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Old 22nd July 2016, 06:07   #46
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Please excuse the low resolution pics taken in mobile. No idea where I lost the pics taken in camera at Washington D.C.
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Delaware Memorial bridge:
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Common scene at George Washington Bridge, NYC. We have to pay $15 toll to cross this crap bridge. It always takes minimum around 45 minutes just to cross this bridge. These days I use Garden State Parkway and Tappan Zee bridge to bypass NYC instead of getting stuck at GW bridge:
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Mysore Road on return journey
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Last edited by guyfrmblr : 23rd July 2016 at 18:01.
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Old 22nd July 2016, 06:42   #47
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Philadelphia:

We drove to Philadelphia during the thanksgiving holidays. We stayed in Cherry Hill, NJ and took the NJ transit to the downtown.

Philadelphia Museum of Art:
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Benjamin Franklin Parkway:
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Cathedral Basilica of Saint Peter and Paul:
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Old 22nd July 2016, 06:48   #48
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Inside the Franklin Institute:
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Rocky Statue. There was a huge line for taking photo next to this statue:
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Rodin Museum:
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Love Sculpture:
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No idea about the name of this sculpture(!?) near the Rocky steps:
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Old 22nd July 2016, 06:51   #49
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Schuylkill (I don't know how to pronounce it) Banks Broadwalk. Nice place to walk or ride a bicycle:
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Old 22nd July 2016, 07:14   #50
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

The city I like the least - New York City:

While most of the weekends I head North of Boston towards New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine, most of my friends/relatives head South towards NYC. I was curious to know what is so special about NYC. I hadn't been there for almost 6 months since I moved here. Many of them were making fun of me for not visiting NYC. So one fine day we decided to give that place a visit. It was some long weekend. I had heard about the traffic madness inside NYC, hence decided to drive to White Plains in the suburbs and catch the Harlem line to Grand Central Terminal. I had also heard that subway is the best option to move around the city.

White Plains - a neat town:
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Took the Harlem line from here to GCT:
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We first planned to visit Statue of Liberty early in the morning so that we can avoid the crowd. We reached there by 8:30 AM but noticed huge lines. After waiting for a long time, caught a ferry to the island. Note the crowd early in the morning:
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We then visited the Brooklyn bridge. It was less crowded only when I took this photo. Else it was a bumper-to-bumper pedestrian traffic on the bridge:
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Had a nice view of the skyline from a pier next to the Brooklyn bridge:
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Our next plan was to visit the Empire State building and have a view from the top. By seeing the long lines, we decided not to go up and instead we decided to visit the relatively less crowded Rockefeller Center. After an hour's wait, we went up to the Top of the Rock:
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Last edited by guyfrmblr : 23rd July 2016 at 17:16.
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Old 22nd July 2016, 07:23   #51
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

More views from the Top of the Rock:
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After spending some good amount of time at Rockefeller Center, we visited the Central Park and then came to Times Square. Our initial plan was to spend few hours at Times Square and head back home but we were able to survive in that crowd not more than 45 minutes:
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I told my friends next day that I liked only few places at NYC but it was not worth the hype given by everyone. Needless to say, I was ridiculed . They concluded that I didn't like due to the long weekend crowd.

Last edited by guyfrmblr : 23rd July 2016 at 17:18.
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Old 23rd July 2016, 03:20   #52
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

After many of my friends concluded that I didn't like NYC due to the long weekend crowd, I decided to give it a second shot. This time I chose a normal winter weekend. As the temperature was in freezing levels, I expected not much crowd.

We planned to go to One World observatory early in the morning. As it was winter, we didn't expect much rush but we were proven wrong. It took an hour to just get the entry tickets.

I preferred the views from Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center than this:
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9/11 Memorial:
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Gantry Plaza State Park. It was less crowded than the piers around the Brooklyn Bridge:
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Last edited by guyfrmblr : 23rd July 2016 at 17:19.
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Old 23rd July 2016, 03:33   #53
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

More views from the Gantry Plaza:
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We just roamed around the downtown and entered the Times Square in the evening. We expected a thinner crowd as it was very cold and as it was a normal weekend too, but it was as crowded as our earlier visit. We spent just around 15 minutes and drove back to Boston.
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Most of my friends seek my advice for offbeat places to visit in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire for weekends but they finally end up going to NYC. I fail to understand what attracts them so much in NYC to do repeated visits when there are better places in the North East. Looks like the concrete jungle attracts them more than the jungle of trees

Last edited by guyfrmblr : 23rd July 2016 at 17:21.
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Old 23rd July 2016, 17:23   #54
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

We have driven extensively in 21 states now. Most of our drives were limited to Eastern and Midwestern states. The drives we enjoy a lot are in the New England states with the personal favorite being Vermont.

As I mentioned in the opening post, when we travel from one state to another in India, we immediately notice changes in culture, food, language, attire, etc. We don't see much difference while moving between states here. The geography slightly changes between regions but everything else is almost the same. We have planned few long drives amounting to 5000 miles in Western states this September with a hope of finding some diversity.

On a lighter note, I remember my wife once telling me in one of the drives - "I don't see any difference here from state to state except the state laws!"
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Old 23rd July 2016, 18:26   #55
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Note from Moderator: Thread moved to Travelogues from Assembly Line section. Thanks for sharing the thread with us!
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Old 23rd July 2016, 19:27   #56
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Wow, @guyfrmblr - one helluva log of your experiences, some of them brought back memories from my road trips in the US more than a decade ago. Excellent pictures too, rating this a very well deserved 5 stars, Thanks for sharing

We have some equally good if not better places with water bodies, greenery and natural beauty here in India but we must learn to keep them neat and maintain bio-diversity instead of going all out in the name of "development"

Quote:
Originally Posted by guyfrmblr View Post
Mt Washington, New Hampshire:

We can drive upto the summit on Mt Washington Auto Road by paying a hefty toll. It's like $29 per car and driver and $9 for each additional individual. Folks here consider this drive as an adventurous one and paste a sticker on the car stating "This car has climbed Mt Washington". But for us, it's just another hill. The road is neither challenging nor as steep or challenging like many of those beautiful ghat sections which we find in India.
The drive is not really challenging but it's nice and the summit is beautiful, of course not like the Himalayas!
I still have the 'certificate' that says "This car has climbed Mt Washington" *wink*

Last edited by NPV : 23rd July 2016 at 19:42.
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Old 23rd July 2016, 21:49   #57
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Quote:
Originally Posted by guyfrmblr View Post
We have driven extensively in 21 states now. ... ...
Amazing travelogue. Wonderful photography.

I have never been to USA and may never go. The internet being what it is, I have lots of friends there, but I never got such a wonderful online tour as this!
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Old 24th July 2016, 08:07   #58
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re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Quote:
Originally Posted by NPV View Post
We have some equally good if not better places with water bodies, greenery and natural beauty here in India but we must learn to keep them neat and maintain bio-diversity instead of going all out in the name of "development"
You are absolutely right. If we maintain properly, nothing can beat our places. The problem is that we don't treat public property/places as ours. We always treat it as others' and hence the negligence.

Quote:
The drive is not really challenging but it's nice and the summit is beautiful, of course not like the Himalayas!
I still have the 'certificate' that says "This car has climbed Mt Washington" *wink*
Yes, the views from the summit is very beautiful. The best thing is that each time it provides different experiences with the constantly varying weather pattern. Once it was an absolutely clear sky (which is a very rare phenomenon), other time the summit was covered with a thin blanket of snow. I had been there this noon with some of my friends and the weather pattern was completely different. It was a hide and seek game between the sun and the clouds. Visibility was zero while descending and it was quite an experience. Few pics from today's visit:
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Cog rail disappearing into the clouds:
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At the base:
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Last edited by guyfrmblr : 24th July 2016 at 08:08.
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Old 25th July 2016, 04:48   #59
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Re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

First of all congrats for taking out time and writing the travelogue. I've been to many of these places but i could never finish writing a single trip.

BTW i live very close to Cherry hill, where you stayed during one of your trips

Although its summer i've hardly managed to go to a single place in the last 3-4 months and especially after getting a BMW :(

Did you visit Acadia? thats a must do place on the east coast. Bar Harbour and the national park are really worth visiting and its really close from Boston compared to NJ.
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Old 25th July 2016, 06:19   #60
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Re: Lost in the United States in search of diversity

Quote:
Originally Posted by aditya_rao View Post
Did you visit Acadia? thats a must do place on the east coast. Bar Harbour and the national park are really worth visiting and its really close from Boston compared to NJ.
I haven't visited Acadia and Bar Harbor. Those places are in my to do list. Have just visited Quoddy head and height of land in Maine. Need to decide a proper weekend to visit Acadia as it gets crowded during long weekends. Also planning to drive to Baxter State Park in Maine. Heard it's very beautiful.
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