Day 13 - On to Chicago!

It was a very early start the next morning, with myself, Matt, Danny and Craig were all up at 5:45am (Adam sleeping in as usual haha!). With a quick stop into the head office of the RV site to do everything that we needed to do (update this blog, because we have avid readers!), we were on the road towards Milwaukee!

Craig was extremely excited this particular morning, as we were visiting the Harley Davidson museum! He had every reason to be excited, it was awesome! They had so many antique bikes going all the way up to the current bikes. We decided to go on the audio tour, where they gave you a little headset and iPod and all you had to do was type in the number that was on the exhibit and it gave you an explanation as well as a little story. I think by far my favourite part of the museum was the collection of fuel tanks that they had which showed each different commemorative tank for each year. They also had a special exhibit that had leather jackets on display that were worn by famous people and their bikes as well (Elvis Presley's bike was on display there which was pretty cool).

We stopped in the little cafe area for a quick drink after the museum and then we were off to Chicago to officially start Route 66! If there is one place that I will never be driving, it is Chicago! The traffic there was absolutely ridiculous and I thought Darwin drivers were bad haha! We made it to the starting point in one piece thanks to Captian Danny's amazing driving skills and his ability to not get out and thump people for beeping their horns for no reason! We stopped in at a little pub that was on the same road as the starting marker and had a few drinks (to help build courage haha!) and then it was on for young and old! We officially kicked off our journey by morphing the starting marker for Route 66! After doing the usual photoshoot we decided that it was time to hit the road as we were running a little behind schedule...

We finished up our day in a small town called Pontiac after visiting the Jolly Green Giant at the Launching Pad. Everyone had finally just started to drift off and then out of nowhere, a massive electrical storm rolled into town! We all woke up startled because of a nearby lightning strike, but all managed to get back to sleep after that... It wasn't until the next morning did we see how close we actually were to being hit by lightning...

Next stop... The road to Memphis!

Mark

Day 12 - The road to Milwaukee

We had about a three and half hour drive before we reached our lunchtime destination of Green Bay, so we hit the road relatively early again... We drove down past some amazing sights, and had either rivers or lake right next to us the whole way there. We stopped at a few small towns so that Craig could trade some number plates to add to his collection and get petrol and supplies... We stopped at one service station and they actually sold ammunition over the counter!! Yet they won't let you drink until you are 21 years of age... That I do not understand haha!

We made it into Green Bay at around lunchtime and had a look around for a food joint. We ended up eating at Taco Bell, which I didn't find too bad, but everyone else hated it haha! We then went to check out a few department stores in search for a Green Bay Packers shirt for myself and a few other assorted pieces... We soon left so that we could try and get to our camp site and set up for the night. The place we pulled into was called Plymouth Rock Camping Resort, and was amazing! Everywhere was really green; they had a mini golf course and a giant lake that was only a 5 minute walk away from our campsite... We had a round of mini golf, to see who truly was a Tiger Wood's protégé haha! After 18 holes and an extremely close game, we had finally declared a winner... DANNY! On 54. Adam came in Second Place with a score of 57, I came in third with a 59, Craig was fourth with a 60 and Matt came last with a score of 67...

After the tense game of mini golf we decided that we needed a calm and soothing walk down to the lake... The forest down the path was crazy, it was like nothing I have seen before and is completely different to the bush back in Australia! It was like walking in a movie... We made it down to the dock, where they had paddle boats and Canoe's lined up for hire, but they were padlocked to the cement with chains so you couldn't just take them. Matt and I jokingly sat in one of the paddle boats and started to paddle backwards as if we would be able to break the chains... Turns out we have amazing leg muscles haha! We snapped one of the chains while we were paddling backwards! After 20 minutes of fun on the paddle boats we decided to head back up to camp and have some dinner whilst listening to some classic American rock music!

Everyone called it quits at about 10pm because we have to drive another long stretch tomorrow... Next stop, Chicago!!

Mark

Day 11 - Back to America!

We woke up the next morning all still in one piece and had not had a surprise visit from an axe murderer while we were sleeping throughout the night... However, we were visited by an animal (or a local resident at the truck stop nearby, it was hard to tell the difference...) as they had urinated all over our front tire... We were soon packed up and off in search of the American border once again...

We stopped off in a little town called Algoma Mills for lunch at the local bar called the Mustang Grill... Craig was quite disappointed with the meal because they gave him an uncooked onion on his burger haha, but I did find a beer which is the best one that I have tasted since we have arrived in the States/Canada... It is called a Molson Canadian; apparently it is the beer of the NHL (National Hockey League). All I can say is that the NHL has excellent taste haha! We also noticed a little real estate billboard as we were walking through town. You can buy a 32 acre Island for the $399,000.00!! If only it wasn't in the middle of nowhere haha!

After many more hours of driving, we crossed the border and stopped in a nice RV park called Castle Rock RV Park in St. Ingales. We had a little beach that went onto the lake and everything, it was really nice... As it turned out, there also happened to be a car show happening in the area over the next few days (Craig died and went to heaven haha!) There were all sorts of classic American cars all over the RV Park. We met a few of our neighbors and had a few beers with them and discussed where we were all from... During this discussion we also decided that it was time to give Adam a haircut, seeing as though he had been whinging about how long his hair was for the last few days haha!! Step in hairdresser Mark! (I thank my mum for teaching me everything I know about cutting hair haha!) We only had a pair of cloth scissors and decided that they would do the trick... About an hour and quite a few beers later, Matt and I had finally finished cutting Adam's hair... It actually turned out not as bad as we thought it would and looked partially acceptable haha! After that we decided to call it quits before anyone else had any bright ideas haha! Next stop, Milwaukee!

Mark

Day 10 - Niagara Falls

We had to be up and at the American side of Niagara falls by 9am the next morning, bcause we had bought tickets to go on the Maid of the Mist. It was pretty awesome and we got right up in the middle of the Falls! We all looked quite stunning in our little blue poncho's aswell haha!

Once we had finished everything we needed to do on the American side of Niagara Falls, it was time to finally take our adventure over to Canada! We have now officially been rejected by a country haha!! We had bought a whole bunch of firewood the day before and stored it in the boot of the RV, turns out you aren't allowed to bring wood from America to Canada due to some of the insects that hide in the wood.. A few years back some insects got across the border in some firewood and managed to infest some of the forest area in Canada and it killed over 1 million trees! So we drove back over to America and dumped our firewood (Matt wasn't too impressed as he had bought  all of it haha) and proceeded to try and gain entry into the country for the second time..

We made it across the border and were officially in Canada! We drove straight down to the Falls and grabbed a few snapshots before we had found our vantage point to morph up! As usual, we were a hit and everyone was getting photos with us, including the local authorities, they thought we were hilarious (not to mention they couldn't resist our good looks haha!). Niagara Falls had officially been morphed and another location had been ticked off the list! We hung around Niagara falls for a little bit and checked out a few of the sites including the sky tower which gave us a full view of Niagara Falls from about 60 storey’s up! Just as we were leaving the sky tower, we had picked up a little booklet which gave us discounts on a few things around the town...  This just happened to include INDOOR SKYDIVING! Craig, Matt and I decided we definitely had to try this out! It was so much fun!! We got the full run down of proper technique and the hand signals we were supposed to use, it was definitely one of the top ten things I have done on the trip so far!

After everyone had arrived back at the RV we hit the road, as we had a lot of ground to cover if we were going to try and stay on schedule... Because our designated camp ground selector was sleeping at the time (Matt) we had to use the back up (Adam)... He lead us straight into the middle of suburbia of a town called Barrie... there wasn't even a camping site nearby... By this point Matt had woken up and was looking for an alternative... We managed to find one about 100 miles out and by the time we got into the area it was 11pm at night... We drove around for a little bit and couldn't see the entrance anywhere, so we decided that we would set up camp on the side of the road for the night and hope that some axe murderer didn't find us and think that we would look better chopped up into little pieces haha! To be continued...

Mark

Day 9 - Road to Niagara Falls

We allowed ourselves a little sleep in the next morning as we only had a short drive ahead us to Niagara Falls.. Leaving little Mexico we arrived in Buffalo about 4 hours later and immediately went and checked out the American side of the falls (there are two sides, Canadian and American, the Canadian side is much more impressive). It was relatively cool for summer, especially after being sprayed by the water coming off the rocks at the bottom of the falls.

We stayed in a small RV park that night, called AA Royal RV Park it wasn't too bad and was just down the road from a gun range which was unfortunately closed by the time we had arrived there and didn't open until after we had planned to leave the next morning... We had also attempted to visit our first Wal-Mart that night, but it had closed down for renovations, which everyone (especially Adam) was quite disappointed in.. After doing a quick grocery shop/beer run at the local supermarket we parked the RV up at the RV park and had sandwiches and coleslaw for dinner and headed off to sleep, as we all needed our beauty sleep to look pretty for our Morph photo of Niagara Falls the next day...

Mark

Day 8 - Washington D.C.

Craig and Danny woke up at about 3am the next morning in order to get everything prepped and packed for the nations capital.. They were kind enough to let myself, Adam and Matt sleep in until about 4:30, then got us up for breakfast at McDonald's (nice and healthy I know). After being re-directed by a Special Service Cop, we had finally found a place to park our ridiculously oversized vehicle and made our way towards the White House to visit Obama himself! Not five minutes after walking towards all the monuments and we lose Danny and Matt... Turns out they didn't want to walk the same way as us haha.

First monument we saw was the Washington monument.. Holy shit that thing is big! Took a few snaps of the monument and then saw a squirrel... SQUIRREL!! I chased after one of them for a bit in hopes to get a nice photo, turns out I was chasing after a squirrel that was actually a model, as he posed fully stretched out for me along a few park benches haha!

Since it was still quite early in the morning, we decided that we should go and check out the White House before the crowds got there.. Obama has officially been morphed!! We quickly stripped off behind a building and morphed up to get some awesome shots in front of the White House! After getting changed quite quickly aftrwards due to the suspicious looks from all the Secret Service cops (pretty sure Craig had a sniper dot on him, we just couldn't see it because he is Red... haha) we made our way around to the Reflecting pools, Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial.

We then left D.C. after finding our RV still in one piece (the place we parked at looked pretty dodgy) and were on our way to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We stopped of at a little antique shop on the side of the road to have a quick sticky beak and it was pretty interesting (they had heaps of books that were over 100 years old) just as we were getting into the van to leave.. CRASH! A huge F-150 smashed straight into the back of this tiny little car, destroying the rear end of it! Everyone was OK, one of the ladies in the little car smacked her head, so someone called 911. NINE emergency vehicles later! (we would be lucky to get one to attend something that small in Darwin haha!) we were finally in Gettysburg. We checked out a few more antique shops and memorabilia shops and then went to have lunch in a little pub called Eddie's place. As usual, the meals were super-size portions for a cheap price, but it was a nice little place to have lunch. We then went off to the Civil War Museum and watched a film explaining what the Civil War was all about (Slavery) and checked out the Cyclorama (google that shit! it is super impressive!) and went through the museum and saw all of the artifacts and equipment that was recovered and placed on display for us to see. The Civil War Museum was amazing! It was great to see everything that was used and all the strategic battleplans that were used in the Battle of Gettysburg, I would definitely recommend you go to check it out if you are ever in the area..

We then headed off to find a place to set-up camp for the night, finding a place just outside Lewisburg called Little Mexico RV Park. It was quite nice, massive 42 acre grass area and tonnes of wildlife running around the place. Next stop, the Road to Niagara Falls!

Mark

Day 7 - Road to Philedelphia

We hit the road at 7am this morning, eager to get to the RV so that we could start the driving part of our adventure.. After missing the pickup point the first time round, we finally found it and we were introduced to the place we would be calling home for the next three and half weeks... The staff tooks us through the RV and showed us how everything worked and what not to do etc. They then took Matt, Adam and myself to grab all the sleeping gear and utensils while Craig and Danny went to fill out all the paperwork and insurance.. By about lunchtime we had finally started the journey and the first thing we wanted to do, was to go and eat! We found a local Burger King and ordered the biggest thing we could find on the menu haha! Once we had well and truly over-stuffed our stomachs we went on our way to Philedelphia to see the Liberty Bell.

We  made it to Philedelphia in just under a couple of hours and went to go and check out the Liberty Bell. After listening to a preacher talk about how the world was going to end and that America was corrupt and God will strike them down (was actually quite funny, because we just started taking the piss out of him), we made it in to see the Liberty Bell and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was actually quite interesting to learn about it and check it out in person.

We decided that it was too far for us to continue onto Washington D.C. that night and went and found an RV park halfway between D.C. and Philedephia, called College Park. We thought our RV was big! You should have seen some of the gargantuan vehicles that were parked near us! Some of them had 42" Flat Screen TV's in their storage bays so they could watch TV outside haha! We grabbed a few pizzas and resupplied our beer fridge from the tuck shop (beer is only $20 a carton here, I think we all died and went to heaven when we realised that haha!) and started our campfire to eat around.. Next stop, Washington D.C.

Mark

Day 6 - Baseball Game

After an extremely long and tiring day of morphing and checking out the sights of New York we decided that a well deserved sleep in was in order.. It was our last day in New York and we still had a few things that everyone wanted to do and see, so we rented a few bikes (including a tandem bike haha) and headed off towards Central Park.. It took us about two hours to ride around the whole park and it was soon realised by Adam and myself that riding a tandem bike up a hill sucks haha! But going down the other side was a lot more enjoyable!

Seeing as though we had our very first live baseball game to watch that night, we thought it would be a good idea to get a few hours rest before we went to watch the Mets smash the Yankees! (haha Craig, Yankees lost!) The stadium was absolutely massive! and we had prime seats to watch the game from left field, unfortunately no balls were hit our way but a few came pretty close, with a couple of huge home runs made by both teams!

We didn't get back to the room until about 1:30am the next morning and all of us were pretty tired and we were going to pick up the Wannabango Express early the next morning, so we packed most of our things and crashed. Next stop, the road to Philedelphia!

Mark

Day 5 - Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building

So it turns out that that sun rises at 5 am in New York... Definitely a valuable lesson learn't after leaving the blinds open overnight haha! We ended up leaving the hotel at 7 am to go and pick up our city passes, only to find that the ticket booth didn't open until 9 am... We were really off to a smooth start.

We all decided that we should go in search for a diner so that we could try an American breakfast.. We tried a small one that was just around the corner from the hotel, the most expensive meal for breakfast was no more then $7! I had to stop halfway through to take a breather it was that big haha!

After catching a yellow taxi from the ticket booth, we arrived at the loading point for the Liberty Island ferry! After having a quick gander around the island and taking numerous amounts of photos, we decided that it was time to unleash the Morph! Thanks to Security supervisor David Denham, we had recived the go ahead to morph up and not be arrested whilst doing it haha! The only problem was, that the nearest toilets to the photo point were at least 200m away... Many strange looks and photo requests later, we finally started to take our own photos, and in saying that, the Statue of Liberty had been morphed!

After a tour of the 9/11 memorial we went back to the hotel to get changed and head out for the Empire State Building tour.. That was definitely a highlight! It was so high up! We had a look around the observation deck on the 86th floor and took lots of photo's and saw how big and bright the Big Apple really is at night! We then stopped into a Dallas BBQ joint for dinner at 1am (it's really is the city that never sleeps!) and called it quits looking forward to the Baseball game that was in store for us the next day...

Mark

Day 4 - New York

14 and a half hours later, we land in New York! With all of us super excited to get off the plane as quickly as possible so that we could stretch our legs and finally start the American leg of our journey, we raced towards the customs gates... it took another 3 hours before we even got to our hotel.. Everyone was absolutely knackered after catching the subway from one side of Manhattan to the other and then having to walk so many more blocks dragging our bags with us.. The sigh of relief once we had checked into the hotel was unanimous!

After cleaning up a little bit , it was time to adventure into the concrete jungle. We went and visited Times Square (ridiculously big!) in search of a pub and a few shops. Found a Toys r'us that was 5 storeys high and had a Ferris wheel inside it... I think Casuarina management need to start stepping up their game haha! After getting in contact with our inner child, it was decided that beers were in need.. We then found the  world's largest Applebees, where we were served by our lovely (and pretty hot ;) ) hostess Riley. If anyone who is reading this goes to an Applebees and does not try their apple pie, they are definitely missing out!

After a long and exhausting day we made it back to the hotel and called it quits in preparation for the next day...

Mark

Day 3 - Shanghai

We made it through to Shanghai reletively unscathed, however, there were some casualties that deserve a mention... It all started when we were waiting in the bar at the terminal in Singapore and Danny spotted a Koi fish pond.. One thing led to another and Craig decided to test how water proof his camera really was... turns out there is a bit of false advertsing going on haha!

Other then the camera incident it was a nice and quick 8 hour stop over in Shanghai. Would
definitely liked to have spent a little more time there to check out the sights. But that will have to be one of the many adventures that happen in the future.

Next stop.. NEW YORK, NEW YORK!

Mark

Day 2 - Singapore

After an adventurous night running around Singapore, we decided that it was most probably best that we got some rest, because we had a busy day ahead of us... Danny managed to get some sleep.. The rest of us had to endure what sounded like a 747 taking off from the bed next to us haha!! All I can say is, thank god for headphones! =P

Next morning we started our trek out towards our first target to unleash the morphsuits on... The Skydeck! We successfully managed to pull off our highest morph ever at 53 storeys high and had an awesome view of Singapore to go with it!

We were definitely the highlight of many peoples mornings, with photo requests coming in from all over the place, it was certainly a memorable moment! That was the final activity for
the day, before we departed towards our next stop... Shanghai, China!

Mark

Day 1 - Singapore Continued...

We arrived in Singapore after a fairly short flight, except for the end when they had malfunctions with the exit gate -.- ... We did however get to share the plane with the band Simple Plan (only 3 rows behind them!) and Adam and I got caught in the middle of their group on the escalators out of the airport, so Adam assumed we were part of the band and started humming their songs haha!

Finally made it out of the airport terminal, after catching 3 different monorails and walking for what seemed like miles due to how stinking hot it is! Checked into the hostel and went to check out the nightlife and have a feed... Not 10 minutes into strolling around Clarke Quay and I am approached by a nice looking lady standing with a few friends at the front of a bar... She was a hooker... All the boys got a kick out of that and proceeded take the piss for the next 15 or so minutes haha! After finding out that Hooters was closed (Much to Adam's dismay) we settled for a nice beer and pizza joint for dinner.

Anyways, calling it quits for the night due to having a big day ahead tomorrow! Stay tuned for more adventures haha!

XOXO Gossip Girl (Mark)

Day 1 - Darwin to Singapore

Off to a bit of a shaky start... Apparently you need a passport to leave the country haha! Looks like it is Mark's shout at the bar first! Thanks Dad for driving all the way in from Palmerston with it, will definitely owe you a carton when I get back!

Almost made it through security after making a bet to see who looks more like a bomber/drug smuggler... Turns out it was Danny, who would have thought haha!

Currently sitting in the airport bar waiting for the Red Power Ranger (Craig) to morph up! Only a few more hours until we officially kick off the first leg of our journey...

XOXO Gossip Girl (Mark)