From Yankee Territory to the Deep South in 14 Hours: NYC to Savannah, GA

The Eastern Seaboard holds some of the most interesting cities and people in the United States, but we're on a schedule, and places like Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, and Richmond, VA will have to wait for our next trek cross-country. As it is, we have time for New York, and Savannah, about as different as two cities only a few hundred miles apart can be.
We hauled into the muggy, storm-heated city around 3 am, and slept heartily until 11am, seeking out food and sights. We noshed on shrimp and baked potatoes at Wild Wing Cafe, only a few blocks from the hotel.

The sky opened up several times as we ate, so, having finished and dashed back to the hotel, we drove the short distance down a dozen blocks to the heart of the historic downtown district, replete with mossy-tree lined parks, stately homes and cobblestone roads.
Colonial Park Cemetary, the oldest and now full cemetary in Savannah is nestled amongst handsome townhouses, red brick and white metal lace fillagree completing the antebellum image.









We drove around downtown, which is practically spotted with small parks and avenues, taking in the essence of the South that emenates so thickly from the buildings and grounds in Savannah.
We saw the Mercer-Williams House, made so famous by the book and movie of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a veritable boon to the tourist industry in this sleepy city.
Not far from there, we found Forsyth Park, the lagest and southern most of Savannah's city parks. The fountain, oft photographed or found in the background of southern films, and the fragrant garden maintained by Ladies Trustee Garden's Club are the highlights, which we got to enjoy nearly alone in the wake of the storms following "Fay".









Having spent the day exploring the charm and beauty of downtown, we met up with Lindsay (a high school friend of Andy's) and her boyfriend Evan, both spending the weekend in Savannah from their home in Fayetteville, NC at Lady & Sons, Paula Deen's (of the Food Network) restaurant. Having stuffed ourselves with the like of crab cakes, steak, chicken pot pie (to die for, Evan said) and the famous buffet, we toddled down to Molly Macpherson's Scottish Pub to join the Haunted Pub crawl.

Out n About in New York City

Strawberry Fields, Central Park

The Lake, Central Park

Rockefeller Center

Chelsea Market

Sheep's Meadow, Central Park

Assorted Skyscrapers

The Lake, Central Park
And to finish the evening, we met up with Em's college friend Deanna and her boyfriend Jack at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for the outdoor movie festival. That night's classic (filmed in the Bronx) was Andy's favorite: The French Connection!!!! Bloomberg, the company formerly owned by NYC's current billionaire mayor, funds and runs these free events, even going so far as to hand out plastic bottles in the admittance line for folks to transfer their alcohol into, keeping glass out of the movie field.

Big Apple Bound: Maine to NYC

Having lounged in Freeport for several days, enjoying the friendship and family time that events like marriages can spawn for as long as we could, it was time to take to road again.
We started later than planned (are you seeing the pattern yet, dear reader?) and barreled down I-95 South through a touch of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and finally into New York City, New York.

Emily had found a deal on the Westin on Times Square, normally $500 a night, for 1/5th that a night for four nights. Flash, busy, surrounded by neon and LCD and cement and glass, the hotel was definitely in the center of things.

We met up with Emily's college friends Shannon and Delinda, both now financial slicers-n-dicers in Manhattan, who took us to the pride of Hell's Kitchen, Forty-forth and X, a boutique American cuisine restaurant with fantastic fried chicken and mac-n-cheese. We enjoyed a few drinks at the hotel bar, a mere walk away, and turned in for the night.

Vacationland: Freeport/Cumberland ME

There's a reason why most of the Northeast vacations in Maine come summertime; though not as hot as most Augusts, the warmth of the sun and the salt of the sea coat the air here in this green state more pleasingly than anywhere else north of Hilton Head, SC.
We winded along Highway 1 to Portland, the biggest city in Maine and a place we have enjoyed on previous visits. We paused here at the gigantic Whole Foods to stock up on dog meat, beer, wine and cheese, then continued along the crowded two-lane to the home of L.L. Bean, Freeport.
For anyone who's never been, Bean's the outfitter for life outdoors. Open 24-hours, the flagship store takes up a whole city block and covers the gamut from clothes to guns, kayaks to sleeping bags, shoes to housewares.


Emily's family lived in Maine for a long time, and when we return she gets very excited. We were there for Meg Knight's wedding, a childhood friend of Em's; Meg's parents went to University of Maine at Orono with Em's, and the two clans have been close ever since. Meg and her Groom, Bryan will be residing in Tucson, Arizona (a stop on our sojourn) after the nuptials, so we enjoyed their big day with them (as they had with us slightly more than a year before). The ceremony was held in one of those archetypal new England chapels, in warm rain the afternoon of the 16th. The wedding- our fifth this season- was beautiful, in line with the ease with which the happy couple seems to go about life.
The reception was held at Pineland Farms, a large event compound/experimental beef facility/former insane asylum (still not sure about that, chalk it up to Maine...) that gracefully spiderwebs through several dozen acres of thick pines and deep glens. The experimental beef were more prominent the night prior, as the rehersal dinner was held at a rental house in the back woods of the property abutting the experimental pastures. Like nearly all weddings, the romance and comraderie was contagious, the conviviality bursting the walls until midnight.

Camp Dudley, We hold you in our hearts... Niagara-Westport, NY

The green foliage that blankets the Northeast is beguiling, and one could be tricked into thinking that this verdant land would not be nine feet under thick snow for the majority of the year. Having packed up and crossed back into the States early, passing under the not-so-watchful eye of Border Patrol, we tore through New York stopping only for gas and lunch.

We made it to Westport, on the western shore of Lake Champlain in the late afternoon, winding through the brief summer-inhabited vacation town to the road to Camp Dudley, YMCA.



Emily's Uncle Mark, a Dudley boy as a teenager, has managed Alumni Affairs at the camp, for a number of years and graciously gave us boarding with the 600 residents finishing the summer session. We stayed in Maclean Lodge, in a room furnished with two bunks and an ADA-compliant bathroom. The staff and campers were very welcoming, as we had meals in the staff canteen and bustled about campus as they enjoyed their activities.

Our first full day, we headed out for Lake Placid, host city for the Winter Olympics in 1932 and 1980. Upstate New York is one of those places where driving doesn't necessarily require a destination, its just that beautiful. We passed summer cottages of all sorts, some weathered and kitchy, other plastic and sterile. Cows occasionally roamed near the roadside, but for the most part the wet fields were speckled with baled hay and wildflowers.
The Olympic campus at Lake Placid- a town barely fit to be called a village- dominates the hillside. The free tickets Uncle Mark had arranged for us granted us access to the observation deck perched at the top of the long jump ski-lift, where views of the Adirondacks stretched out as far as the interment weather would allow.





Here we found the creative practice young ski-jumpers tackle for days on end in the summer, developing their balance for mid-air maneuvers.
Waiting for the green light from the coach below, the young athletes watch the ramp being sprayed and the jets breaking the water's surface on the pool far below. The flag goes down, and, hunched for speed, the skiers barrel down the line and flip madly, rigidly in the air before crashing skies-first into the deep water.







We enjoyed the camp's fishing, views, friendly staff and campers for another day, before heading out early the 14th for Maine.

Chicago-Niagara, OT, Canada

In 1901, when a 63 year-old school teacher from Michigan became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, trains and horses brought several hundred visitors a summer up to the tiny burgs in upstate New York and Ontario, Canada, that share their mutual names with the geohydrological wonder they encapsulate. Today cars and RVs clog the two-lanes and bridges spanning the Niagara River, bringing hundreds of thousands to the hotels, casinos, tourist traps, and of course, the falls, in a world far different from the turn of the last century.



We arrived close to 3 am; straight from Chicago running late as usual, we tore through Michigan and a bit of Ontario with our usual gusto. We had planned on camping at the local KOA in Niagara, Ontario, but as it had been raining for nearly a week, we found our tent site to be a mudhole any piggy might enjoy. Standing there, in the drizzling hours before dawn, contemplating the chances of finding a room nearby within our price range, we decided to chance it and leave the KOA. Passing "oriental massage" parlor after parlor, we found our way to the strip, of sorts, filled with neon and concrete. After 8 hotels, we finally found a room at the local Hojo's, which while staffed with some of the nicest Canadians one could find, had not been redecorated since 1981. We crashed, sleeping heavily until noon.


The "short walk to the falls" that all the nearby hotels professed was wet, long and steep. Past an exceptionally dismal horror house, a wax museum and many little holes-in-the-wall eateries we jogged through the drizzle with the giant CASINO sign as our guiding star. A quick bite in the deli there, and Andy went out to explore the falls while Emily and Moose tried their luck in the casino. The day was spent that way, Em and Moose racking up and paying out, while Andy wandered near the falls, finding good photo spots and a botanical garden hidden away from the tourists.

We ended the evening with nachos at a small pub just off the strip before retiring to our glorious suite at the Hojo's to prepare the following drive to Camp Dudley in Westport,NY.

Oh Chicago, Ohhh Ohhh...

I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago. . . . I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.
- Rudyard Kipling, 1891

Unlike Kipling, we found the inhabitants of this Midwestern metropolis more than charming, and the clean streets, tidy lake shore and courteous residents exude a civility stereotypical of the American plains states.

Arriving in the late afternoon, we ventured from the Omni (where Oprah hosts her TV show guests) to a nearby park viewing Lake Michigan, mere blocks from our room. We then met up with Kecia, a recently transplanted Floridian now residing in the Windy City, and her boyfriend BJ, for dinner at Devon's Seafood Grill the first night, feasting on their world-famous crab cakes and desserts before adjourning to the hotel bar for a nightcap.
The next day, our hotel staff was very helpful in pointing out directions to what was perhaps the most fun for Em and I, and the least for Moose: Montrose Dog Beach, a fenced-in section of Lake Michigan with hard packed sand solid enough for the three of us to enjoy the sun and hundreds of local Illinois puppies. Dinner that night with Sarah and Jessica, other transplanted friends was at Bijan Bistro, famous for meatloaf and mac n cheese.





The next day featured some of the highlights of Chicago:
*Navy Pier
*Millenium Park
*The Signature Lounge, 96th floor of the John Hancock Building.