It’s the end of the holiday and here are a few things that didn’t neatly fit anywhere else in the previous blogs.
Number Plates
Over the 12 days we were in New England we travelled a total of 1,241 miles in our ugly Ford Bronco. An average of only 124 a day over the ten days we had the car which doesn’t seem very many but on some days we weren’t travelling at all.
To keep us amused while travelling a friend had suggested trying to see how many different number plate States we could spot. In the end, we managed to get to 46 missing out on the following:
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- West Virgina
It appears that the residents of the above don’t get about much although I think those in Alaska could be excused!
While this was a vaguely interesting diversion from the tedium of a long drive, it became less so when Helen spent time walking up and down car parks searching for the elusive states!
Little Free Libraries
I have already said in previous posts we came across some really great bookshops on our travels. What we also came across were many of these small boxes containing a small number of books installed as part of the Little Free Library movement.
The idea is to encourage more reading and that you take a book of your own to swap with one in the library. On close inspection the books that had been left weren’t going to get pulses racing but the idea was sound and the boxes themselves were intertesting.
What I hadn’t realised until I looked at the website was that this is a worldwide movement and there is a box just a few minutes down the road from our home. I will definitely be checking that out.
Global Exit
You may remember that on the first day’s entry I described the “The Terrifying Global Entry Interview“. What we hadn’t realised was that acceptance onto Global Entry also gave us an additional benefit: TSA PreCheck® which allows speedier exit through security as you don’t have to take anything out of your bags. If this sounds like what is being rolled out at UK airports (albeit slowly) then it is but in this case only available to those that pay rather than the great unwashed. It’s the American way.
We went through and it took no time at all but then again the whole airport was pretty quiet so I’m not sure that it made much difference on this occasion.
Having been accepted onto the programme we feel the need to maximise our usage of it so we may well be back soon – watch this space…
Come and visit Michigan next time! We have plenty of out-of-state license plates here too! Glad you enjoyed your vacation!
I don’t think that we have ever been to Michigan. What’s there worth visiting?
By the way, I sent you an email did you get it? Might have dropped into spam. N