Above - The fishing port of Great Island, Rhode Island. This is where the freshest lobsters are brought in and sold straight off the boat, and onto our lunch table.
Above - Cuing for the privilege of paying to access the beach in Rhode Island. Kind of flies in the face of what i believe beaches are about; 5 bucks to hang on Rhode Island's version of muscle beach. FS gets her wrist band.
Above - This could be a shampoo commercial, perhaps a tampon ad, the girl frolics free and without a care in the world. It is of course FS kicking it about in the cool Atlantic waters, this was the beginning of a theme, FS prancing and dancing everywhere.
Above - FS and NS, Narragansett Beach, Rhode Island.
Above - Whilst Mick, Anthony, myself and B1 setup the poker tables; Kali, B2 and Kirra setup "Bobby's Nightclub & Bar". Could be some issues with child welfare here?
Above - Fishing off the wharf, the kids caught heaps of rock crabs, not much fish. Front to back - Kali, B4, Mick, Kirra, B1 and B2.
Above - The fishing may not have provided lunch, but with the world's best Lobster being sold across the wharf, we didn't go wanting. Check out that plate of red lobster about to be annihilated. McDermott's holiday house, Rhode Island.
Above - Central Park New York, was America's first landscaped parkland. Amazing place, here an avenue of American Elms. I'd love to see this avenue of trees through the four seasons.
Above - Central Park had plenty of other attractions, these street performers were a favourite of FS for some reason.
Above - Times Square, NYC. One of my favourite spots in NYC, full on bustle and hustle. The numbers of cops everywhere was amazing, into the hundreds and that was just in Times Square.
Above - NYPD Harley Davidson line up.
Above - Outside Madison Square Garden, a sample of the famous NYC Yellow Cabs and again, more streams of people rushing through to wherever.
Above - Desperate to get to Broadway, FS danced down the middle of the street, but in NYC, you don't even get a second glance for something as tame as that. Try telling the boys though who were hiding under their hats from embarrassment. Here, FS and B1 give our little theatrical B3 a slice of Broadway attention.
Above - A squirrel and a man, City Hall, NYC.
Above - We caught the ferry out to Liberty Island and came across the old Liberty herself.
Above - Going all 'Lady Gaga' on us, the boys enjoying some Chinatown attractions.
Above - Don't just stand there, lets get to it, Strike a Pose, there's nothing to it. FS, enough said.
Above - B4 only walked a total of maybe 100 metres over the three days in NYC (the rest of the times was riding my shoulders), but still was totally shattered with all the places we walked and subwayed to.
Above - Traffic Cop somehow keeps things moving and doesn't get run over.
Above - Backpacks on boys, time to leave NYC and head south.
Above - Our trusty RV, a 31foot Coachmen with hydraulic pop out wings. Home for the next 2 weeks. The boys called it Gassy in preparation of the finger pulling bombs they were planning on dropping inside.
Above - We picked up the RV in New Jersey, and hooked up with the Redgrave clan in Toms River, NJ. Everyone came up to watch the first sewer hookup, in anticipation of a Robyn Williams inspired burst pipe!
Above - B4 and Logan. Rewind the clock back 31 years and it could be me and Dan.
Above - All the boys! B1 (check out the elbow to the head), B2, B3, NS, B4, Dan, Gavin and Logan. Seaside boardwalk fun Pier, Toms River, NJ.
Above - World's Biggest Pizza, B3 likes it!
Above - The Redgrave clan, Taylor, Gavin, Heather, Logan & Dan. Check out the size of the pizza box.
Above - The White House, Washington DC. Driving the big RV through the city was a task. No where to park, we had to keep driving around the block and slowing down when we could. This drew the attention of the snipers on the roof, the boys waving their civil war toy muskets out the window didn't make us too popular either.
Above - Then, cops everywhere and one B. Obama comes past right in front of us with his motorcade.
Above - One of the not-so-subtle security persons stop our RV for the President to go past.
Above - B4 and B3 chill out time in Gassy.
Above - Florence, South Carolina. It was a bloody revolt when we asked the boys to do the dishes whilst we enjoyed a beer and wine.
Above - South Carolina. An icy Corona, a sparkling white wine, a couple of camp chairs, RV in the background...closet trailer trash 'coming out'.
Above - Savannah, Georgia. A magnificent old home framed by the grandeur of an Oak tree.
Above - Nearly all the streets in historic Savannah are lined with these fantastic old Oak trees and are dripping with the Spanish Moss that gives a bit of an old style almost eery sense. Unmistakable though is the beauty and charm of the place.
Above - Posted the whole way down the I95 route are billboards advertising but 5 things. Porn DVD's, South of the Border, Right to Life, Harley Davidson and Fireworks. Here, as you do, we fuelled up with gas and bought our fireworks at the same place?
Above - St. Augustine Beach, Florida. A lot of nice beach front houses down this way.
Above - We didn't have a lighter, so trying to light the fireworks on the windy beach with the RV stove ignitor was a bit of a challenge.
Above - St. Augustine Beach, Florida. B3, NS and B4 making castles in front of the pier.
Above - B2, soaks up the sun after showing the locals how to body surf the Atlantic waves. Florida.
Above - NASA Space Station, Cape Canaveral, Florida. Booster rockets from Apollo 9.
Above - Saunders clan...guess where?
Above - Disney's Magic Kingdom, log ride. Check out the faces of FS and B4 in front. The couple behind us were recently married and wearing the 'Mickey Ears' of newly weds.
Above - Magic Kingdom.
Above - FS and some topiary Mickey and Minnie.
Above - Our RV wasn't cool enough for B1, so he took B4 for a spin in a little red number.
Above - The whole crew put on a show.
Above - Dancing down Broadway in NYC wasn't enough...FS snuck onto a float in Disney also.
Above - "No mum, i'm not embarressed by you at all".
Above - Still kids at heart.
Above - B4 lived the full Disney experinance for sure.
Above - Fort Wilderness, Disney. Here, B4 tries to squeeze past for some marshmallow roasting.
Above - Better watch out B3, I'm coming for that, mmmmm.
Above - Discovery Island, Animal Kingdom. This replica tree has dozens of animals carved into it's trunk, was very impressive.
Above - "yYou knew my father", "Correction...i know your father", Rafiki from the lion King meets B3 and 4.
Above - B4, about to go diving with the sharks at Typhoon Lagoon. Looks happy about it doesn't he?
Above - B3 looking a little more excited about the prospect of swimming with sharks.
Above - B4 couldn't figure out the snorkle bit...smart ploy to get the pretty life-guard to safe him...you tell me.
Above - Not a great photo, but this was the biggest man made wave i've seen and would smash the dozens of ice cream holding fatties like bowling pins every time it came through, Blizard Beach.
Above - Water Park fun and food.
Above - The best thing about waterparks, anywhere in the world, is that no matter what your size or shape, everyone's running around in wet sluggos and boardies without a care. Seems America has a greater share of the oversized catergory though.
Above - Wannabe surfers.
Above - The Hulk Rollercoaster, Universal Islands of Adventure. Great park for the older boys.
Above - Saturated, not because of the humidity, but from the rides.
Above - Damzel in distress.
Above - Harry Potter section of Universal. NS looking confused.
Above - All aboard the Hogswart Express.
Above - I am sick, I am Fran, Fran is sick, yes i am. Recovering at Dr Seuss World, Universal.
Above - We stayed at the Disney Fort Wilderness RV park in Florida. And were there for the 4th July parade.
Above - B3 was sooo excited to meet Mickey, almost as much as FS. B4 was a little nervous.
Above - Waiting in line to see Buzz and Woody, FS was kidnapped by Zurg and strapped to the rocket. A damzel in distress again. Where is the hero?
Above - Meanwhile, B4 hooked up with Buzz and Woody.
Above - That Herbie Love Bug is nothing but a two timing, two faced bugger with a split personality.
Above - FS was cooking dinner in Gassy the RV.
Above - All the boys, Hollywood Studios.
Above - B2 opened a service station while we were travelling through the USA.
Above - B2 and NS headed out horse riding through the Pine Forest, coming across loads of wild deer. I couldn't quite get the concept of bouncing up when the horse goes up, so was struggling to walk the next day.
Above - Point South, South Carolina. We went gator hunting after a tip from a local that the lake behind where we were camped was full of them. We played it up a little, but truth be known, we were all scared out of our wits.
Above - Sure enough, just when we thought there weren't any gators about, this little 2 metre came straight for us. Not really peace of mind, knowing these guys were swimming in a lake just behind where we were camping.
Above - A camp fire, an icy Corona, a sparkling white wine and two camp chairs. mmmm, something familiar about this. Enfield, North Carolina.
Above - B3, B2 and B4 showing some spark, North Carolina.
Above - Setting off the last of the firecrackers, North Carolina.
Above - Rounding out the trip with a BBQ back up in New Jersey with Logan and Gavin.The 6 of us, three weeks, 11 states, 1 RV, 1 rental car, 3,000 miles, 6 Disney Parks, a 4th of July, and too many friends to count along the way, we did the East Coast of the U. S of A.
Ambitious perhaps, we were meant to RV down to Florida from New Jersey and fly back up before leaving. Of course we booked late and missed this option so we had to return the RV back to NJ ourselves; but as usual, things have a way of working out for the best when you make the most of it, so we got to drive back up also and had a blast for the whole trip!
Landing at JFK, we grabbed a rental car and made the drive north to catch up with Mick and Karla who were renting a house on the Great Island at Rhode Island. Pretty much a long weekend destination for alot of NYers, i can see why. This place is great and the McDermotts had a great house to stay right near the fishing wharf and a stone throw from the beaches. The weather was great and in between lazy days at the beach and fishing, we had spectacular fresh lobster for lunch and Coronas to wash them down. Memorable moments include all the kids establishing Bobbys Bar and Nightclub, complete with cover charge. Zach cleaning house at the poker table, taking advantage of his inebriated partners, Mick, Tony and myself. Lexi's pitiful but hilarious display at charades and of course the men's slaughtering of the girls team in the same...BOOM!
Leaving the McDermotts and their freinds to the hard life, we headed south to New York City. We had a great little (and i mean little) hotel room, smack bang in the middle of NYC, which allowed us to walk practically everywhere or simply catch the subway. In three days, we squeezed so much in, and whilst it is true that none of us are really big fans of cities, NYC takes the exception, we all really loved it. From the fresh NY bagels and coffee for breakfast, to trampsing our way to Central Park, Times Square, Empire State Building, Liberty Isalnd and the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Maddison Square Garden, City Hall, Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, Natural History Museum, Central Park Zoo, Radio City Hall and of course Broadway. B4 is dead set hopeless and would complain his legs were sore from the elevator ride in the hotel, so he landed a spot on my shoulders the whole time, but the other boys were little troopers, especially considering the weather was so hot. The subways were great, thankgod FS could navigate us to where we needed to go, i had no idea. Probably the best place on earth for people watching, NYC blew us away with how clean everything was considering the numbers of people and the numbers of coppers there was staggering.
Eventually it was time to throw the back-packs back on and catch the train down to Newark and across to Middletown, New Jersey to pick up the RV. 31 foot of side popping Coachman, powered by a Ford 450, this was a slick beast. The boys wanted to call it the rolling turd after the Robyn Williams movie, but settled on Gassy. The first hundred miles of driving was pretty dodgey for me, trying to keep this thing in the lane, keep up with the traffic, navigate the roads to where we were trying to go and avoid the blow-offs from the big semi-trailer trucks roaring past.
Whilst in NJ, we hooked up with Dan Redgrave and family in Toms River. Great to see such a good friend after so many years. Dan is killing it in the housing construction industry there and has a great video on his website worth looking at www.mjwrightconstruction.com/military , sorry mate, too funny not to include. Anyway, we had the world's biggest pizzas at the Seaside boardwalk and the kids went crazy on the side show stalls.
Having the RV, the idea was to see as much of the east coast as we could in the time we had, with a week or so inbetween down at Disney, Orlando Florida. So we headed off the next day, but not before i had to put Gassy through the paces with regards to all the hook-ups. Electricity was simple enough, just plug the extension lead from the side of the RV into the mains on the site. Water was even easier, just grab the hose and connect from the tap to the RV inlet. Ahh, now for the sewer! Just grab the ag-pipe from one of the side boxes on the RV...not sure which one? just follow your nose! Pull a bunch of levers on the RV, disconnect the cap, screw the pipe into the outlet on the RV....."ahh no!!, shit!!" (literally), "shouldn't have pulled the levers until after i attached the pipe to the RV and the camp connection point!!!", Run around, shut down the levers and start over again. Try doing all of that with the kids making EEWWWW and AAAHHH noises whilst laughing at me, Fran refusing to even look at what's happening and trying to hold your breath in prevention of sucking in any potential stench, and sweatin bullets in the summer heat. Right, now that that's mastered, lets hit the I95.
Well, the short version of trying to leave NJ, was that we went through two dozen toll stations, drove for an hour and half and realised we were totally lost and had actually only travelled 10 miles from our starting point. Things got better once we found the right roads and we headed to Washingtion DC, to check out the White House. Gassy is a little bigger than most parking spots (needed three spots long and two wide), so Washington didn't have too many of those and we drove around and around checking out the monuments, buildings of importance and looking probably very suspicious. Then suddenly a copper came squirting down the road towards us on his mountain bike, hit the back paddle brake and did a great slide out skid in front of Gassy, dramatically threw his hand up to stop us and then another guy came running out from a bush holding a sniper rifle and before we could scream, the whole place came to holt as the Obama motorcade came flying out of the White House grounds, flanked by the large black tinted SUVs. Pretty bloody exciting really and at least the attention wasn't for the standout aussie tourists.
From here we headed down through Maryland and into Virginia where we stayed at Fredericksburg, site of the most historic battle grounds of the Civil War. Covered in the tall Pinus radiata trees, this was a really pretty place.
I had the RV sorted out by now and the roads cleared up for some easy driving. Just when you think your driving the biggest thing on the road, you suddenly see all the full timer RV drivers. These things are bigger than a double decker bus and they're all towing a car behind them and some even with an addtional trailer for motorbikes or golf buggies...amazing.
At each afternoon/evenings stop, i'd do the hook ups, B1 would lower the annex on Gassy, B2 would get the camp chairs out, B3 would go looking for fire wood, B4 would ly on the couch complaining his legs were tired from driving all day(??) and FS would conjur up an icy cold Corona and a sparkling white wine. AHHHhh, bliss.
Occasionally we'd have to stock up on supplies; Gassy had a great kitchen area etc so we could do all our own cooking and meals. So, we'd spot a Walmart, take up 12 car spots and enter the twlight zone that is a Walmart. I'd like to think we speak goodly english in the Saunders family, albeit with a bit of an aussie accentuate, and whilst the rest of America seemed to understand us fine; the Walmart population would give us puzzled looks, queries of where in Europe this Australia was, or simply call over the loud speaker for assitance because they just couldn't make us out. I had a thought that maybe these Walmarts were like that Jim Carrey movie, The Truman Show, they had been inside this store their whole lives like some mad experiment and just couldn't find or didn't know there were exit doors. Anyway, without being too cruel, we had plenty of laughs with each other after those trips as we drove away. (footnote: I also had a vision of all the Walmarters laughing their heads off together as WE exited the store). Always two sides to a story.
We eventually made it down to St. Augustine in Florida and loved the place. We would have really enjoyed a week there to lap up the beaches and small coastal resturants and shops but we were only there a day or so, enjoyed body bashing in the waves, hanging on the beach, blowing up some fireworks on the beach at night and the boys running around terrorising other campers with their cap gun muskets.
Before heading into Orlando, we kept south and made our way to the Kennedy Space Station at Cape Canaveral, NASA. Whilst not quite the site of 'The Dish' at Parkes in the NSW western inland, it's still got some pretty cool stuff. Did they really walk on the moon? Still not sure about that one, but for sure the whole setup was amazing.
We're always bitching about the heat here in the UAE, but Florida's got some serious tempretures and humidity going on there also...not quite like the UAE, but intense all the same when your walking around theme parks and on the move.
Disney itself is like a very big city, networking roads, hotels and parks together in the most immaculate presentation standards i have ever seen. From the landscapes, to the streets, to the parks themselves, someones doing a good job in Disney's QS team. We were there for 8 days which also incorporated the 4th of July weekend celebrations. I couldn't possibly write about each of the parks, but to list the ones we visited. They being: Magic Kingdom, Blizzard Beach, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, Universal Islands of Adventure and Hollywood Studios. It's fair to say that Disney put on a great fireworks show every evening, but the 4th of July shows were impressive as was the parade through the camp ground of all the patriotic Yanks who'd decorated their golf buggies and dressed up. A day or so of chillaxing and a horse ride on the final day, saw us pretty knackered at the ed of it, but with the boys all at perfect ages for the whole experinance, it was a great place to visit. FS was starting to hit shopper mode, jusitifying every purchase with things like, "we need a Minnie doll so Mickey doesn't feel lonely". My feeling was just don't buy the Mickey doll, then Minnie doesn't need to be considered either.
We travelled back north again towards New York, making some stops at places like Point South in South Carolina, Enfeild in North Carolina, and again with the Redgraves at Toms River New Jersey for a good old fashion BBQ and laugh. On the way north, at the end of the first day's driving i remebered packing all the hookup stuff away and the boys doing their little bits, but asked FS if she grabbed the laundry....an answer of silence. Just happened to be all the towels, bed sheets, and a bunch of clothes. Bugger, someone just scored my favourite boxers.
Our last day, i was suppose to fly to Boston for a work meeting, but this was cancelled so we returned Gassy without a scratch, just minus some bed sheets and towels and we stayed the night at a hotel in Newark, middle of nowhere...except for a small mall across the road. As we walked over for a bite to eat, my eyes hit the sign and i tried everything i could to turn us around...it was a bloody Outlet Mall, with a day and half to kill and nothing within a Cooey, i knew this holiday was about to get much more expensive. It was too late, FS, B1 and B2 spotted the sign a split second later and now it seems I'll be working in the UAE another 5 years just to pay off the damage to the credit card.
We had a great trip in the States and would love to get back again one day, and maybe travel east west or something. We would highly reccommedn the RV travel too, the whole country is set up for RV's and it's a great way to spend some cool time with the family.
