It's March 20th and we are in Montreal, Quebec. In the last week we have traveled through 11 states and Canada! Our apologies for the long post but we have had a jam-packed week. We really appreciate you following along in our journey.
We left Grandma Bearden's house determined to drive 1,000 miles to Cleveland. We made a stop in Oklahoma City to visit with one of Josh's high school friends, Regina. We had breakfast with her and she suggested that we visit the Oklahoma City Memorial. We didn't know what to expect but it turned out to be really nice and left us feeling somber. Still, it was really beautiful and worth checking out if you are in Oklahoma City.
We were back on the move with nothing but the open road ahead of us. We drove through Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Along the route we like to listen to local radio stations fade in and out as we drive through towns. Countless radio stations faded in and out but one thing remained constant, advertisements for the new Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos. Josh was determined to feast on one of these things before our drive was over. Around 11:00 pm while somewhere in Indiana, there was a Taco Bell conveniently located right off the highway. Leanne found them to be delicious but salty and Josh found them to be deliciously salty!
Our initial quest was to drive straight to Buffalo, NY but we convinced ourselves throughout the drive to stop in Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We continued on until we could no longer stay awake so we pulled into a Flying J's truck stop to catch some winks for a few hours. There is nothing like reclining in your front seat to sleep. After 3 hours of awesome sleep, we got back on the highway and were surprised by rush hour traffic. One of the lines for us of the trip so far was "Whoa, everyone is headed to work and we just woke up in a parking lot." That made us laugh for a little while. We are not sure how many miles we drove the day before but we do know that it was over 1,000.
We drove the remaining 2 hours to Cleveland to get our rock on! Our hotel was nice enough to let us check in at 10:00 am and after a hot shower we headed to the museum. From everything we had previously heard about Cleveland it didn't have the best reputation. However, we really enjoyed our time there. I am sure the weather had something to do with that since it was 76 degrees when we were there. It felt like the zombie apocalypse because everyone that lived in that town was outside enjoying the weather. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was fabulous. We especially enjoyed the Johnny Cash, Elvis, Pink Floyd exhibits, and pretty much everything else that was there. Josh even wore his Lynard Skynard shirt to represent! The only exhibits that we didn't visit were the movie exhibits because we were too afraid that we would fall asleep since we were running on only 3 hours of sleep.
That evening we went to a great restaurant by the name of Melt. This restaurant was a recommendation on Facebook by one of our awesome Denver friends. It was the icing on the cake for our experience in Cleveland. Cleveland should really think about changing their town motto to "Cleveland, it ain't that bad."
We headed northeast along Lake Erie in pursuit of Buffalo, NY to visit one of Leanne's good friends and Niagara Falls. We passed through Pennsylvania and New Jersey on our way to Buffalo. Jenn and Rob Jenkinson were wonderful hosts during our time in Buffalo. We ate wings at The Anchor Bar, the place where wings originated.
We explored Buffalo and made our way to Niagara Falls. We visited the American side before heading over to the Canadian side.
We stopped to have dinner and when we came out to make our way over to the Canadian side a thick fog had set in. Apparently, it is never foggy in Buffalo or Niagara so we considered ourselves really lucky when we saw this beautiful picture of the Canadian side of the falls:
Can you see the beautiful falls or are you questioning that there is a ghost in our picture? No, this is not a John Carpenter movie, it's Josh's shadow on the thick fog. Since we were unable to see the falls we will be making a quick return trip to snap an actual picture of the Canadian side of the falls on our drive back to the States. We really enjoyed our time in Buffalo with our great friends! Josh is going to miss his buddy, Bear, but two Bears in one house is one too many bears. Say that 10 times fast!
We left Buffalo and made the 8 hour drive to NYC to visit family and the 9/11 Memorial. Leanne's Aunt and Uncle were gracious enough to put us up for two nights and we enjoyed our time with them and her cousins.
Leanne's Aunt and Uncle live in Long Island so we took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan for the day to visit the 9/11 Memorial and one of Leanne's friends since middle school, Kelly. It was quite an emotional experience to visit the 9/11 Memorial and it's an experience we will never forget. After visiting the memorial, we grabbed coffee and walked around Central Park with Kelly. It was a beautiful day for the park.
We hopped the Long Island Railroad and made our way back to Long Island to hang out with our family before heading out the next morning. We passed time on the train by seeing what was the weirdest face Leanne could make and this is the winner:
Josh was worried that Leanne's face will be stuck that way so he asked to never see that face again.
On Monday morning we left Long Island and decided to take the scenic route through Vermont to get to Montreal. We added the following states to our drive to complete 11 states in 7 days: Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont. We wanted to stop in Burlington, VT to see the Magic Hat Brewery.
We crossed the border into Canada and arrived in Montreal around 11:00 pm on the 19th. We spent today walking around Montreal and even managed to get a few beers under our belt while walking. This is our first little taste of traveling out of the country on this trip to an area that speaks a different language. Right now we are staying in a hotel called "The Lovely Hotel". The shower is in the middle of the room and a curtain separates the toilet from the bed and there is only one channel that is in French but it actually is quite lovely. Montreal is beautiful and Josh thinks it's even more beautiful because we didn't have to drive the truck at all today.
We are heading to Quebec City on Friday so we will fill you in on our next post.
Ciao!
Leanne & Josh