On The Road Again!

Friday 26 June

We collected our hire car (this time a VW Jetta sedan with a huge boot) in the morning and left NY having re-booked our hotel (with a queen sized bed next time) for our return on 4 July to enjoy the celebrations in the city that night. Today we drove a couple of hours out of town to Woodbury Common factory outlets. There are hundreds of shops here but we only visited a very small number of them. While we were busy shopping the weather changed suddenly from bright hot sunshine to a severe thunderstorm with the temperature dropping considerably at the same time. Out came the spray jackets and umbrellas but we were drenched. The storm didn't look like easing in a hurry and we ended up staying in Middletown, about 20miles (30km) up the road, for the night. As we emerged from our car and headed towards the hotel entrance we spotted a strange little animal sheltering under the next car. We were told this was a woodchuck - so cute! I hope it found a safe warm spot for the night as it certainly wasn't there this morning when we left.

Saturday 27 June

Today we drove over 400miles (approx 600km) and have just arrived in Tonnamunda which is very close to the border of Canada and just a few miles from Niagara Falls which we will visit tomorrow. It's very exciting. We drove through parts of Pennsylvania today and through NY state which is very extensive indeed. Again the weather did strange things, hot and sunny one minute, cold and raining the next - no guarantees of staying one way or the other.

We passed through lots of interesting little towns and stopped at Corning where corningware and glass is made. It was a fascinating place with lots of gorgeous pieces of glass. We also detoured off the main road to investigate the car racing track at Watkins Glen. There's a Indies series race being held there next weekend and we spotted some racing cars doing some practice laps. However we were unable to go through the gates to have a close view.

Tomorrow will be exciting. We will see another beautiful wonder and will cross the border into another country!