Bogan in the City: 17 down, 33 to go

Happy new year everyone!

Straight off the bat, one of our targets in life is to hit all of the 50 states. We are officially at 17 so far...

In 2007 we came for our honeymoon and covered California, Utah, Arizona and Nevada. I went to the District of Columbia (DC) on a trip to Washington for business and have been to Florida a number of times too.

Since getting our car we've covered New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont (all of these within one day and by midday mind you), Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

I'm on annual leave (I can't call it that here as noone knows what I'm talking about, so it's 'vacation') for the next two weeks and we plan on driving down the I-95 South to Georgia, which will give us another 8 states, taking us to the 50% mark. The biggest challenge will be Alaska which is a 4 day drive away, and Hawaii, which is a 10 hour flight from New York.

You all know that I am not so good at hitting my challenges, one was a celebrity sighting every month. I'm crap at it. It's not from trying, I always have my eyes peeled, I have a iPhone app that tells me what's being filmed where, I frequent areas that celebs live, but still no luck. My friend Liz from work on the other hand just stumbles across them - she just happened to be at Bryant Park when they were filming Glee, and was walking through Times Square when Lady Ga Ga was on a walk. Liz isn't the only lucky one, anytime I raise the subject someone will say "oh yeah, I saw Clint Eastwood the other day", or "I saw Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom near Grand Central", or "I saw Cyndi Lauper at the Ice Hockey"... for crying out loud - do I have an unknown scent that sends them away from me or what? Never fear, I don't give up, I will keep on trying though the chances of hitting my target is near on impossible now.

So, on our travels, we've seen some really beautiful places. We saw snow on the beach in Maine (where they also sell Lobster rolls, Lobster Mac & Cheese, Lobster everything),

the Olympic Ski Jumping jumps and dog sled rides at Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics (luckily no giant alligator like in the movie - in saying that I don't think the climate is so conducive to alligators and I don't actually think there is a lake there),

..towns where skidoos are the main form of transportation in Vermont (for some reason writing Vermont got me thinking on what people from Vermont are called - is it Vermontians, Vermontinese, Vermans, Vermese or what? - according to wiki answers it's actually Vermonters... boring if you ask me) - this place does have a lake, though I don't recommend swimming at this time of year,

saw cute little barns in New Hampshire and learnt that if you live there you "live free or die" (I guess they don't beat around the bush there!),

went to Tony Soprano's old stomping ground "Bada Bing" (now known as Satin Dolls - when I say 'went to' I mean the outside),

and saw the F1 track island in Montreal (well, where the track should be underneath the 2 metres.. not exaggeration - of snow).

I also managed to do my first snow angel and built a very poor excuse for a snow man, but to be honest it was minus 13 degrees and I was seriously in danger of getting frost bite even through my gloves and my boots (mental note, buy some more appropriate cold weather gear if heading to places below minus 5 degrees).

... and all of this with little Jack man in tow...

Christmas day was lovely, well to start with at least. I cooked up a feast of turkey listening to a marathon of Christmas carols. We then went to walk off said feast with a trip to Coney Island.

Unfortunately, at this point the day turned a little sour. The beautiful feast did not agree so well with me, so our Coney Island walk was cut short and we had to rush home where I then spent the next 24 hours on the couch with a very bad belly. I think the culprit was consuming some leftover Cranberry Sauce from Thanksgiving - it looked alright, it smelt alright and tasted ok, but it was the only thing I had that Brett didn't. In the US there is no Boxing Day so the 26th is a work day, but I couldn't end up getting there as it was not safe to venture more than 5 metres from the house!

For New Years it was celebrated at friend Lindsay's house at a small party. It was a great night filled with Champers and good company.

... and I discovered that I may actually be able to have a career in taking photos for Christmas cards. I am not a cat person, but I even find this one cute.

Last Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day so Brett and I ventured over the river and checked out some more Manhattan sites...
The Empire State (currently tallest building in NYC):