Niagara and beyond

So I got off to a bit of a late start this morning but once I was finally out on the road I was rocking n' rolling.  I got a little too into my music and got a few looks from several other drivers as I blared Aerosmith and Journey with the windows down long before 9am this morning.  On top of the music I took advantage of a few opportunities to get some roadside footage via a flipcam since it was a little easier to have running and quickly turn off with no real distractions to the driving and I'm excited to put together a little something to share with you all but it will have to wait a few nights as I'm beginning to run low on energy tonight.

For the time being I'm still in NY state.  I had no idea it was such a large state.  I thought i would have at least been able to reach the PA state line before needing to find a place to crash for the night, but I was not so lucky.  I still have at least 1.5 hours before I cross that line tomorrow morning, but I will get there.  Other than my surprise for the size of NY, I have managed to get a lot done today. 

I reached Niagara Falls round 1:30pm and went on a 5 hour guided tour of the falls.  With the insane heat today I was very happy to have been able to catch a ride on the Maid of the Mist and get drenched by the historic falls.  It was quite refreshing, but for the lakes that feed into the falls being fresh water I will say that the water felt a little salty.  I struggled to see everything through my water covered glasses, and gave up before the boat reached the horseshoe fall.  I actually relied on my new favorite toy to get as many images saved and will say that my new toy was well worth the investment.  If anyone is interested in a new digital camera I HIGHLY recommend taking a look at the Sony Cyber-Shot.  It gives some amazing pictures and the panoramic feature and options within the feature give you the freedom to create and capture some unusual pictures (if you take the time to be a bit patient of course).  Here are a few of my favorite pictures from today's trip.

I will post more pictures and some of the videos I took in the next few days when I have a little more down time.  For now it is off to sleep before another early morning of driving.

Day 1 Mileage: 441 miles
Sights Seen: Niagara Falls

Cities for Day 2: Cleveland and Chicago

Out on the Open Road

For the last few days I have been trying to prep and pack for a cross country trip.  Now that it is the day to hit the road I feel like I'm not quite ready.  Of course the local coffee shop is not open this early in the morning so there's not much to help me get out of the morning funk until I'm able to find somewhere to get some joe, but once I do I have a feeling that the morning is going to turn around.  Until then I will just have to move slowly towards my westward direction.

At 4:30am I am still trying to pull everything together for my 5am departure time.  Even though I'm not awake yet by any means I'm excited to get out on the road.  I'm not taking much on the cross country adventure, but still feel like I just might be taking more than I need which always seems to be the case with me.  I think the only thing I feel like I'm really missing is being able to somehow bring my friends and family on the trip with me, so I'm going to do my best and make up for it right here by blogging as often as possible.  This will be the true test of AT&T and its service through the northern states as I'm sure there will be times I will be adding posts via an iPhone app.  But for now I must be getting my butt in gear and finish loading everything into my car including a few essentials I set aside to keep my entertained on the journey.

MUSIC ESSENTIALS:

• Green Day's American Idiot soundtrack
• American Idiot
• 21st Century Breakdown
• Addam's Family on broadway soundtrack
• Journey
• Cyndi Lauper
• The Runaways soundtrack
• sounds of Bollywood
• Silverstein
• Aerosmith
• The Police
• Will Smith
• misc. soundtracks

BOOK ESSENTIALS:

• Shiver (in prep for Linger)
• Ballard
• Beautiful Creatures
• Fallen
• hush, hush
• Hearts at Stake
• Tantalize
• Braced to Bite
• Tanya Huff's Blood Book vol. 1
• Family Secrets (to finally complete revision)

GEAR ESSENTIALS:

• MacBook 
• iPhone
• Sony Cyber-shot (which I can't wait to use)
• Canon HDV cam 
• FlipCam
• Final Cut

Now that I have all the essentials ready to go I must go load the car and find the nearest open coffee shop.  Until I write again...


Tenative itiniary for the day:
Starting point: Central Mass
First Sightseeing Stop: 361 miles
Possible Final Stop for the Day: 224 miles
Total Possible Miles Traveled for the Day: 585 miles