stopped in from of Seton Hall Law School, which was not in the same part of town. Our friend Amy argued a little bit, and gave him some cross streets and we ended up back at her residence hall, eventually. I think the whole experience soured New York for both Becky and I for a little while, but eventually we each took individual trips back there for work that made up for it. I may be making it sound pretty horrible here but in retrospect if you want to experience Time’s Square for New Year’s Eve I think a little planning would go a long way to making sure you had a fun time. Don’t make my mistake and try to see the whole city and party in Times Square both in the same day. Bring some water or a beverage you can sneak past the NYPD and don’t forget to eat! For me it is one of those things that I can say I have done, but I probably won’t go out of my way to do it again.

Visiting New York City on Business

One of my most productive sightseeing trips was when I went to New York for work. The company I work for sent us to New Jersey to practice recovering our computer systems in case we would ever have a disaster. When we weren’t doing our portion of the work we had free time to spend and several of us spent the day in the City. Once again, the buses and subway got us everywhere we wanted to go. We wandered around to different parts of the city doing the typical tourist things like going up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I also met up with a friend who lived somewhere nearby at the time. We had a good meal at a bar, walked it off with some aimless wandering and ended up at Paddy Reilly’s for a show by one of my favorite bands that are based in New York, The Prodigal’s. At Paddy’s they served nothing but Guinness on tap. They had seven taps and each tap had a letter to spell out the word Guinness but if that doesn’t suit you taste I think they serve other beer in bottles. There are some other fragments of memory that I have like a corner bookstore that had books of all kinds seemingly haphazardly arranged and stacked up to the ceiling. This was in stark contrast to the Virgin mega-store that had books, and music (all new, of course) in a multi-floor, well organized and well lit store. It was also almost comical how many Starbucks there were. Sometimes more than one on opposite corners of an intersection. From the memories of my trips it always seems like New York is randomness to me. I end up going there and just wandering and I always find something that turns into a story or that just makes the quintessential New York moment for me. Like any big city New York has museums and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This was place blew me away in size, scale, and the number of exhibits. I was a little star struck from the outside facade and areas inside which I had seen from movies. Wandering through the Egyptian wing was most impressive. A huge glass atrium houses the reconstruction of a giant stone temple. Getting through just a few rooms of this museum tires you out and kind of sends you into a little bit of an overload. I haven’t been back there yet, but I really want to take a trip just for the museums, and this one in particular.

A Visit to New York with Friends and My Tips to the City

My last trip was a few years ago while visiting my college roommate who was living in upstate New York. His girlfriend (now his wife) grew up in the area and we were talking about our plans to go into the city for the day. We were trying to figure out the logistics of getting to a train station to take a train into the city to do a little sightseeing and see a Broadway show we had tickets for. She announced, “I’ll drive you into the city.” We didn’t want her to go to the trouble and we were thinking that driving into the city was something nuts akin to suicide by automobile. She assured us it was no big deal and that she actually enjoyed the challenge of driving in the city. When we got through the tunnel and into Manhattan this mild mannered woman turned into a caricature of a New York cabby, honking and swooping into the traffic with the best of them. She was even a whiz at finding street parking so we could find a spot to have dinner and a drink. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to find street parking before that. It was yet another way to experience the city, but not something I’d recommend a first-timer do. If you’ve never been there and you don’t have someone who loves the aggressive NY driving… take the train. The show we saw was Monty Python’s Spam-a-lot and we got tickets kind of at the last minute. This means we didn’t have the best seats ever, but what the heck, it was exciting and funny to me and we were in the theater. There are so many theaters here that I could see myself going to a lot of different plays off Broadway if I lived here.
Besides going to Museums and Broadway shows here is my quick list of things to know about visiting New York City
Take trains and buses into the city if you can. The public transit system here is one of the best in the country. The major hubs of Penn Station and Grand Central Station will be your starting points in Manhattan, and if you follow the signage, its not that hard.
I’ve never been able to do it on my multiple trips, but take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty.
See the tourist sights, but don’t get burned out. If you have never been here before, go to the top of the Empire State building. The view of the buildings below you will really give you a sense of the size and density of the city.
Visit the different sections like Lower Manhattan, So Ho, Greenwich Village, Midtown. Walk within the areas, but don’t get fooled into thinking you can just walk everywhere and not take the subway. The distances can be deceiving.
Take a cab if you’ve got a few people to split the fare. Just don’t be afraid to ask the cab driver how much it will cost to get to your destination. He can tell you approximately, and that way you won’t be surprised.
Eat some food. You can get

• Asian food
• Street food if you’re brave
• Bagels in just about any place with a food counter
• Go to a New York deli in New York
• Fancy dining in restaurants owned by celebrity chefs
• Just about anything you want.

To get here and stay here you can fly into one of the three airports that serve the area. Laguardia, JFK, and Newark, NJ. Pack light and take train or a cab to your hotel or lodging. If you are driving plan to park or stay outside the city to save money or park at your hotel, but expect to pay at least $50 per day to park. Alternatively, you can find a lot through iconparkingsystems.com for maybe $15 to $18 per day. If you can find a local that you may know to help you out. Use that social media network you’ve built to find someone to give you advice and help if it’s your first trip to NY. Good hotel deals can be found on the weekends when business travelers are heading home. Please check out my affiliate link at www.journeyjournalonline.com/hotels. I can sometimes get some promotional deals through my affiliation and you would be helping me out because I get a small commission if you book through my link which will help me pay the hosting cost for my podcast.

My closing thoughts on New York are just to tell you to wander. On my trips I have wandered Central Park, Wandered the Village, or wandered by museums and attractions and I’ve always felt pretty safe. I think if you keep your eyes open for who is around you, and walk like you know where you’re going even if you don’t always know you can experience in a day or two the character of the city almost like a local. New Yorkers seem to be portrayed in TV and Movies as a bit rough and callous, and maybe intimidating to a meek mid-westerner, but I think that’s more played up for the movies. There are so many people here from so many different cultures, I think it would be hard to characterize them collectively. I have seen some funny scenes that make me think “typical New York”, like a guy crossing the street at a busy cross walk when a slightly beat up and dirty car pulled halfway into the crossing. The walker shouts something in a thick NY accent, bangs his fist on the fender and spits on the windshield. The driver with the window only half open shouts back waving his arms wildly from inside the car. Everyone crosses the street, and the car lurches away through the busy city traffic. No harm was done, just a communication made in its own way, with bravado.
Elsewhere around the city I’ve seen brownstone walk-ups one after the other on streets with small trees lining the sidewalk. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to the images from Sesame Street when I was growing up. There is celebrity architecture here. Buildings like the flatiron building Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler building have been in the Movies and TV and are literally famous. Businesses and restaurants seem to be hidden and scattered around with streets of apartments and offices. Some of the most hidden are down at “garden level” These are where you kind of have to know they are there and walk down from the street level sidewalk to someplace with a low ceiling and questionable ambiance. Could be good, could be not so good but that is part of the adventure, isn’t it?
There are definitely times when I visit that I could see myself living there for a short time, but then after some reflection I don’t know if I could take the closeness of everything, the noise, and the constant slew of options. It does make for a fun place to visit.
That’s it for this episode, Thanks for listening to the podcast. I hope you learned one thing you didn’t know before or maybe just enjoyed my stories. As always, I welcome any feedback you can give me. If you want to help me out in some way all I ask is that you leave a review in iTunes. Also, you can always contact me at the blog, www.journeyjournalonline.com or through the facebook page facebook.com/journeyjournalonline. Also check out the new resources page on the blog with links to other places where you can book hotels, vacation homes and more. I hope you are looking forward to planning your own trips so until next time, Enjoy Your Journey.

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Craft brewing has got to be one of the top tourism draws in Denver, and if it isn’t, it should be. Besides hosting the Great American Beer Festival in October, Denver has become a hotbed of brewing activity with some very small to pretty large scale craft breweries producing some really good and adventurous beers. On my recent trip to the Mile High City I sampled six craft breweries for you. Yes that’s right I did it so I could write this blog post just for you.

Breckenridge Brewery

With it’s first base of operations in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, CO,  Breckenridge Brewery now produces much of its beer in Denver and has several tasting rooms. I actually went to the restaurant location in Breckenridge for lunch and had a pint. I had an Avalanche Ale, their amber ale. I must admit I don’t have any tasting notes, since I had just come from the local craft distillery in Breckenridge and I was off to a great start that morning tasting bourbon, rum, and vodka. Lunch was excellent, though,  with gourmet pub grub. The duck bratwurst was fan-freakin-tastic. And oh by the way,  they server tater tots as a side dish! Breckenridge beers are pretty widely distributed around the USA so you should be able to sample some near you.

So there you have it, six craft breweries to give you the flavor of Colorado beer. There are even more breweries in Denver, and I didn’t get to hit them all, so if you have any favorites that I missed please let me know.