We left the hotel room about 6:30am and by 6:45am were on the road. We made good progress, having beaten the peak hour traffic. Then we began our education of "turnpikes" especially the "Jersey Turnpike". Essentially a long, wide, straight road often up to 10 lanes each direction, designed to move traffic. We needed to keep moving so that suited us. The only problem is, we kept going through toll gates that wanted more money from us. $4 here, $11 there, $3, $2, and the notes kept rolling. And every wrong turn on our part, requiring turning around and going the right direction, meant paying double tolls. Joy!
The only planned stop along the way, was to view the New York City skyline and the Statue of Liberty. This from the New Jersey side to avoid driving through Manhatten. We were there by 8:30am and found the lookouts easily enough.
After that, we needed to navigate our way through New Jersey, and up the side of the Hudson River, before eventually crossing over to New York state a little more uptown. We drove through Palisades Interstate Parkway which is very scenic and a little oasis in the middle of the New Jersey concrete jungle. However once we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge the roads got busier and busier.
We thought that once we cleared New York City, the roads up through Connecticut would be a little easier. Wrong! It was stop/start, bumper to bumper. I must point out that Helen did a fantastic job driving, while Dad and I snoozed through the worst of it.
We did make a brief stopover at New London, where there is a large US Navy submarine base, and they have a museum containing the USS Nautilus which was the world's first nuclear powered submarine. We stopped there maybe an hour, to have a look through.
Finally we needed to drive another hour or more, to reach Newport. Once we found our B&B and settled in, the day was getting on. So we went for a coastal drive around Newport before we lost the sun. This is a beautiful place and we didn't really have time to get it all soak in, however with the sunset I was able to capture some nice photos. Not difficult as it's a bit like driving through a postcard.
A long day, with a variety of heavy traffic, and beautiful scenery, and everything in between. We finished with a lovely seafood dinner down near the wharf. And the portions were extremely generous here!!!!!
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