Pennsylvania

In my effort to attempt to use a song title or words from a song in my post titles today's was easy. It is of course the Pennsylvania State song with the innovative title - Pennsylvania. Unlike many states with very traditional states song, Pennsylvania only adopted theirs as a state song in 1990.


So to the journey the Car we had hired is a Nissan Altima, this is the third holiday in a row that we have had this type of car, so most of its features were easy to use. We set ourselves up, with Jack in the Captain's seat in the back (for those who haven't met Captain Jack before he came back with us from a holiday in Florida in 2004 and has travelled the world (or the high seas as he puts it, ever since.)

Our route is on the embedded map below, though, because it is prettier we opted to take the I390 between Binghamton and Rochester, so the left most of the routes as the top of the Map.

We left Hertz at 9.45 I drove down West 34^th street a block and a half and turned right on to Dyer Street, after 46 minutes we had gone .3 of a mile creeping towards the Lincoln Tunnel in the heavy rain. As we approached the tunnel the issue became clearer 6 lanes were merging into 1 because of repair work, a slow process but finally we were out of New York (for a while) and in to New Jersey, we travelled along the I380 beside Newark, which looked like an attractive town from its flyover which was also very full of traffic.

After Newark the I380 carried on for 18 miles and then merged with the I80 this was a nice drive, straight and easy, though due to the slow start after 1 and 3/4 hours we were only 42 miles into the journey. We stopped for coffee at a McDonalds, previous experience has told us that Starbucks and McDonalds are the places to stop for coffee, both have tasty coffee when compared to their competitors. The McDonalds was at Lake Hopatcong, NJ a tiny town largely given over to people pulling in off the interstate and tourists using the lake for boating and fishing etc. McDonalds also had wi-fi so I checked some e-mails etc. and after 40 minutes we drove on.

We carried on the I80 route, now with Drew driving, at the Delaware Water Gap, where the road crosses the Delaware River we came into Pennsylvania, the third state of our trip and the first of Drew’s missing states – one down, 7 to go. We came to the next town East Stroudsburg and pulled into the town for lunch.

We came across a Burger King and I had a Whopper and Drew an Original Chicken Sandwich. The filled the gap and after filling up with petrol we were ready to hit the road. Note for the accountants reading, petrol here was $2.799 which at the current exchange rate is 48p a litre, clearly driving is a much cheaper experience here than in the UK  

This part of Pennsylvania is former steel and coal territory, but very different in look and feel from West Virginia, which as it turns out looks a lot like Wales. We left the I80 and joined the I380 and we travelled through hills which had warning signs indicating that we might see deer on the road, we didn't, and through a State Park full for high trees that provided a shady feel even to the Interstate. Scranton is the largest town in this region and we passed all 8 of its exits as the I380 renamed itself the I81.

We travelled north past Great Bend and then came to the Pennsylvania/New York State Line. At Binghamton we stayed with the I390 (a road which calls itself the NY17 and the I86 for parts of its route) rather than the I81 and skirted back and forth along the State Line. Indeed when we stopped for a coffee in Sayre we left the Interstate in New York and were straight back into Pennsylvania. We went back into New York at Waverly and joined the I390 now also calling itself the Southern Tier Expressway as it headed north through Elmira, Horseheads, Corning among others. Around here the hilly tree filled views were replaced by rolling hills which were clearly used for agrarain production. Hay and Corn (Maize as they say here) was most prevalent. 

We followed the road into Rochester and found the Quality Inn Rochester Airport where we are staying in room 183. We have travelled 378 miles and been on the road for 7 hours and 42 minutes - Not a high miles per hour, but for the first 2 hours we didn't go far at all.  

We got into the room and went straight back out to have dinner. We had spotted a local Puerto Rican restaurant less than .4 of a mile from the hotel. It is called El Latino as Trip Advisor says: "excellent Latin food in a divey type atmosphere". The food was excellent, and the place more of a canteen than a dive, but just to confirm to my sister in law who cares about these things there were indeed plastic knives and forks and polystyrene plates :-)

We discovered that not judging a restaurant by its look was exactly the right thing. We had a Empanada each for starters (Drew's beef, mine chicken) and then I had Stewed Pork with Yellow Rice and Black Beans, while Drew opted for the Pork Shoulder with Yellow Rice. The empanada's were crisp on the outside and full of rich meat on the inside, wonderful. The stewed pork was dripping from the bone and the sauce was a rich meat sauce with an air of chilli, the rice and beans mixed with it well and I was enjoying a wonderful flavour sensation. Drew's shoulder was full of meat, and I was lucky enough to be given a share in the crisp skin bits - crunchy and amazing. 

We both finished our meals very content and went back to the Hotel and to bed by 10.

It is now 5 and I've been up since 3.30, a load of washing done and now in the tumbler. The hotel has a laundry room and for $1.50 for each machine we can wash and dry all our clothes. $3 in total compared to the $5 a shirt our last hotel had as the price of cleaning a shirt there. I know which I prefer! As we had bought our own Tide capsules we didn't even have to buy powder from reception.