Paris to USA

Charles de Gaulle airport proved to be no better going out than coming in, with only misleading signs pointing the way to incorrect queues for security and immigration checks. Snooty officials then tell you where to go. However, the American Airlines flight from Paris to New York JFK was, despite Mike's poor expectations, excellent, with a new aircraft, comfortable seats, good food, and best of all, very friendly cabin crew. The flight was over an hour late however due to (that classic unacceptable excuse), "late arrival of the incoming aircraft". The simplest way into New York City from JFK is on a shuttle bus which dropped us at Grand Central Terminal (only 100m from our hotel) along pretty terrible roads and freeways. This only cost $30 for the two of us. It's a comment on the state of the US Dollar, that this far amounts to less than half the fare for the same trip between Paris and the airport, the latter being maybe half the distance.

We spent a night in NYC before picking up our car, surprisingly exactly what we had booked, a Subaru (Legacy) and heading south as quickly as possible. We exited NYC via the Lincoln Tunnel and I95 south, and it's truly amazing how bad these very old roads are. They must be amongst the earliest "freeways" built under Eisenhower's post war plan, and they haven't been updated an iota ever since. It's a shame that America's premier city has such poor road infrastructure on its boundaries.

We left NY via New Jersey, without stopping as most of it was industrial, and soon reached the next state, Delaware. Rehoboth Beach, where we spent the night, was a delightful seaside town, and was very quiet at this time of year. We could tell by the myriads of beach houses, restaurants, and tourist facilities, that in the summer this place bursts at the seams. At Outback Steakhouse where we had dinner, we looked with interest at the other diners, including the young man who was eating his big steak absolutely raw! The next morning we headed off into Maryland and the town of Ocean City, much high rise here, and we do mean high rise, blocks and blocks of it like the Gold Coast. Obviously a very popular place to spend the summer, many people from Washington DC come here for a vacation. The interesting thing were the many canals on the west (non-ocean) side of the road, a huge inland waterway. Houses here all have a bit of water at their back yard.

Afternoon saw us arrive in Virginia, and the interesting town of Chincoteague. The whole area on this Atlantic Coast, has magnificent beaches and lots of low lying marshy areas, filled with bird life and deer. We noted with interest the sign outside the motel, "Hunters Welcome", and thought no more of it until we saw several pickup truck loads of them with lots of "dead things" in bags. Apparently it is hunting season here now, even in the State Park where we spent the afternoon, a little nervously, and saw some birds and lovely white-tailed dear. The coastline here is magnificent, and although it was not too cold, the weather pattern is still very mild for the time of year, it was windy, so a lovely salt mist spread along the coast. A highlight of this area is the Assateague Lighthouse which shines out over the Atlantic Ocean - we can see this lighthouse flashing from our motel in Chincoteague.