New Jersey to Washington! Picking our car up from a random mall in New Jersey was about a third of the price of picking it up from Manhattan. It meant being driven in a manner similar to many of the taxi drivers in Dubai (drifting along lanes, going dangerously slowly, random muttering and no map, GPS or knowledge) but we found the mall between the 3 of us eventually! I think I quite like Hyundais, the Elantra is very nice to drive.
The New Jersey turnpike soon got very pretty with beautiful Autumn colours on the trees. Apparently we have timed it very well as the colour is a bit late this year so we are very lucky! We later found out that the New Jersey turnpike and the Washington beltway are two of the busiest roads in the US so think we have done the worst bit first.
Catherine’s relatives Pam and Doug live in a really beautiful bit of New Jersey-huge houses surrounded by woodland-you can see why it’s called the garden state. I kept expecting to bump into Tony Soprano….and even more so when I found out that the house across the road is actually mafia owned (all the neighbours think). Doug actually designed their house-and it was absolutely beautiful, such a big open space.
Songs of today included Streets of Philadelphia and Autumn Leaves…
After we’d been nicely fed (and given a picnic to take with us!) the following morning we set off for Washington and got there by lunch-it was a beautiful warm day which we didn’t expect! We walked along the mall and saw everything bathed in the afternoon sunlight which was fabulous. Washington has quite a laid back feel to it and everything seemed a bit smaller in real life….
