This will probably be our last blog as we leave the US on Sunday to return home

Sunday 1st November
We spent the day looking around the museums in Washington DC. The Smithsonian is actually a group of museums and we decided to go to the Air and Space museum and the American History museum. There is heaps to see and we easily could have spent more time at both museums. We also went to the holocaust museum, which is a pretty humbling experience. Surprisingly, all the museums in Washington are free of charge !

Monday 2nd November
We left Washington to drive to Lancaster County (where the Amish live) in Pennsylvania. On the way we stopped at the Harley Davidson factory in York to do a factory tour but much to my disappointment, the next available tour was over 2 hours away and we wanted to make sure we reached Lancaster during daylight. We also stopped at the Hershey factory and we ended up buying a heap of chocolate. Now, I am not a big chocolate eater but I actually think that the Cadbury chocolate we have back in Australia is much better than Hershey (Hershey chocolate tastes a bit like the cheap compound chocolate you can sometimes buy.) Leanne and the kids actually think that it is nice chocolate.
We reached the B&B we were staying at by about 3.00pm and then spent a couple of hours driving around the farming areas of Lancaster County. We saw lots of Amish horse drawn buggies and Amish kids coming home from school. Although some of the Amish are not as “fundamental” as they used to be and now have some creature comforts, the owner of the B&B gave us directions to an area where we there is no electricity and we saw cornfields being harvested by a farmer with a team of horses.

Tuesday 3rd November
After a really good nights sleep and a great breakfast from our hosts at the Apple Bin Inn we set off for the long drive to Niagara Falls. Lots of pretty scenery on the way and after crossing the border into Canada (finally a country that works in kilometres not miles and Celsius not Fahrenheit) we arrived in Niagara at about 6.00pm.

Wednesday 4th November
Niagara Falls was cold ........... real cold. We woke up to zero degrees with a forecast max of 4 degrees. We walked down to viewing area for the falls and although the view was amazing we bought tickets to go “behind the falls” where they supply you with a plastic poncho and take you down to a viewing platform at the base of the falls and there are also 2 viewing portals directly behind the falls that you can see through. It was cold and wet, but worth it.
Once you are down there you can really get an appreciation of the power of the water. 154 million litres of water a minute are going over the falls !!
The guy whose B&B we stayed at told us to take the time to drive about 40 minutes to a place called Niagara on the lake. It was probably the prettiest drive we have had all the time we have been here and the little town of Niagara on the lake is a bit like Hahndorf. Even though we were only about 30 kilometres from the US border, you can tell Canada is so much more like home. We even found a bakery that sold Sausage Rolls and meat pies. Over here it is all burgers, fries, tacos and pizzas so we were happy to have something more familiar for lunch.
Driving back into Niagara Falls we passed a Helicopter tour company offering flights over the falls and when we had purchased our tickets for the “behind the falls” it came with a discount voucher for the helicopter flight. We had to convince Emily to come along but the flight was great ............ it was only 10 minutes but was a once in a lifetime experience. We took some great pictures and video and Josh got to sit with the pilot while Leanne, Emily and I were in the back.

Thursday 5th November
What a long and boring day! We were up early to drive to Buffalo and we then had to catch a plane to Washington and then a connecting flight to San Francisco. Arrived in San Francisco about 7.00pm.

Friday 6th November
No luck with the weather again. It didn’t really rain it was just an annoying fine misty drizzle for most of the day. We walked from our hotel at Fishermans wharf up through Chinatown and Little Italy to the main shopping district there we caught the cable car to Lombard Street (the crookedest street in the world) and walked down it and back to Fishermans wharf. The cable car was packed and actually a little bit uncomfortable.
We went to Alcatraz on the night tour which was pretty interesting and they show you the cells of famous inmates (like Al Capone and the Robert ‘birdman’ Stroud) and escape attempts that were made. The audio tour is really well presented and is narrated by former prison officers and inmates.
Well, that will probably be the end of the Pease USA blog. On Saturday we are going to go to the Golden Gate Bridge (weather looks better) and also to Golden gate park (San Francisco’s version of Central Park) and on Sunday we leave to come home. I hope everyone enjoyed reading about our travels. Obviously there is a lot more to talk about that what I have written for these blogs and I am sure we will catch up with everyone at some stage.

Carl, Leanne, Josh and Emily