American Roadtrip Honeymoon

Driving out of Yellowstone we encountered yet more snow on our way through Grand Teton National Park but the landscape gradually changed and became drier and more barren until the trees disappeared and we were left with crazy red rock formations.

When we arrived in Arches National Park it had been raining on and off all the way from Salt Lake City. It was an odd combination of arid landscape and big splashy rain!

The park itself is quite small but the red rock arches are fairly spread out in it and we had to pull on our hiking boots to see some of them. By far the most impressive arch is Delicate Arch which is the unofficial symbol of Utah. We had a fantastic view of it from a nearby rock outcrop that wasn’t too strenuous to get to.

After arches we drove the short distance to Moab for the night and had an awesome meal at the Peace Tree, a very chilled out and hippy restaurant.

We ended up stopping at Cody well after dark, a town about 50 miles east of Yellowstone. It’s got a place called The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, so we went and had a look the next day. Neither of us had a clue who Buffalo Bill was, and to be honest, we’re still not entirely sure. It did have a really good Native American museum though. Lots of information on the relocation to reservations and how they were forced to abandon many of their traditions.

The approach to Yellowstone was pretty crazy. We drove higher and higher up to the mountain pass and started seeing snow on the ground. By the time we were at the top, there were drifts 10ft deep by the road. Not what we were expecting in June! It wasn’t even particularly cold that we could tell. The other side of the pass it got even weirder – we came across a lake we dubbed the “Slush Puppy lake” which was made of broken ice for about 100m from the shore, and had piled up a big ridge of ice on the beach.

We stayed in the park for three nights, and despite having shared toilets/showers the first night at Roosevelt Lodge, it was probably the most enjoyable as we were in a little wood cabin with a stove. We also had a really good meal in the lodge, which had some very interesting beers available!

The most prolific animal in the park seems to be Buffalo, which are everywhere. Other animals seem to be more reticent – we saw lots of doe elk, but no stags, an no moose at all. We were lucky enough to see a black bear a few times though, ambling along or grazing on something while everyone watched from a distance. Some people got closer than others though – the first time we saw it, some hikers turned a corner ahead of it and found the bear between them and the end of the trail where we were standing. They had to wait for a ranger to come and guide them. We did also see another bear – a grizzly we think, it was brown at least – which ran across the road right in front of us. Too quick to get a photo of it unfortunately.

Oh, and the night we stayed at the Old Faithful lodge it did actually snow!

From Mitchell, we head for the “Badlands”! The countryside quickly changes from rolling plains to forested slopes – the Black Hills – and we’re entering gold country 🙂

We decide to go see Mount Rushmore straight away as we still have plenty of time. Unfortunately, they’ve built loads of stuff on the approach to the rock face, so it’s difficult to see the faces until you’re right in front of them. This isn’t so bad though, as they’re fairly small so you have to get close for a good look anyway. The clouds had been rolling in and while we were up there the lightning and thunder started, even shaking the ground when a few strikes hit nearby! I tried taking a photo but I’m not quick enough 😛

We stayed in a town called Lead, which is right next to Deadwood, the place the TV series of the same name is based. All the towns we’ve seen in the area are throwbacks to the gold rush era, with lots of old buildings preserved and newer ones built in the same style. And every single bar and café seems to be full of slot machines! I guess there’s still gold in them thar hills for some. Unfortunately, every time I tried to pan for gold (or poke at shiny things in a river at least) Katherine said I was embarrassing her, so I won’t be bringing back any this trip 😛

The next day we drove along the Needles Highway, which is punctuated by a series of extremely narrow tunnels through the rock. Somehow they manage to squeeze tour coaches through these tunnels, some of which are only 8ft wide. We stopped at one place to take pictures and were swarmed with chipmunks looking for food – they seem to be everywhere in America!

We went to check out the Crazy Horse monument too, which is the Native American equivalent of Mt. Rushmore. It’s a huge sculpture of a guy called Crazy Horse on horseback. Or rather, it will be – only the face is finished so far. The Black Hills were supposed to be left for the Native Americans, but they were forced out as soon as gold was found.

The last thing we visited on our way out of the Badlands was Devils Tower, also called The Bear Lodge, which is the mountain from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It really does look like it’s had a fork raked down the sides!

Next… drive until we drop!

Our next stop on this really long leg of the trip was Mitchell. Katherine had read about this town in the Lonely Planet guide book, and thought it sounded exactly like the kind of place we should be seeing on a roadtrip 😛

It’s famous for a place called the Corn Palace, which is a big building they decorate with corn cobs every year. It goes back to… a long time ago or something, and they have pictures for each year on the walls inside. The changing fashions and vehicles are probably more interesting than the actual decorations. The building itself seems to be used for everything – theatre, basketball, and while we were there it was a giant souvenir shop selling a mixture of Plains Indian crafts and anything and everything to do with corn.

Apart from the weird obsession with corn, Mitchell also has one of the few working drive-in cinemas left in America. We went and saw the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film and really enjoyed the experience. They play loads of old drive-in ads and it feels really retro. I wish they had them in London, but there’s probably just too much light pollution and changeable weather to make it work :-/

Right, nearly at Mount Rushmore!

We decided to break our long drive with a stop off at Madison as the guide book had described it as one of the friendliest cities in America plus it was supposed to be a great place to get “artesan cheese”, yum!

When we arrived we had just missed the farmers market but we hadn’t missed the protestors blowing vuvuzellas in the street protesting over their senator and trying to oust him from office.

We had a lovely wander through the streets passing second-hand clothes shops and hippie new age shops. A lady recommended we walked down to the uni campus which was quite close. The uni buildings were awesome and definitely reminded me of the sort of unis you see in American films.

After a scrummy hot dog and walk along the lake front we headed back into the town. I would have loved to have gone to a uni like this one (The University of Wisconsin) you could have learnt to sail on the lake and gone swimming in the summer and then eaten copious amounts of food in their huge cafeteria.

It must have been wedding season in Madison as we saw five wedding parties whilst we were there. Grey must be the colour du jour for bridesmaids as two of the parties had them in it. Orange was also another bridesmaid colour we saw, I’m definitely glad I didn’t choose that colour as they looked like massive tangerines!

Our plan after leaving Madison was to drive as far as we could before we had to give up and then find a motel for the night. We got as far as a town called Rochester.

The drive to Chicago was mostly through trees and fields – I think we’re a bit early for the endless corn we were expecting. The freeways got a bit crazier the closer we got to the city, so we were glad to get off and find our motel, which has been great. More what I think of as a motel, with cars parked outside the rooms, which have the doors on the outside. They have an awesome dog too, which we have photos of in our room wearing a hat on the beach. Awesome 🙂

We arrived a bit late (even though we hadn’t realised that we’d crossed a time zone and it was actually an hour earlier!) so we headed out to find a supermarket to grab some food. As you can see, Katherine clearly thought this was the best part of the trip so far 😛


There was loads of fresh fruit and veg, including cactus and other unusual stuff, and a lot of it was huge!


Oh, and the weather here has gone crazy. There was an almighty storm the night we arrived and it’s broken the heat wave we were in. Lightning, thunder and buckets of rain were enough to wake us up a few times during the night, and caused a couple of waterfalls from the gutters.

The next day we went into Chicago on the ‘L’, which was interesting – it goes right in amongst the buildings, about 20ft up, and must be a real headache for some apartments! The most interesting thing about the city for us was the architecture. We took a boat tour with a guide explaining how the city had changed and all the interesting stuff about the buildings we were passing. They filmed a lot of the latest Transformers movie there apparently, so we’ll have to see what we recognise.

We also went to Millenium Park, which has a giant chrome bean in it. Officially, it’s called the Cloud Gate. It’s got a big permanent live music venue as well and there were three guys on guitars jamming while we walked through. Then we went up to the Magnificent Mile, which is the main shopping street. ‘Nuff said really – shops are shops wherever you go!

The next day we went to the Adler Planetarium, which was great. The best bits were the two movies we saw, one in 3D and one in a huge domed theatre and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg… or Hoopy Goalberg as Katherine called her. They were just spectacular, showing loads of really interesting stuff.

Later on we decided we’d had enough of walking around, so we went and saw Super 8 at the cinema. I don’t think it’s officially out in the UK until August or something, so that was pretty cool. We really enjoyed it, although I’m not sure if it can live up to the hype I’ve heard about it.

That night we went to Giovani’s which is supposed to be the most famous pizza restaurant in Chicago. Unfortunately, we could only manage a slice each of their SMALLEST deep-dish pizza before giving up and taking the rest away. It was like a 3in tall pie!

Next is the long drive from Chicago to Mount Rushmore, with very little in between!

So we arrive in Cleveland and it is HOT! Like really hot, 90+ F. We check into our hotel then head out to get some grub.

Cleveland is an interesting place, there are quite a few empty buildings and buildings that were probably once office blocks but have been converted into multi storey car parks. In fact everywhere you turn there are car parks.

For dinner we ended up in a restaurant that only sourced produce from really local farmers. Matt had some scrummy garlic and rosemary french fries which I happily gobbled 🙂

Our main reason for staying in Cleveland was that it was a convenient break in our journey and it is the home to the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”.

We were well prepped for our visit as we had listened to hours of “50s on 5”, an awesome radio station that only plays music from the 50s.

The museum is an interesting mix of video, music and nostalgic memorabilia. We both found the history of rock and roll the most interesting part and things like Bono’s shirt from some old tour the least interesting part.

I personally wouldn’t say that the museum is a must see place in America as it says in the Lonely Planet but each to their own.

Next stop Chicago!

Our drive from Boston to Niagara Falls was to be our first of many loooooooong drives. It was about 400 miles so we thought it would take about 8 hours but after many pit stops it took us about 10 hours in the end.

I thought we would be sick of driving after that but it was surprisingly comfy and we weren’t horribly tired or grouchy with each other either, which is unusual for me 🙂

Now we we’re told to stay on the Canadian side of the falls as they were prettier, what they actually meant was that you can’t even see the falls properly from America!

So we crossed the border, another stamp in the passport, check! Checked into our lovely clean sheeted room and then ventured out into the crazy town of Niagara Falls.

Until we visit Las Vegas I can only speculate but I imagine Niagara Falls is like a mini Las Vegas for kids, all crazy bright lights, music blaring into empty streets at night, haunted houses, endless neon mazes, weird wax work museums and the odd lit up casino. It really is a bizarre and slightly eerie place, it reminded us of a set that could have feautured in “Erie Indiana” or a movie in a deserted theme park where people are chased by zombies.

So aside from the town there is of course the waterfalls. There are 2 sets but the most iconic ones are the Horseshoe Falls. We decided to go see them the evening we arrived as they are illuminated by changing coloured lights. The falls looked spectacular all lit up and Matt spent an eternity photographing them!

In the morning we headed out for a ridiculous pancake breakfast, it was huge and I couldn’t finish it but fatty Matty could 🙂

The falls in daylight are beautiful and huge, they’re not super tall but they are soooo wide. We took the famous “Maid in the Mist” boat so that we could get a little closer and we got so wet even with our silly blue ponchos on!

After Niagara we headed to Cleveland, a mere 5 hour drive away…

First stop after getting the car is Boston. We stayed in a Motel 6 just outside the city, which is a budget motel chain. Definitely the worst place we’ve stayed… possibly ever :-S We’re almost certain the bed sheets weren’t washed, so Katherine slept in her sleeping bag liner and I had to get one the next day. Hopefully that’s the lowest point we’ll reach for accommodation!

We drove into town on Sunday and spent the day wandering. Quincy Market is the best place to find food IN THE WORLD! So many different types and all tasty.




We both preferred Boston to NY – more chilled out and nicer to walk around. The buildings feel like they have a bit more history to them as well. We went to see X-Men: First Class in the evening, mainly because we didn’t want to go back to our horrible room!

Ok, so there’s been a bit of a gap between updates in the past few days. We’ve either not had access to internet or we’ve not had time to do it because we’ve been searching for accommodation instead!

Saturday was our last morning in New York, and we nipped up to see the public library, which is a bit like a museum/gallery too.


Then it was time to pick up the car! I was a bit nervous about all the driving at this point – silly considering we’re on a roadtrip! We turned up at the rental place… only to be told that the booking had been cancelled 🙁 We’re still not sure how it happened, but the rental company had it as cancelled and the broker didn’t. So we were looking at a roadtrip without a car!

Katherine got a little weepy, and they took pity on us. After about two hours of back and forth between Holiday Autos and National, it eventually all got worked out and we were allowed to pick any car we wanted! Katherine didn’t fancy anything too large as she’s only used to driving a Nissan Micra, so we picked a Ford Fusion, and it’s been great so far… as Katherine is showing here!


American driving is a little crazy – undertaking seems to be the norm, as is random lane changing to get ahead, and despite numerous warnings from people before we came out that they’re really hot on speeding here, several times we’ve been left standing by every other car/truck/bus on the road as we stuck to the limit. Oh, and the trucks here are huge, often with three trailers hooked together which can get interesting when it’s windy!