Hit the road, Jack - first two days

Day 1 / Helsinki - Newark, NJ - Garfield, NJ - Westbrook, CT - West Greenwich, RI

After working our asses off during spring and summer, we are finally on the road. After a very cold plane ride over the Atlantic, we arrived to Newark International Airport. Because of Liisa's spinal disc herniation I had the pleasure of carrying both of our big backpacks and my small backpack to Hertz car rental, luckily Liisa was able to pull the small airplane bag on wheels. One of the Customs and Border Protection officers called me a sherpa and tried to make Liisa take one of the bags from me.

Unfortunately Hertz didn't have an American car for us so we had to settle for a 2012 Toyota Camry. Although the car isn't American made, which would have been better for the theme of our trip, it's a nice car. A little too nice, it took me almost ten minutes just to find a way to lower the car seat and I didn't find the hand break until at the end of the day, who would have tought that you don't operate the HAND break with your hand but with your foot.

The beginning of the trip could have started off a little better. We, meaning me, managed to drive through a toll station without taking the toll ticket. At the next toll station there was a guy who wanted the ticket, so instead of paying $2.50 we had to pay $12.55. Not a big mistake but it gave us a little bit of unscheduled excitement. Instead of buying all our camping gear in New Jersey like we had planned, we decided, after having problems finding the stores, to just drive to our motel and go to an outdoor store in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. The neighborhoods where the stores were supposed to be at, seemed sketchy too.

Being tired of the long trip so far we made another mistake, we didn't check the route that my phone's GPS gave us. We meant to drive north of New York to avoid the traffic in the city but of course the GPS guided us over the George Washington Bridge and straight to Manhattan. Luckily the traffic wasn't too bad and it was really nice driving over the bridge and seeing the New York skyline.




The rest of the drive went well and it was interesting to see how the locals drove. Everybody was speeding and passing other cars like on a race track, no wonder that almost every car had at least one dent. We should've kept the drive a little shorter for the first day as I had problems staying focused for the last hour. Though it was probably because of our stop at Denny's for our first diner experience. Fortunately the motel was just next to the Interstate which we were driving.

Day 2 / West Greenwich, RI - Providence, RI - North Truro, MA [Cape Cod Light] - Provincetown, MA - Hyannis, MA

The Best Western West Greenwich was a good place to stay especially as it was quite cheap. After waking up and having breakfast, we headed for the road and drove to Providence which was only a 20 minute drive away. The city seemed like a really nice place but as it was raining really hard we couldn't spend too much time there. Still we, read Liisa, managed to do a little bit of shopping. Maybe I'll find something at the next mall.

Next stop was Cape Cod Light, a lighthouse in Truro. The lighthouse, and Cape Cod overall, is a really interesting area. We could probably spend a whole week here, if we had time, and we can recommend Cape Cod for everybody. This is an area with lots of beautiful sceneries and interesting places, a lot of great looking buildings and a small town feel to it. A nice place for relaxing.

After spending a little longer in the lighthouse and in Provincetown than planned in the morning, we had to hurry up to our accommodation in Hyannis. Our original plan was to camp in Truro but the weather forecast said there would be a thunder storm in the area so we decided to play it safe and book an indoor accommodation. Here in Hyannis we're staying at Seacoast Inn which have had really great reviews in Tripadvisor and you can easily see why. The service is great here, when we checked in the man in the front desk asked us for our plans for the next day and promised to get us driving instructions for all of the places we wanted to visit. They also recommended a restaurant where to eat, Spanky's Clam Shack, which seemed like a great restaurant but unfortunately they had closed already when we managed to get there. We also found a tent for our next night, we'll be spending it on a campground.

Today's objective is to find sleeping bags and pads and do more sightseeing.
-Riku

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