December 15 -- GRAND FINALE

For the first time, on this trip’s last leg, I had a passenger! Leslie is a high-end real estate broker and someone with whom I have a great time doing fun things here in NYC. We first met about ten years ago through friends.
It was cold, clear and sunny when we set out for Amy’s wedding in the Boston area. This is a drive that I must have done more than 100 times over the years.

Many high-flying Manhattanites are collected at their doors in full-size black SUV’s. Happily, Leslie was content to be picked up in a pint-size Mini (photographed to make it look as BIG as possible).

We headed up the West Side Highway past barges and other ship traffic on the Hudson River. Over the Henry Hudson Bridge at the top of Manhattan, through Riverdale and the Bronx, and then up through Westchester on the Saw Mill River Parkway to Rt. 684. From 684, we got on I-84, which took us into Connecticut.

Via Waterbury.

Through Hartford, with Trinity College chapel in the distance and dirty snow on the road.

The last fuel stop of the trip! Northern Connecticut, the ground getting pretty white.

Captured on camera at the wheel for the first (and only) time in almost 10,000 miles, just before arriving at my parents' house, our home base for the wedding.

My parents.

Amy’s wedding took place at the Congregational Church in Concord, MA. It was lovely! In addition, Amy’s new husband Walter is a wonderful guy. Afterwards, the couple had their reception in a beautiful old house at the Lyman Estate in Waltham. Little mushroom toasts to die for.

It was a great time! This is Amy and a bunch of us old college classmates horsing around before an official photo.

The happy couple.


The . . .

Stats Coming Up!

There have been requests for me to divulge the total number of miles I drove on the trip.
I’ll post with some stats, including the total number of miles I drove, in the next 36 hours or so. Any last minute guesses? (Survey at right).

But Wait! There's More . . .

While NYC is home, I didn’t get my act together to start blogging and keeping track of the trip until I reached Boston in November.
In fact, it was not until then that my brother Rich (see "November 22 -- Thanksgiving" &
"November 21 -- Trains and Glass") suggested that I record the trip using a blog and helped me to get this one started. Big ups, Bro’! In addition, my high school friend Amy’s wedding is December 15 outside Boston. So I’ve decided to make the wedding the last big event of this adventure. One more travel entry!

December 14 -- New York City!

Norman got up early, made coffee and had breakfast with me. A generous send-off on the second-to-last leg of my journey!

The D.C. NYC corridor is very familiar to me; I have driven this road scores of times and sometimes feel it I could do it half-asleep. This time, however, the road was foggier than I ever remember.

Beyond Maryland, this is the Delaware Memorial Bridge – what little you can see of it, at least.

The road in front of Newark airport, in NJ, is always distracting.

Driving toward the Lincoln Tunnel in NJ, you can see the Empire State Building in the distance.

Closer to the tunnel, there’s a great view of Manhattan’s skyline. This terrible picture shows the top of the Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” postcard in my pocket!

Going into the Lincoln Tunnel.

In Manhattan, crossing 42nd St on 9th Ave. Back in New York City. Whenever you return from being away, the energy of this amazing place hits you in the most palpable way.

Hell’s Kitchen.

Behind Lincoln Center – almost home!

Parking next to the Dakota apartment building, in front of which John Lennon was shot 27 years ago, on December 8, 1980. As in Chicago, I found a great spot available virtually only to those in Minis – pedestrians were interested to see if I’d fit.

I got back to my apartment and was greeted by the view out the window at the Apple Bank Building and the Ansonia. It felt great to be home.

The best sunset since California!

December 13 -- Night with Norman

After dinner, I drove to the NW quadrant of the District to stay the night with my high school friend, Norman. We first met in September 1980, when our parents dropped us off at boarding school in Western Massachusetts. Needless to say, after a year with 20 other boys in cubicles (no ceilings, doors or electricity) in Bob Gula’s eighth grade dormitory, we knew each other very well.

Since leaving school, Norman has worked as a nightclub manager, played in a band called Tone (link at right) and, most recently, become a real estate developer. He lives with his fiancé, Kate, in a cool town house.

After I arrived, Norman showed me one of his development projects, a particularly charming two-apartment home a couple of doors down the street from his own. The building, a red brick town house, blended into the historical neighborhood but also had modern, stylish windows and other touches that made it particularly attractive.

We stayed up chatting until late -- testament to the amount of conversation 27+ years of friendship and a couple of curious minds can generate!

December 13 -- Dinner with Jennifer

I walked from the Jets exhibit towards the Milestones of Flight gallery and into the Air & Space’s grand entrance overlooking the Mall. There, waiting for me next to the Gemini capsule and below the Sputnik reproduction, was Jennifer. And the sadness I felt at having seen the last museum of the trip melted away!

Jennifer and I met in 1985 at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. We lived in the same residence hall ("St. Regs"), had a great year, and have been friends ever since. Since school, Jennifer has been at the World Bank, the AARP, and now does fascinating work on behalf of consumers at a Federal agency.

We immediately jumped into the Mini and headed past a bunch of Washington landmarks to Georgetown. There, Jennifer gave me a driving tour. Georgetown's as attractive as I remembered it; what I never appreciated before the tour, however, is how green and non-urban certain parts of it are. Jennifer pointed out all sorts of sites, including the house where Katherine Graham lived!


We went to dinner at a spot called the DC Boathouse at MacArthur and Cathedral. It’s a super-friendly neighborhood place, with a really wonderful, cozy lounge area featuring commodious, plush sofas and chairs in the back. We made ourselves very comfortable and were able to catch up over “spicy” and “chocolaty” glasses of merlot. Truth be told, we were even spicier than the wine!

Jennifer’s dad joined us for dinner. He and Jennifer’s mom, who passed away recently, have served as kind of uber-parents in DC, opening their house and being an amazing welcome committee for their children’s friends, singers and musicians, and numerous others. Jennifer’s dad is really fun, and we had a lively, engaging meal. My French dip roast beef sandwich was very good, and Jennifer and her dad each had a yummy looking kebab.

I am hoping to see Jennifer this weekend when she comes to the City for a reunion with a couple of her English godchildren!

December 13 -- National Air & Space on the Mall

Just imagine it! All in the same room!! The first aircraft to fly the Atlantic; the first American jet airplane; the first supersonic jet; the first American spacecraft; the command module from the first mission to the moon; a piece of moon rock; and much, much more! The ORIGINAL Wright Flyer, which first flew 103 years and one day ago, is at this museum. What a collection!

And it's the last museum of my trip! :-(

It took about thirty minutes in rain and fog to drive from the Air & Space facility at Dulles to the Mall to see the granddaddy of American aviation museums. Here’s the Washington Monument through the rain and clouds:




The White House -- see if you can spot it under the big tree.

Here are some of the highlights of this great resource:

The original Wright Flyer. On Thursday, December 17, 1903, this was the first aircraft ever to fly under its own mechanical power. With Orville at the controls, the first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.

Word is, Wilbur and Orville flipped a coin to see who would be the first to pilot the plane. While Orville got to be at the controls for the world’s first powered flight, Wilbur didn’t do too badly. The brothers took turns at the helm in four attempts that day, and Wilbur stayed aloft longest and farthest: 59 seconds and 852 feet!

No one much talks about the 5 Kitty Hawk, NC lifeguards who carried the Wright Flyer up the hill for each flight and served as ground crew on that historic day.


The Spirit of St. Louis, in which Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly the Atlantic solo. On the morning of May 20, 1927, "Lucky Lindy" took off from Long Island, NY; he landed 33 hours later, the evening of May 21, at Le Bourget field outside of Paris, France.

Messerschmitt ME-262, the world’s first jet fighter. It became operational in 1944.

Bell X-1, in which Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.

The Mercury Friendship spacecraft, in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.

Gemini 4 spacecraft from which the first U.S. space walk took place on June 3, 1965.

And here's Ed White on that space walk. Hmm. I don't know if that looks so fun.

Apollo 11 command module from the first trip to land on the Moon, July 20 1969.

A lunar landing module from the Apollo program.

Spaceship One, in 2004 the first manned commercial spacecraft to go into space under its own power and then fly back to earth in level flight. EAA in Oshkosh has the best exhibit about this airplane-spaceship, with superb video and a replica that periodically bends in two exactly as the real plane does on reentry into the atmosphere. There's also a full-size model at the Seattle Air and Space Museum.


The airliner hall. You can see the massive front-section of a Northwest Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. According to information at the museum, the 747 has carried 3.5 billion passengers, the equivalent of more than half the world’s population!

Italian Macchi 202 fighter – the only one of the trip. I saw this model fly in 1980 or '81 at the Paris air show at Le Bourget Airport (where Lindbergh Landed), and still remember the amazing rumble of its engine as it lifted off of the runway.

December 13 -- Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, VA

After a delicious breakfast of muffins and Chris’s special eggs, I left Charlottesville for the Smithsonian Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, near Dulles airport. This is a phenomenal new annex to the National Air & Space Museum, a hangar one football field wide and three long, filled with important and unusual air and spacecraft.

One half of the main hall. The silver aircraft is a controversial exhibit, the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Visitors try to throw bood or paint on this aircraft from time to time, and the security around the plane is very tight as a result.

Another view of the main hall with the supersonic Concorde airliner.

This view features the very first American – and the first successful -- passenger jet, the Boeing 707.

I took an overview tour which disappointed because a fair amount of the information provided by the docent was not correct. Nonetheless, if you go, it’s still worth taking the tour, which highlights most of the important planes. It’s really exciting to see that there’s still tons of room for more exhibits!

Below are a few more examples of the amazing exhibits:



The Space Shuttle Enterprise with the smallest manned space craft – a space suit in which an American astronaut flew around the space shuttle untethered.

Astronauts’ underwear!


Dornier Do 335 Arrow. This remarkable push-pull plane may have had the first ejection seat in an aircraft. Before ejecting, the pilot had to use a small, pre-installed bomb to blow off the back half of the aircraft so as not to be hit by the rear propeller upon exit. This is the only plane of this type remaining in the world.

Arado AR 234 Lightning. This is the only remaining example of this early German jet bomber.

Both innovative German aircraft.


Northrop N-1M flying wing. This is the first true flying wing with no tail. It took to the air on July 3, 1940.

Here’s the flying wing from above, parked next to a rare Northrop P-61C Black Widow WWII night fighter. This particular plane was used for weather research, flying into and around storms to gather data.

The museum’s new Lockheed Constellation, still being painted and restored.


This was the first plane to complete a solo-pilot, nonstop flight around the world. It's a Scaled Composites Global Flyer. Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who recently went missing in an experimental plane, completed the flight in March 2005. The plane was designed by Burt Rutan, who also designed Spaceship One, featured at EAA, in Seattle, and (the original) at the Air & Space in D.C.


1930’s Boeing Stratoliner, the first pressurized airliner.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

The nicest Russian Mig-21 I saw on the trip.

F-4 Phantom.

The only JSF X-35 (Joint Strike Fighter) of the trip.

One fun feature of the museum is a control tower that looks out over the Dulles runways. Because of rain, fog and time constraints, I didn’t make it to the top, but I bet it’s great!