Planes, trains and automobiles...one very long day...



Manchester Airpoirt


The morning of our trip dawned as we made our way to Manchester Airport. Meet and greet parking that didn't involve any meeting or greeting and the realisation that online check-in does nothing to reduce the amount of time spent queueing at the airport were simultaneously annoying yet not worth getting annoyed about. Needless to say we were soon on board the aircraft and we took off on time to cross the Atlantic.
Both boys were fantastically well behaved on the flight, although Benjamin pushed nap-time to it's limits and became very grumpy before finally dropping off. 7 hours and 50 minutes later we touched down at JFK and after a reasonably short wait (compared to our last visit to NYC) we cleared customs to find our bags waiting for us all safely delivered to American soil.







On a 'Special' train!


Next came the absolute highlight of Benjamin's day - a 2 minute ride on a 'special train' to the rental car lots which he talked about non-stop for the next hour! After quickly cramming our luggage into the nearest available Jeep Patriot we were OFF!!!

We're OFF!!

A wrong turn within the first half mile - too busy spotting yellow cabs - meant that we had to do some emergency re-routing but we were soon back on track and heading across the spectacular Verrazano Bridge (where Jakey grabbed his first glimpse of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, across Staten Island and down the Garden State Parkway....which is not nearly as lovely as it sounds but is a massive (7 lanes at points) highway.

Our first overnight stop, Seaside Heights, was not quite as expected...it would appear that April is still out of season here so the fantastic Boardwalk and seaside atmosphere (and weather!) that we had anticipated was in reality a mostly closed and dead little town full of empty motels...and it is COLD and VERY WINDY!!!

Seaside Heights

Still, our perhaps misguided choice of first stop did mean that the boys were both fast asleep, sharing a double bed in the same room as us, by 8pm without an ounce of fuss - even with the light on...although to be fair they had been up for 20 hours by that point!!!!

All in all, our first day has been absolutely brilliant, to wake a 2 year old and an 11 year old in the middle of the night, drive for over an hour to the airport, fly them 3409 miles in just under 8 hours, then drive them over 100 miles and for them to still be well-behaved enough to go out to dinner when they have been awake for 18 hours is testament to what good kids they are....lets hope it stays that way!