5 days then 3 days in the greatest city - NYC

I love Yotel. Very comfy bed. Rain shower. Ports to charge phones without having to clamber around under the desk on hands and knees discovering how clean the place actually is ( not ) and unplugging the TV or the lamp or the kettle in the process.

We hopped into an Uber and headed down to Chelsea Markets to meet Driekie, Dennis and Aimee - Leigh. The markets are dissapointingly crowded and touristy on a Sunday afternoon . We walked the High Line and were so impressed by the yet to be completed Hudson Yards development at 34th Street.

We actually had fun at the super touristy Revolving Bar Sky Lounge on the 47th floor of the Marriott Marquis on Times Square. For dinner, Virgil's BBQ didn't disappoint.

Nothing beats a bagel and coffee for breakfast a corner NY deli. Feeling like locals we hopped on the Metro line 7 and rode all the way to Flushing Meadows for day 1 of the US Open Tennis. What an impressive tennis complex and what a well organised tournament. We had seats for the day session in the brand new Louis Armstrong Stadium. Later in the day we moved to court 17 to watch Kevin Anderson. Next time we will just get General Admission tickets for the early rounds. It's really easy to get into any court except the centre one to watch your favourite players. I don't travel to tick off bucket list items but the goal of attending all four Tennis Grand Slam Tournaments has been achieved.

Later that night we headed off to Greenwich Village to Neil's favourite funk bar, The Groove. For almost 30 years he's been going there whenever he is in Manhattan and when we lived in New Jersey it was one of our favourite haunts. Imagine our consternation to find it full of tourists!! 1 group of beer drinking Europeans in sandals and socks could hardy tap a toe. The backpacking crowd sporting blond dreadlocks and fisherman pants shared 1 drink between them. The Asian guy had to eat his onion rings with one hand so he could video the entire set with his cellphone. Later on some locals and musos started arriving and jamming a bit and "the Groove" returned.

We visited the MOMA. 

We ate a special lunch at Nougatine. We caught the subway to Brooklyn for dinner with Gary. Neil was snapped by a sneaky fellow commuter and made famous on a site called ' Subway Creatures. ' 

We ate at Tabare, a Uruguayan restaurant and I had mulfatta, a featherlight gnocchi with pumpkin and cheese. New York is so uniquely cosmopolitan; for generations people from every corner of the globe have found their niche and their nieghbourhood. On Friday we headed off to NJ to spend Labor Day weekend with family and friends.

At the end of September we were back, this time staying with Fred and Terri and going loco in the less touristy neighbourhoods of Harlem and Brooklyn. Fred knows the city and showed us lots of interesting galleries, bars and streets. Ram and Ranji joined us one day.We ate Colombian breakfast, Tibetan lunch and Korean dinner. A world in one city like no other city in the world.

USA Midwest Roadtrip : Part 4

Thursday 16.08.  It wasn't a long drive to drive to Salt Lake City but it was a slow start. After checking out the Mormon Tabernacle,we strolled downtown and discovered a couple of hipster coffee bars and boutiques.It was a little surprising considering Mormon's don't drink coffee.

Friday 17.08 and 18.08.  We drove over to Park City to stay with Bob and Jane for a few nights. This was the main site of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics and is a beautiful modern ski resort in Winter.  It's a mecca for outdoorsy folks in Summer too. The Olympic Centre is worth a visit especially to see the pool ski jumping displays. You can enjoy a luge ride, a zip line or ride a ski slope in a tube. There are lots of good restaurants and shops and a few quirky bars in the main street.

Sunday 19.08. We drove through Utah and visited the Dinosaur National Park to see fossils, petroglyphs and rock art. We spent the night in Craig CO with pizza takeout for dinner.

Monday 20.08. They call all these Midwest states the fly-over states but if you want to know what makes America tick you need to do a road trip. It's not all NY and LA. We prefer to take a route that passes through each town rather than speeding along the Interstate with all the trucks. Crossing Colorado, by late afternoon we found ourselves at the Oak Wood Inn in Sterling, Nebraska.

Tuesday 21.08. And on we go..across Nebraska.We discovered an amazing Car Museum in Kearney NE. Why stop in Omaha, NE? I read that Omaha has the 3rd highest concentration of bars per capita in the USA. And the Counting Crows sang about it.  We did find a few bars in a very boring and quiet downtown. We ate a good steak at Monarch Prime and even found live music at the Omaha Lounge.

Wednesday 22.08. And on we go..into Iowa. Des Moines didn't delay us for long and we made it to  Iowa City; a nice college town that had a food festival on; and more bars than Omaha, I think. We got ourselves a bunch of coupons and wandered from restaurant to restaurant tasting all the gourmet bites.

Thursday 23.08  - 25.08. Chicago. Arriving back at our trusty River Hotel on the most glorious late summer's evening of the season we spent a few hours listening to live music at a wonderful Chicago Winery at Riverside Walk. House of Blues may be touristy but they do have excellent live bands.
On Friday we ate a very good set lunch at the 1 Michelin starred Blackbird. We spent the afternoon at the American Art Institue. On Saturday we did a musical matinee.You have to stroll the Miracle Mile even if you don't shop.  Later ex Cool and the Gang pianist, entertained us and a crowd of a certain age all evening at the Red Head Piano Bar. At exactly nine o'clock on a saturday, guess what he played?

And you can't go to Chicago without having the iconic deep-dish pizza!!

USA Midwest Roadtrip : Part 3

Saturday 11.08. It was a pretty long drive to Cody. We stayed at the Buffalo Bill Cabins. We went to the Night Rodeo. We enjoyed a night of live music at The Silver Dollar Bar on the sidelines of a wedding party.

Sunday 12.08. Our first day in Yellowstone National Park. The scenery was beautiful and we managed to get to Old Faithful just in time to see her sprout. The crowds were ridiculous. There were just streams of traffic on both sides of the road, backing up for miles if any animals were spotted. It wasn't teeming with game. I think you may have a better experience camping for a few days out of season. We stayed in Bozeman overnight.

Monday 13.08. We enjoyed another long drive to Glacier National Park. We were only able to drive 18 miles in on Going- to - the - Sun road due to wildfires. We then turned back and drove the long way round to West Glacier to overnight in Columbia Falls.Dominos Pizza in the room. Haze from the smoke of the fires was pretty bad in the entire area.

Tuesday 14.08. A big driving day via Missoula and across Wyoming on all the secondary roads. We stopped at the Ninepipe Bird Refuge and the Bison Range. We did see proghorns, red deer, coyotes and a few buffalo.

Wednesday 15.08. We decided to visit the Yellowstone Grizzly Refuge as that seemed the only chance we would have of seeing bears and wolves. We traversed Yellowstone again and headed into the very pretty Grand Teton NP. We spent the night in Jackson Hole at the Anvil Hotel.  What a great town. We got stuck in Moe's BBQ listening to live music and overdoing it on the 2 for 1 Happy Hour wine.We finally made it to the Silver Dollar for dinner followed by more music at the Cowboy Bar.

USA Midwest Roadtrip 2018: Part 2 Sturgis

Wednesday 08.08. We headed into South Dakota. We stopped at the amazing Western Museum "1880 Town." An unused movie set with 30 buildings was moved to the current site. Many original old buildings like the hotel  and the bank were bought, disassembled and rebuilt on the site too. The place is full of memorabilia and antiques. There are loads of props and photos from the set of the movie Dances with Wolves. And a whole 50s railway dining car has been turned into a restaurant.

We toured the Badlands National Park and ended up in Rapid City for the night.

Thursday 09.08. The reason we were in South Dakota at all was to attend the annual Sturgis Motorbike Rally. Our first, but the rally has been going for 78 years. Over 10 days 500 000 people attend. There are over 250 000 bikes, mostly Harleys. Thousands of bikes line the streets daily. All roads and highways for 100s of miles around are just teeming with bikes. There's a party going on.

Sturgis is a pretty small town, so all around there are huge campgrounds set up to house everyone in tents and RVs.

Buffalo Chip Campground is the biggest with a central amphitheatre for concerts and even a man-made beach. We got tickets to the Kid Rock concert. We had a great time. We slept in the back of our car. We survived.

Friday 10.08. The next day we visited Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park and the Black Hills. We headed back to Sturgis later and spent the night in a motel in Spearfish.