So I leave Dartmouth, MA and am on my way to Charlotte, NC. But this time around I want to take a different route - not the usual I95 South and a halt at DC. But I have no clue as to what possible route I can take.
I had to stop at Newport - the 'Island Tattoo' place to show the progress my tattoo had made to the artist. As I was leaving the place I filled up my gas tank and was beginning to ponder about the route ahead. I pulled out a torn n battered Walmart Atlas to see what possible places I can visit enroute to Charlotte. I was not having much success initially in making any decisions. But that was until I pulled out the last page. It was in a very bad shape but turned out to be the most valueable. I noticed that I could make a stop at Philly on my way. But Pittsburgh was only about 350 miles away from Philly - so I could do that as well. Then again Cleveland is not far off from Pittsburgh and then Chicago, Detroit, St.Louis, Memphis and Asheville got added in my route in a similar way. I knew it was a very far fetched idea. If I would have carried it out it would have amounted to about 4500-5000 miles from Dartmouth to Charlotte while covering all these places.
It didn't matter if I covered all these places or not but what was really important was that the last page of that atlas showed me that any new place worth visiting was never more than 300-400 miles away. And as long as I was willing to sleep at a cheap place or in my car - I can quite easily carry out this roadtrip. 2 things still remained a problem. Doing this roadtrip in a car which was anything but reliable and not knowing how much my body could cope up with this. Anyways there was more than enough inspiration to carry out this roadtrip which I wanted to do since I landed in the US. So here's my oppurtunity to do it. And I make my way towards Philadelphia - the first stop in my journey.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
So I am on my way to Philadelphia now. After some harrowing traffic and multiple detours in NYC, some pathetic food at Edison, NJ and almost causing a fatal accident I reach the outer boundaries of Philadelphia. Philadelphia highways had weird huge hoardings on side. Some would just say "www.IHateStephenSinger.com". There were a couple others like this too - with just a small sentence or 2 in the entire hoarding. They sure did capture my attention, so their purpose was served I guess.
As I was looking for accomodation I started taking exits on the right. But the surrounding were so shady that I did not even have the guts to roll down my windows - forget getting out of the car and asking for a motel nearby. This happened for 3 exits - I would take the exit, feel scared to walk out from the car and then try to get back on 95. Getting back on 95 wasn't a lot of fun either. One would expect the entry to a highway to be somewhere close to the exit itself. Not in Philadelphia!
After my 3rd unsuccessful attempt I was very averse to take any exits - more than anything else I was scared of being mugged. So I continued driving till I reached downtown. I wasn't expecting a great downtown because of all that I had seen of Philadelphia till then - but it was a pleasant surprise.The downtown was really nice. I have a thing for tall buildings and big artificial lights - I just love them. Unfortnately my camera had decided to die out on me! So no pictures then. I had still not had any success in finding a motel for the night coz everything remotely close to downtown was very expensive. So I looked in a 'Traveller's Guide' book that I had picked up at one of the Rest Areas and found a 'Motel 6' around 25 miles from downtown.
As usual the motel was run by a desi. Along with that came a lot of hidden costs which were not mentioned at all in the Advertisement on the Traveller's Guide. Anyways - They had Internet services and that's all I really cared about! Given a preference a guy like me would go for a sleeping bag, laptop and internet as against a lavish room in an expensive hotel with no internet facility!! Sometimes I wonder why do I allow myself to get so tied down with the big I - but I never find a satisfactory answer.
After a good night's sleep I was up and ready to go next morning at 11. First of all I had to find a Walmart to buy a digital camera. I did and bought a Sony Cybershot H2 for 399 + taxes. Now I needed to buy an additional memory stick since the manufacturer ships it only with a 16MB card [dont these people think at all?]. Finding an additional memory stick for my Sony camera took me almost 2 hrs since it is sold only in professional camera shops! I finally got one. And now its time for some photography.
Because of Ernesto hovering around the East Coast the Sun was not visible at all - the reason for some really Dull pictures. After sometime I headed for the historic downtown area. The Liberty Bell is where I proceeded. I was surprised at the minimal security present for guarding something with such a great history.
To be honest I did not know much about the Liberty Bell other than that it is the topmost visited thing in Philly. The first thing I found out about the Bellouse is that it is housed in the 'President's House'. The first 2 presidents to serve the US - George Washington and John Adams lived and worked here. This is when I learnt that George Washington had a lot of slaves. Ironically this house stands exactly in front of Independence Hall where the words "All men are created equal" and "We the people" have been engraved for centries. John Adams, on the other hand, did not have any slaves.
The Liberty Bell does have a lot of interesting history behind itself. It was used n the announcement of many significant events. The history behind the crack in the bell is pretty interesting too. The bell cracked more than once, was consequently repaired every time but the repairs only worked as temporary relief. Somewhere in the mid 19th century the repaired bell cracked irrepairably as it rang the last time for George Washington's birthday anniversary. The Bell was silenced - forever.
The articles and audio visuals at display at the Bell House were definetly enlightening. There's and article about 'Liberty Bell' for liberation of women which was created in 1776. Another article contained a photo of a 'Human Liberty Bell' created by the US army to instill confidence in citizens during WWII.
As I was planning to leave the Bellhouse a sudden heavy downpour started. It made me spend some more time at the Bellhouse - and I wasn't really regretting it.
After a few min I made my towards the Independence Hall. The Independence Hall was constructed in the mid 1700s and is Georgian in Architecture. This is the place where George Washington and the 2nd president John Adams served office. The Declaration of Independence was drafted and adopted here on July 4th 1776.
The Independence Hall didnt hold my interest for long. Soon enough I left the place and was roaming around in the Historic District. There I found the place where Thomas Jefferson had rented out 2 rooms to write the Declaration of Independence to avoid the "excessive heats of the city".
Besides that - there wasn't much in Philadelphia to keep me there for long. I spent a few minutes in the Love Park - all by myself! Had a quick dinner at McDonalds and it was time to head towards the next stop on my journey - Pittsburgh!
As I was looking for accomodation I started taking exits on the right. But the surrounding were so shady that I did not even have the guts to roll down my windows - forget getting out of the car and asking for a motel nearby. This happened for 3 exits - I would take the exit, feel scared to walk out from the car and then try to get back on 95. Getting back on 95 wasn't a lot of fun either. One would expect the entry to a highway to be somewhere close to the exit itself. Not in Philadelphia!
After my 3rd unsuccessful attempt I was very averse to take any exits - more than anything else I was scared of being mugged. So I continued driving till I reached downtown. I wasn't expecting a great downtown because of all that I had seen of Philadelphia till then - but it was a pleasant surprise.The downtown was really nice. I have a thing for tall buildings and big artificial lights - I just love them. Unfortnately my camera had decided to die out on me! So no pictures then. I had still not had any success in finding a motel for the night coz everything remotely close to downtown was very expensive. So I looked in a 'Traveller's Guide' book that I had picked up at one of the Rest Areas and found a 'Motel 6' around 25 miles from downtown.
As usual the motel was run by a desi. Along with that came a lot of hidden costs which were not mentioned at all in the Advertisement on the Traveller's Guide. Anyways - They had Internet services and that's all I really cared about! Given a preference a guy like me would go for a sleeping bag, laptop and internet as against a lavish room in an expensive hotel with no internet facility!! Sometimes I wonder why do I allow myself to get so tied down with the big I - but I never find a satisfactory answer.
After a good night's sleep I was up and ready to go next morning at 11. First of all I had to find a Walmart to buy a digital camera. I did and bought a Sony Cybershot H2 for 399 + taxes. Now I needed to buy an additional memory stick since the manufacturer ships it only with a 16MB card [dont these people think at all?]. Finding an additional memory stick for my Sony camera took me almost 2 hrs since it is sold only in professional camera shops! I finally got one. And now its time for some photography.
Because of Ernesto hovering around the East Coast the Sun was not visible at all - the reason for some really Dull pictures. After sometime I headed for the historic downtown area. The Liberty Bell is where I proceeded. I was surprised at the minimal security present for guarding something with such a great history.
To be honest I did not know much about the Liberty Bell other than that it is the topmost visited thing in Philly. The first thing I found out about the Bellouse is that it is housed in the 'President's House'. The first 2 presidents to serve the US - George Washington and John Adams lived and worked here. This is when I learnt that George Washington had a lot of slaves. Ironically this house stands exactly in front of Independence Hall where the words "All men are created equal" and "We the people" have been engraved for centries. John Adams, on the other hand, did not have any slaves.
The Liberty Bell does have a lot of interesting history behind itself. It was used n the announcement of many significant events. The history behind the crack in the bell is pretty interesting too. The bell cracked more than once, was consequently repaired every time but the repairs only worked as temporary relief. Somewhere in the mid 19th century the repaired bell cracked irrepairably as it rang the last time for George Washington's birthday anniversary. The Bell was silenced - forever.
The articles and audio visuals at display at the Bell House were definetly enlightening. There's and article about 'Liberty Bell' for liberation of women which was created in 1776. Another article contained a photo of a 'Human Liberty Bell' created by the US army to instill confidence in citizens during WWII.
As I was planning to leave the Bellhouse a sudden heavy downpour started. It made me spend some more time at the Bellhouse - and I wasn't really regretting it.
After a few min I made my towards the Independence Hall. The Independence Hall was constructed in the mid 1700s and is Georgian in Architecture. This is the place where George Washington and the 2nd president John Adams served office. The Declaration of Independence was drafted and adopted here on July 4th 1776.
The Independence Hall didnt hold my interest for long. Soon enough I left the place and was roaming around in the Historic District. There I found the place where Thomas Jefferson had rented out 2 rooms to write the Declaration of Independence to avoid the "excessive heats of the city".
Besides that - there wasn't much in Philadelphia to keep me there for long. I spent a few minutes in the Love Park - all by myself! Had a quick dinner at McDonalds and it was time to head towards the next stop on my journey - Pittsburgh!
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