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Our east coast road-trip… Day 3

Ranjeet — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:09:39 +0000

The final day of our road-trip was spent partly in Washington and then in Cape May, NJ. Before heading out to Cape May, we stopped over at China Town in Washington. The large signs in Mandarin/Cantonese were all over the place along with beautiful traditional Chinese style arches and architecture. We stopped over at what looked like a popular Chinese restaurant for brunch… the service and food were quite a let down, and we couldn’t help but contrast our dinner at the local Ethiopian restaurant vs this shit hole. Lets just say that we have had much better Chinese food in New York. Very disappointing…

China Town in Washington DC

Speedometer while leaving Washington DC

The drive to Cape May was fun, weaving through small towns and driving on a “high way” that only had one (1) lane was new for me. Cape May is a rather small town at the southern tip of New Jersey next to the Atlantic Ocean. It reminded me a lot of the another town on the US east coast next to the Atlantic – Key West, FL. Lots of small bridges, narrow roads, beautiful small villages and large farms all over…

Washington, DC to Cape May, NJ

We stopped over for a coffee at 6 p.m. at the local Dunkin’ Donuts in Cape May. Like all Dunkin’ Donuts in the East Coast, this place was run by Indians. Turns out that the owners were Gujrati and were surprised to see a couple of Indians walk in. They were very chatty with us and even gave us a few free donuts. Can’t recall the last time that we got free stuff at a Dunkin’ Donut.

Cape May, NJ to New York, NY

The final leg of the road-trip was by far the best. The highway we took passes alongside Atlantic City and is by far the smoothest road we had driven on for this entire road-trip. My average speed on this amazing highway was 80 Mph… This is the one road that everyone needs to drive on to appreciate their cars, and New Jersey.

Getting back to New York was both exciting and depressing… exciting ‘cos we would finally be back in the city we both love, depressing ‘cos our short road-trip was coming to an end.

Our short road-trip overview

We managed to drive over 600 miles on this short road-trip in 3 days… not huge, but definitely the most we have driven in 3 days for a long time.

Our east coast road-trip… Day 2

Ranjeet — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:56:38 +0000

Had a lazy start to our first full day in Washington, DC. Breakfast in the hotel was followed by a lazy drive to Washington (remember we are parked in Arlington, VA – just outside of Washington, DC) followed by a mad rush to find parking. I finally gave up on looking for a free parking spot and resigned myself to parking in an underground parking – even that was nearly full. Managed to squeeze the car into a spot on the third (3) level underground… That’s the deepest I have driven this car to date .

The rest of the day was spent waking from one Washington landmark to another… exhausting! Central Park in NY has nothing on Washington… the lawns extending from the Lincon memorial including the Washington Monument and ending at the Capital hill were absolutely beautiful.

Washington Monument

Washington has the largest population of Ethiopians in the US and their ethnic restaurants here are by far amazing. Dinner in DC was at the local (real local) Ethiopian restaurant. This place was amazingly busy – with loud live music and performances, plus awesome food. There was a line outside the place at 8:45 pm on a Monday night… did I say “amazing”. PS: The place is on the corner of U Street and 12th Street.

The White House

Planning on more sight seeing tomorrow followed by more driving… after all this is a road trip.

Our east coast road-trip… Day 1

Ranjeet — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:02:07 +0000

Jaynita and I finally decided to go for a road trip down the US east coast. We left New York city for Washington, DC earlier today, making our way there through a mix of highways and local road driving. We started with driving down I-95 followed by a mix of route 7 and route 40 and managed to drive across New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia in a couple of hours.

East Coast road trip, day 1

Getting to DC wasn’t all fun; there seem to be an inordinately large number of a@@holes on the road… people in this country should be forced to take defensive driving courses.

Washington, DC is beautiful in the evening… saw the Washington Monument fully lit under a cloudy evening sky – breathtaking. We have lots of sightseeing planned for Day 2 of our road-trip… more updates and pictures to follow soon.

Changing the tires on my car

Ranjeet — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:49:06 +0000

I finally swapped out the summer sport tires on the car with 4 new winter tires. Changing the tires was a breeze; well actually, it was easy but not too much fun. Took all of 45 minutes to swap the 4 tires out. The car actually drives better with the new 18″ winter tires than it did on the 19″ summer sport tires. Fun… I guess I have this to look forward to every year.

Think its time to take the car out on the snow to test these new tires and see if getting them was justified. Clearly driving the car with the summer tires wasn’t an option anymore (almost skidded into a ditch on a measley inch of snow).