We started the day with a trip to the playground so E and Dottie could have a decent run around together, then packed the car and said our goodbyes. It’s been so great staying with these guys, we will miss them heaps and hopefully get a chance to catch up again before too long. 

 Soon enough we were out of the DC sprawl and on to the Interstate 95, which heads all the way to our destination in Connecticut. Leaving Virginia for Maryland, we stopped north of Baltimore for a quick coffee and recharge, then hit the road again. Adding to the count of states for the day, the I95 briefly passed through Delaware, then into Pennsylvania. We were struck by the amount of green forest around the highway, I was expecting more urban sprawl in this part of the country.

Around lunchtime we reached Philadelphia. We had been told the best place for a Philly Cheese Steak was “Pat’s King of Steaks” which featured in the movie Rocky, movie appearances being the yardstick of culinary quality.

Owing to some dubious GPS navigation we ended taking some backstreets through a very run down area of the city. It was clear that Philly has some real poverty issues, the economic downturn looked to have hit hard here.

Pat’s is in an Italian area of Philadelphia, with lots of grocers and restaurants and the like. I was reminded of parts of Sydney road in Coburg, but a fair bit narrower.

Deb did a fabulous job of navigating through the strict ordering process – “Three Americanos wit” and we soon had three rolls with thin sliced steak, American cheese and with (wit) onions. They actually weren’t too bad, although I wouldn’t be rushing back for more I could see their appeal after a night on the turps.

Thus refreshed, we climbed back into the car and headed off, into New Jersey and along the interminable turnpike, a long stretch of concrete nothingness. The considered wisdom was for people to travel at least 10mph over the speed limit so I guess speed cameras aren’t a big thing here.

By the time we crossed the George Washington bridge into New York and the Bronx E was starting to get pretty tired and cranky, but we survived the journey into Connecticut and our stop for the night, Stamford.

Exhausted from eight hours of driving we had a quick meal at a nearby diner and crashed.