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March 16, 2006

New Site

Hello Everybody,

Welcome to Coast to Coast which is the story of my three month Road trip across North America. Feel free to look around and email me if you have any questions.

I have now started up a podcast. It is a Pubcast or thepubcast. If you would like to listen to that it is www.thepubcast.com or you can click here.

Thanks,
Richard

Posted by Richard at 09:22 AM
View/Add Comments (0) | Category: About Me

June 01, 2005

Sunshine and spare change

I am home now and this will be the final entry...

Having handed the car back in San Diego we were now carless again. Fortunately for us the beach was only steps away from our hostel. Acclimatising to So-Cal didn't take long. We were soaking up the sunshine doing some rollerblading and sailing.

Before too long though we had to deal with the horrible Greyhound which was predictably rubbish as usual.

Continue reading "Sunshine and spare change"

Posted by Richard at 09:49 AM
View/Add Comments (0) | Category: West Coast USA

May 23, 2005

Driving

Coming on this road trip of the USA we always knew we had the middle to get through and we seemingly put it off for as long as possible. (7 weeks in out of 12 weeks we were still on the eastern side of the US). We decided to get a driveaway which is where you drive somebody eles's car from one place to another. You pay the gas but nothing else and they pay a company a minimal amount. Everybody wins.

Our dreams of being given a Mustang or BMW were soon crushed. We were given a 1989 Honda Accord. With no CD player. Fortunately we have one of those Itrip FM radio transmitters so we can use our own CD Player. Clearly this was a godsend...a man could go insane if left solely with country music and 'classic' rock.

Continue reading "Driving"

Posted by Richard at 04:11 PM
View/Add Comments (0) | Category: The middle

April 29, 2005

Canada

Time for a change. 1. Leave the US 2. Go to a place where they speak another language. So off to Montreal we went. Montreal is located in Quebec which is the predominantly French speaking province of Canada. First off the hostel (Auberge Alternative) we were at was great and I don't normally bother to mention hostels but thisone was excellent. It was bright, neatly decorated. It had wooden floors and exposed brick inside. It was also right in the heart ofOld Montreal (Vieux Montreal). Just across from us was a delightful boulangerie which served various croissants and teas (a little bit of a change from breakfast at Dunkin Donuts).

Continue reading "Canada"

Posted by Richard at 12:26 AM
View/Add Comments (0) | Category: Canada

April 19, 2005

In the city

I'm going to skip past my uneventful time in Philadelphia (the highlight of which was hearing a German guy sing some frankly scary German love songs) and go straight on to New York.

New York, New York

It's hard to know really where to start with a city like New York. In a way it's a city take to its logical conclusion. A place where more and more people have just crammed into the same space (because as Manhattan is an island things need to build up and not out). But as more and more people crowd in the pace of life seems to speed up and up. It's a very involving place but also an exhausting place.

Continue reading "In the city"

Posted by Richard at 06:44 PM
View/Add Comments (1) | Category: East Coast USA

April 09, 2005

City people

Sorry for the slight delay in entries - the more we are in bigger cities the harder it is to get free internet access. For this reason I'm going to skip our 'adventures' in Virginia - they basically involved going to an Interpol concert and going to Shenandoah National Park which is the only US National Park I've ever been to and now I've been there twice. It was really cold there (they still had snow) but the drive that cuts throught the park is very good with lots of opportunities for little walks off the side to rocks, waterfalls etc.

Continue reading "City people"

Posted by Richard at 03:50 PM
View/Add Comments (2) | Category: East Coast USA

March 28, 2005

Pioneers

Savannah, Georgia

After escaping the hippy camp drove to Savannah, a town of 'sultry charms' as described by the guidebook. The weather though was unpleasant - it was cold and gloomy. The lovely squares with their fountains and benches draped all around in Spanish moss were destined not to be sat in by me on some lovely sunny day.

One of the primary reasons that many people visit Savannah is for its well preserved antebellum style architecture. While the town was rich in the 18th and 19th Century, the 20th Century with its consequent 'development' passed it by.

Continue reading "Pioneers"

Posted by Richard at 11:26 AM
View/Add Comments (4) | Category: East Coast USA

March 23, 2005

Dragon's Lair

St Augustine, Florida

Leaving the glitzy modern Orlando we decided to take a trip to the oldest city in the US - St. Augustine, which was founded by the Spanish in 1565. It was a nice place but was predictably touristy. It still made a pleasant change from elsewhere in Florida. I spent the day by myself and visited the fort. Apart from that I just read on the grass in the sun. It was very agreeable to have some time by myself and to just relax (travelling is all hard work you must remember). We also took a Ghost Tour walk in the evening which quite quickly became repetitive, predictable and fairly boring. We had planned on staying two nights but the hostel had mucked up our booking and we had to leave after just one. However, this opened up a new opportunity. We asked the manager (a rather dreamy and peculiar hippy type) who was called Cap'n Conrad where we should go instead. He told us of a rather intriguing place called the Hostel in the forest. It sounded quite strange and new age to us. He mentioned skinnydipping several times and told us of a communal circle in which everyone gave thanks. It sounded strange.

Continue reading "Dragon's Lair"

Posted by Richard at 01:19 PM
View/Add Comments (2) | Category: East Coast USA

March 16, 2005

Fun and Fake

After leaving Key West our plan was to head up the west coast of the Florida peninsula to a town called St Petersburg. At this point I should mention something about the van we picked up. It is a 7-seater Dodge 'Ram' that we like to call a motorhome even though it is not. A fair few times we've tried to explain to bemused people about our 'RV' with it's 'chair-beds' but they don't seem to buy it. Regardless ont his particular occasion after about 7 hours of driving we had to resort to sleeping in the car. I have never done this before but in South Florida where the temperature is warm and with chairs that do recline all the way back - it was not too bad, no worse than sleeping on an aeroplane for instance.

Continue reading "Fun and Fake"

Posted by Richard at 09:42 AM
View/Add Comments (2) | Category: East Coast USA

March 12, 2005

First Impressions

Miami, Florida

We chose to fly to Miami because it was as far south as we could go. I didn't really know too much about Miami, most of my knowledge of the city had been gained from the odd episode of CSI: Miami and the Will Smith song of the same name. It turns out there isn't a lot to know. Yeah it's got a good beach and the nightlife is probably good if you've got money to burn. We head tales of having to buy $400 worth of champagne just to be allowed on the dancefloor and of club which only let people in based on their attractiveness (well maybe that's not such a bad idea). I found the whole place rather soulless. The city doesn't feel like it has any centre and the art deco aspect is overexaggerated and overrated.

Continue reading "First Impressions"

Posted by Richard at 04:11 PM
View/Add Comments (1) | Category: East Coast USA
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