Final 2 days in NJ

The last 2 days have been slightly boozy ones - a wine tour yesterday, then a beer tasting this afternoon. Yesterday was a 2-parter - the first was at a specialist restaurant where the owner - a local sommelier/wine expert talked us through some different varieties. The tastings were, however, minimal, to say the least. The spit bowl was entirely unneccessary. Here's Paul in full flow as some of our fellow travellers look on:

The chef then came out and gave us a talk - and some samples (miniscule again!) - of different cheeses. I noted, however, that they were also a bit of a specialist beer supplier as well.

Next stop was a proper winery - Renault. Set up initially by a French family, they are apparently the only non-Champagne area producer still to be able to call their sparkling wine champagne - so long as they continue to do things the traditional way and also limit their production to 2,000 bottles a year.

It was nice set-up at Renault and the talks were interesting - and the samples much more generous. Here's Jo alighting from our bus and approaching the winery:

We walked round the Nature Trail last night - and again this evening, after our beer sampling. The rest of today has been a slow, relaxing one, with the morning by the quiet, adult pool, followed by an attempted lunch at the highly recommended local Oyster Creek Inn (http://oystercreekinnnj.com/), only to find it shut at lunchtime on Thursdays.

So that's NJ and Pennsylvania ticked off. Tomorrow morning, it's the drive north east across Staten Island to JFK for our flights out west. Yes, we've upgraded again.

AC/Philly

Our last 2 days have been excursions - Monday to nearby Atlantic City and Tuesday to Philadephia. We were taken on the Marriott shuttle for the first, so no maps required or parking problems.

AC has suffered from the recession and competition. Quite a few of the large, Las Vegas style casinos have had to shut down - although there's also new ones being built.

Jo and I were thrilled to be able to walk along the famous boardwalk - we're big fans of Boardwalk Empire, so Jo just had to pose here:

From the Boardwalk, there's little wooden walkways across the protected dunes to the beaches, which were pretty busy on a beautiful day:

The less mobile can use this form of transport to go up and down the 4-mile long boardwalk:

There's scores of these 3-wheeled vehicles being pushed along the boardwalk.

The other local delight is, apparently the Salt Water Taffy:

We think "Taffy" may be a corruption of the word toffee.

Here's one for Braeden:

We didn't go Under the Boardwalk but we explored under the pier:

We walked from our drop-off point at Bally's to the end of the boardwalk and back again, paddling in the ocean for a bit, and with a little detour to the end of the pier for a beer. There were helicopter rides taking off right next to us - $40 for a quick trip up and down the boardwalk or $75 for a city view:

There was also a sand sculpture competition starting:

So that was AC. The journey to Philadelphia was a bit more troublesome - it's about 50 miles away and it meant we had to drive and park. Inevitably there were some wrong turnings and the return journey was a bit stressful too, but it's all part of the rich tapestry etc.

It was the full historical experience, helping to top up our fairly limited knowledge of American history. Most of the focus is on what happened in 1776 of course, but Benjamin Franklin is the name you can't escape from:

We decided to take the bus tour first of all, followed by a walking tour. The first took us out to the greener part of the city and the Museum of Modern Arts where the famous Rocky steps are:

There's nothing to them really but everyone feels they have to run up and down the steps. Rocky's statue is now located at the foot - to the right of the steps:

There's funky stuff too - lots of murals, including on this bar called Frank's - the external walls have images of lots of famous Franks:

We were the only ones on our walking tour. Our guide was dressed historically and was a local, born and bred. Jo suspected he was a Quaker too:

This was taken at the start of Elfreth's Alley, apparently the oldest inhabited street in North America - not far from Betsy Ross' house. Google them if you want to know more.

We did the Independence Hall tour and I took a selfie inside one of the rooms:

We didn't join the queue/line for the Liberty Bell, but I took a photo from outside:

Today is a lazy day, but we're going on a wine tour this afternoon.

NY/NJ

So here we are at our Marriott timeshare in Galloway, New Jersey - finally. The journey over to JFK went smoothly - we even managed to bypass the extra security at Heathrow. All the talk was about how you had to have all your electronic devices charged beforehand and, if they couldn't start them up, you would be kicked off the flight - we were even asked if we had done it before they checked us in at Aberdeen airport, and we were also told at Heathrow that there were extra security checks at the gates on all USA flights. It transpired, however, that the checks were random and we were just waved through. We obviously didn't look clever enough.

Short flight from Heathrow - just 7 hours or so - barely enough to enjoy the comforts of Club Class - although I thought the food was terrific - especially the Sea Bass. A can of London Pride, plus a large Tanqueray G & T, followed by 2 huge glasses of a lovely Pinot Noir may have skewed my judgment a little, however. The same - minus the LP - was enough to send Jo unconscious for a couple of hours, whilst I watched the Wolf of Wall Street.

We got straight through Customs, although it took some time for our bags to arrive on the carousel, and then we had to suss out how to get from the terminal to the courtesy shuttle bus. The Air Train was the answer - it was a bit like a roller-coaster ride, but we got there in the end.

We checked in to the Marriott Courtyard at JFK, which, incidentally, is in the Jamaica area of NY, and managed a quick beer before hitting the sack.

Jo was up before me this morning but tried to stay quiet. I slept for about 9 hours, but was still up early, East Coast time. Nice light breakfast, then back on the shuttle bus to the airport to pick up our hire car. I now have to withdraw all my previous negative comments about car hire companies - including the rant on My Pet Hates blog. Not only was our car waiting for us - all nice and clean, with the keys in it - but we had no queue to wait in - all you had to do was read the electronic board and go to the bay against your name - wonderful. I guess it helps being a Hertz Gold member - even though I haven't used them for years, their association with Marriott must have increased our status with them.

Then, we had to face the traffic - without a map. It was fun - we got there in the end, despite a few mistakes. Across Staten Island and down the coast road, with the very last bit being the most difficult. We went round in circles before eventually stopping at the pretty "historic" little tourist trap of Smithville - simply to get a wi-fi signal to see where we were going. Here's Jo at the entrance:

So here we are now - we've shopped and are relaxing over some strong ales and a few nibbles. Alcohol shopping was a bit trickier than we thought - we had to go to a separate liquor store after we'd bought the groceries - even just for beer and wine.

Tomorrow it's Atlantic City - and the Boardwalk!