See America 2008

We left Washington DC this morning on the 10am Acela Express. We arrived at Penn Station NYC about 12:45 and set out into the city with only a loose idea of how to spend our layover. We thought finding a Manhattan lunch would be a good idea. Tougher to pull off in practice though, as we found most places along E 33rd in the 7th, 6th, and 5th Avenue blocks to be maxed out. We considered trying to do the Empire State Building trip to the top, but found the lines too long.

Meanwhile the kids got some exposure to street life in the Big Apple, with lots of characters, homeless, and crowds of tourists and working stiffs. Perhaps the most interesting was the lady on the street corner calling loudly for "no rights for vampires," which still has us scratching our heads. After a quick google, looks like there is something of interest to some in this vein.

After finding most places either too full or too scary to enter for lunch, we happened upon a Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs joint right across from Madison Square Garden (the one linked is the Coney Island original), and found it somewhat empty at 1:15. So, we got our lunch there. Very good, as expected. We each had the classic dog with some homestyle fries and a drink.

During our layover, we did a "temporary baggage check" at Penn Station so we could amble about unencumbered. We thought we would have more time to see more of the city during our layover, but we ended up playing it safe and making sure we had plenty of time to get our bags back and make our train to Boston.

Both the trip to NYC and the trip to Boston were uneventful and featured a few cat naps amongst the crew. Other than seeing a lot of run down areas (what you would expect along the tracks) in the big cities like Baltimore, Wilmington, Newark, and others, only seeing the Chesapeake Bay proved interesting. However, we did break out Angelina to see how fast the Acela Express was moving. At several points, speeds surpassed 125 mph. Now that was impressive on its own.

Angelina also proved her worth as she managed to successfully navigate us from Thrifty Car Rental "near" the Logan Airport, where we picked up our minivan, in a summer downpour. Remember the Hertz commercials where they show the poor saps who decided to not use Hertz getting soaked in downpours as they search for their rental car in the sea of rental cars? We could have been filming that today. Thrifty had the right price for the vehicle we wanted, but it was literally the furthest rental outlet from the Logan Airport, and we got soaked finding the van and loading our bags.

So we find ourselves in the Courtyard Brookline near the Coolidge Corner T stop. We hadn't eaten on the train, nor did we bring provisions with us. We got in about 9pm and immediately ordered pizza from the local Pizza Republic on Beacon Street. The basic sausage and olive was fabulous, and the thin crust was perfect. They used whole pitted black olives and sliced Italian sausages for the toppings.

Plan for tomorrow: Again, nothing too ambitious. We will attempt to hike the Freedom Trail and take in the Revolutionary War history along the way. It would be cool to see the USS Constitution tall ship at anchor in Boston Harbor. The weather looks iffy and we will be playing it by ear.