Fake Plymouth, Philadelphia, Washington DC and Flying J!

Ok so from where I left off last time, we were going through Massachusetts - namely around the Cape Cod area which is where we found Plymouth, or Fake Plymouth as we like to call it.

Fake Plymouth
Well, I am beginning to disagree with those that say that America has no history - but Plymouth here takes the biscuit. The book that Sam gave us before we left has become something of a bible to us - and even warned us of Fake Plymouth. Nevertheless, we arrived at one of their many tourist information buildings and ventured inside to see what they had to offer. The old guy sat behind the desk sprang up from his statue-like seated position and unfolded a map of Plymouth. Fifteen minutes passed, by which point he had circled and marked pretty much every building in the town suggesting that we go to all of them as Plymouth had soooooo much history. The main thing he wanted us to see was this "Plymouth Stone".


We left the office and headed along the seafront. We were first greeted by the presence of "The Mayflower II" - our first piece of re-built history. The original boat brought loads of people over from England to settle there, but this boat was just re-built and even looks new. We didn't pay to go on board. Further along we found this stupid stone. The whole town seems to revolve around this protected stone. What is this stone? Well it's a stone they fished out of the water and they think - yes think - that some of the first settlers may have stood on it when they hit land. Hahaha, ok.

There's lots more 'possibly this happened' and 'we think that happened' within Plymouth but we didn't stick around too much longer to see it all. The town itself is really nice looking and clean. The only resemblance to Plymouth in England is that the beaches were a bit scabby :).

Philadelphia Wal*Mart
We left Plymouth and headed for Philadelphia. Along the way we decided we'd stop at a Wal*Mart for the evening. Not all Wal*Marts offer free overnight RV parking, so we had to just pick one and hope for the best. We arrived at downtown Philadelphia and found a Wal*Mart opposite some run-down looking buildings and a stip club - not that great but we were tired and the shop closed at 22:00, we were there at 21:58 and you need to ask before you park (so we didn't have time to think about it too much!).

We park up and rush to the doors where loads of people are trying to get in, but they'd locked the doors. Luckily, we asked some guy (who didn't look at all like he worked there) if we could stay overnight and he mumbled "ya have ta ask der manager " before we could say "Ok can we see the manager?" he said "jus park in the corner, yea the corner... over there ". Quite content with that, we parked over in the corner where there were a few trucks and an RV. It didn't take long before we both fell asleep.

12:15am and Ed is awoken by some guy shouting down the phone at someone telling them he's gonna blast them up the wall and to come meet him now and they'll sort it out. This guy was right outside the front of Roger, I could just see through the gaps in our homemade curtains. Continuing to shout and, more worryingly, getting more and more aggressive I began to weigh up the idea of getting in the drivers seat and moving somewhere else. I decided against this for now as Roger is getting on a bit and does take a few minutes to warm up, so I decided to lay low and just watch what's going on. Sarah's totally oblivious and snoring haha. I didn't want to wake her and worry her unless I had to.

The guy walked down a bit and to his car where his girlfriend (I imagine) is there looking upset and crying a bit. The guy was playing around in his boot, and occasionally going to the rear side door and what looked like a guy laying in there that this guy was punching a few times. Weird. Ever more weird, a limo pulled up near him and the guy in the limo just stared at this guy for about 10 - 15 mins. Eventually, another car came and parked about 2 spaces from where the original dodgy guy was. I'm under the assumption that this new car was just a weary traveller looking to get some sleep. This car seemed to scare off both the limo and the shouty guy. With them gone, I fell back asleep.

Philadelphia - The "Rocky" Steps
The next morning I told Sarah that I don't think we should make a habit of sleeping in downtown Wal*Marts unless we really have to, and she agreed. We parked in a parking lot in the city centre and walked in a random direction hoping to find some things to see. We arrived at this big tent next to a museum (which had lots of steps which we didn't go up yet). In this tent they were giving our free muffins, bananas and tissues. The old muffin master - Sarah - went straight in for a blueberry one, whilst I opted for a banana. We headed up town to look for a few things to see. It was a nice walk - but not alot of interest for us up there. We eventually headed back down to the tent area and it clicked. Those steps are the ones that Rocky ran up in the film! That's why there's this big statue of a guy next to the steps of Rocky himself - DUH!


Naturally we ran up the steps - I won :). Had a look around at the top which gave a nice view of the city, then we headed back to the car. Like some carparks, you have to pay before you get back to your car so we put the ticket in the slot - BOOM $26 please. WTF I actually said out loud as we'd only been there a few hours, and with that a guy appeared from nowhere, kinda like a genie really.

He asked if we were members of the art museum, to which I replied "no.". With that, he pulled out this card, put it in the same slot where our ticket went and doodledoo, the price dropped by $16, so we only had to pay $10. Ecstatic, I put in ten bucks and turned round to say thanks, but the guy had disappeared. Strange... We then left Philadelphia. Oh yeah - Roger ONLY JUST cleared the 7ft clearance in there - that was pretty funny.

Maryland
We headed directly for Maryland as Washington DC is just south of this state. It got late and we found a rest area just inside the state line. We drove in and decided to stop for the maximum alotted time, three hours. The reason I decided we wouldn't stay longer was because the rest area is actually patrolled and you'll get thrown out. I set the alarm for 2:30am and fall asleep in an instant. Beep Beep Beep goes the alarm, and for the second time in less than 24 hours another WTF comes out. I quickly turn the alarm off and go back to sleep :D. 8:30am and we wake up, not moved on or ticketed or anything. Nice.


Following the advice of Steve, I found LOADS of vouchers for motels and places to stay in one of those free newspaper stands (found one at the rest area). We pick a motel (Super 8) and decide to head there for the night. I did some work and then we headed out to a pub round the corner for the evening. Man, there were a few characters there, namely Mary. She's kind of a cross between a typical American and a crazy cat lady (she had no cats, but plenty of the craziness!).

After having more free drinks bought for us, and being asked about 54 times if "Scallywag" is an offensive saying in England (to which we said nope, but kept getting told that we're wrong because their "english friend said it's really bad to call someone a scallywag in the UK") we went back to the motel.

Not having drank much since we've been here, I woke up today with a nightmare hangover and the infamous phrase "I'm never drinking again" which will probably be voided in less than a week.


Washington DC
I actually liked it in Washington DC (which isn't in any state by the way - it's just a federal district). It wasn't as boring as political as I said it would be. It was really hot today too which was nice but Sarah is pretty sunburnt :(. There's not alot to point out here, as it's the same as you've probably all seen on TV - but the distance between that big pointy statue thing and the White House is further than you think.


They did have some really lame quotes engraved in stone around the place and it's really not suprising that the majority of the people here all love God because it's drummed into them from day zero left right and centre. There's no question at all to them, its just the truth and thats the way it is.


I did find it funny that they were having a dinosaur exhibition thing in Buffalo. I even asked Adam (one of Garry's sons) about it and he doesn't believe in dinosaurs (as the Earth is only about 6000 years old), so I left it at that.

Oh yeah, we saw lots of Seg Way goons, look:


Flying J
Well well well (three holes in the ground - Sam!). Flying J is a truck stop (we're in the Virginia one) which has a designated area for RV's to also park overnight for free. They have a restaurant, shop, toilets and a games room which is all open 24/7. It's much safer here than Wal*Mart as we're miles out of town, there's loads of people round and they have their own security. They even have the Internet which is what I'm connected to, sat in Roger typing away. We had an all-you-can-eat buffet earlier here which is about $9 - really good value and the food's good too! We're definately going to find more Flying J's as we travel around and attempt to stay at as many as possible.

Next stop? We have no idea, slowly working our way South though. It's getting hotter :).

More blog soon! Love to everyone, and by the way can someone give me an Ollie update? I did ask on Facebook!

Ed & Sarah xxx