I set out at around 8.45am from the Red Roof Inn and cruise around Ann Arbour looking for a parking space to grab a Starbucks for breakfast, but find none free. So I carry on through the town, past the UMICH stadium to join the I84 for the cross-state drive to the I90 and on to the city of Chicago, Illinois.
 
‘It’s 246 miles to Chicago; I have some cigarettes; it’s grey; and I am not wearing sunglasses … Hit it,’ As the Blue Brothers would not be saying!
 
There are lots of roadworks on the I84 but no real delays, I just need to slow down from 70mph to 60mph to keep up with the trucks. There are also no speed cameras on the interstate but plenty of police waiting to pounce, so I keep my cruise control on unless overtaking. I had learnt that lesson on a road trip in California a few years earlier. Then I had been stopped by the blues and twos of a highway patrol – CHiPS! – on a completely clear stretch of interstate going downhill, having been clocked doing over 100mph. I was actually gobsmacked that the tank-like Oldsmobile saloon I was driving could actually go that fast and had been distracted from keeping an eye on the speedo by the conversations of my passengers. At least that is what I told the sunglasses and cap that invaded my driver-side window, eyeing the scene in the car, as they asked to see my ID. The very severe highway patrolman was not put off by the fact that I was a foreign tourist driving a hire car and, after a lecture telling me that I was going “too damn fast”, punctuated by the giggles of my unhelpful back seat passenger, he wrote me out a speeding ticket. This was – somehow – my first in any country where I have been driving. Handing it over, the policeman impressed on me that at the speed I had been driving he could quite rightly have taken me straight off to jail and stressed that I must comply with the conditions of the ticket which would provide me with a court hearing date at which, if I could not attend, I would need to plead over an internet link. He added that if I ignored this, I could find myself barred from entering the United States of America in the future as an undischarged felon. The lecture did its job – and stopped the giggler in the back seat. I made sure I complied with the instructions on the ticket, pleaded guilty in absentia online and paid my hefty fine of around $450. Lesson learned.    
 
Once past Kalamazoo, which seems a surprisingly big place, I decide to stop for a toilet break and a late brunch of a MacDonald’s quarterpounder and coffee at around 10.45am. There are still 120 miles to go to Chicago. As I make way back onto the interstate and continue my journey, I notice there are a lot of firework outlet shops around the area, each vying to be the biggest in the world. There are a lot of wineries too, being close to Lake Michigan, and an advert for one brand, Red Heron, grabs my attention near the Indiana state border. So I turn off to sample some at a St Julian winery outlet near Union Pier. Red Heron itself turns out to be nastily sweet, but there is an OK Merlot which I buy to take home for my wine-loving Dad, and I also get a bottle of Riesling which I’ll take to my Belarussian friends, Vladek and Irina, who will be my hosts when I reach Oregon.
 
I think of taking a detour to drive through the Dunes State Park just to get my first view of Lake Michigan, however as you need to purchase a permit I decide instead to just head back onto the interstate and wait for Chicago to see the lake. Driving through the brief bit of Indiana which borders the lake I pass Gary, a big steel town which was a key material for the railroads which converge in the Midwest. Joining the ubiquitous I90 once again I get my first glimpse of Lake Michigan and the impressive skyline of the Windy City in the distance. Just 25 miles to go.
 
There is inevitably a build-up of traffic as the interstate bisects the city. I am anxious looking for the Ohio Street turn-off as the exits come up thick and fast. But I find it easily and within five minutes I have managed to find the hotel I have pre-booked – the Best Western Inn of Chicago. It is slap-bang in the best bit of downtown, the Millionaires Mile, a block away from Michigan Avenue and all the posh shops. I manage to park the car just a block away at a garage with concessions for the hotel’s guests costing just $26 a day. Check-in is very smooth and after a freshen up I head straight out to sample the delights of the USA’s third-biggest city.
 
I had seen a poster advertising a King Tutankhamun exhibition from Egypt at the Field Museum of Natural History, so I head across town to go and visit that. On the way I check out a nearby Loewe’s cinema to see what is on for later, but there is nothing I really fancy seeing. I also swing through a Virgin Music store spotting a new John Mayer CD among other attractions which I vow to get later. Heading down Michigan Avenue I pass the posh shops and marvel at the Wrigley Building and waterfront as I cross the bridge over the Chicago River. Making for the Millenium Park, I check out the Pritzker Pavilion bandshell where I see there is a free concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra later.
 
I walk through the park and past the Chicago Art Institute heading down to Lakeside and get my first close-up glimpse of Lake Michigan. I can see the Field building in the distance at the Museum campus on the lake front together with the Shed Aquarium, Adler Planetarium and Soldier Field, home to the Chicago Bears NFL team. I still haven’t seen the city’s tallest building – and for a time the tallest building in the world – the black skyscraper, topped by white aerials known as the Sears Tower. But as I walk down to the Marina and look back to the Downtown loop there it is, poking out from behind the city’s other minor skyscrapers – how could it be missed.
 
I reach the Field around 3.30pm after around a three mile walk from the hotel and pay $25 for an exhibition admission ticket. It’s fine, well-organised and interesting, but it lacks the real excitement – the famous King Tut mask which is not allowed to leave the Cairo museum. Exiting through the giftshop – as always – I buy my niece Bethany a garish King Tut bear and then head into the museum proper. I marvel at Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil skeleton, found in South Dakota in 1990. Popping into the main museum gift shop to buy a guidebook and map of Chicago I also find an account of the Maneaters of Tsavo, a story about the killing of two lions in Kenya in the 1890s who had been preying on railway workers. I remember seeing a movie about the events in the 1990s called The Ghost and the Darkness with Michael Douglas as the hunter engaged to kill the lions who had pounced on around 30 workers. It turns out the taxidermy lions are here at the Field, having been sold for the princely sum of $5,000 in the 1920’s by the Brit who shot them. I seek them out, but they don’t look too scary stuffed!
 
Heading out of the museum I take a walk up and around the Planetarium to see more of the lake and get some good views back to the City skyline. I see lots of police and soldiers around a statue to Polish General Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a revolutionary hero in his own country who also fought with Washington’s Continental Army in the American War of Independence. It must be some anniversary, I guess, but don’t stop to find out more.
 
Walking back under the underpass to Michigan Avenue I decide to try and view the Sears Tower Skydeck. I head along Michigan to Van Buren Street and head west up into the Loop, following the elevated railway line. I am excited to get my first sight of the iconic trains on the tracks rattling above my head – sounding just like in the Blues Brothers movie. I stop off at the Billy Goat bar for a refreshing lager to help my journey as it is still pretty warm on the streets. Making it to the Sears I buy a ticket for the lift which whisks me up the 103 floors in just one minute, during which time my ears pop – twice! The Skydeck is fully enclosed in glass but has some great 360-degree views. It is perfect timing too as the sun is just setting to the west, behind the city, so I can get both great dusk and night photos as the metropolis lights up. At the gift ship I buy a tacky souvenir – a Sears Tower shaped pencil sharpener – plus some postcards and a Cubs baseball cap that I can wear for the game tomorrow. A trip to Wrigley Field was a prerequisite of my visit to Chicago.
 
From the tower I head down Jackson Boulevard back towards the Millenium Park, stopping to admire some great light fountains and the reflective sculpture known as the Coffee Bean. Walking back along Michigan Avenue I decide to stop and have dinner at a bar and grill, consuming some fully-loaded potato skins and chicken quesadillas washed down with two Sam Adams Lagers while watching some baseball – perfect. After dinner I stop off at the Virgin Records to buy the CDs I had eyed up earlier and finally get back to my hotel at 10pm. I am pretty knackered after a fair amount of walking, having spent a lot of time stuck in a car for the past few days. I give Vladek in Oregon a call to tell him I am on the way. I will leave the Blues Club visit to tomorrow night. Car mileage at end of day: 3,650. 

​I wake at 8am – no kids to disturb me any earlier today – and grab a shower and a shave before checking out of the Clarion Hotel by 8.45am. I skip the hotel breakfast for a hopeful coffee and Danish in Eyrie PA which is just 40 miles down the road. Before heading off, I survey Lake Eyrie from the harbour at Dunkirk. It is pretty bleak, the rain has stopped, but there is still a lot of grey cloud overhead. I head off along route 5, the Seaway Trail, rather than go backwards to the I90. The road is closed ahead but a detour takes me around the obstruction and back onto the route. It weaves past a number of Lake Eyrie wineries but it is a bit early for a tasting – and I am driving. I pass a nice looking harbour at Barcelona NY with a lighthouse and the Westfield fisheries. I realise this is where Julian had picked out a nice Historic Inn for me to stay at last night, the William Seward Inn – oh well.
 
I cross the state line into Pennsylvania – three states down now – and reach Eyrie in under an hour. However, Eyrie is actually quite a big city and there is little hope of finding a nice quiet coffeeshop by a picturesque harbour for breakfast. I drive past the city’s Maritime museum and the Brig Niagara sailing ship but don’t stop. Instead I swing back on to the I90 just as the rain starts again and put my foot down for the 120-mile journey across the state to reach Cleveland OH. Somehow, I manage to slip off the I90 at a confusing junction and find myself heading south towards Akron OH – Devo-land! Luckily, however, I take the first Cleveland-bound exit I see with signs for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame which brings me back onto the I90 and soon after for the turning onto North Lakeside into the city. I easily find somewhere to park near the Hall of Fame by the lake, which costs just $8 for the whole day, not that I can stay as long as that – the road will call me.
 
The Hall of Fame is in an impressive building designed by Louvre pyramid architect IM Pei and is next door to the Great Lakes Science Park - which has a wind turbine outside – and the big stadium of the Cleveland Browns NFL team. Once inside, I spend two hours touring around all the amazing exhibits which include clothes, cars, records and other memorabilia from the plethora of inducted rock stars, as well as visiting the Inductee Theatre for movies of the events. After a quick lunch, of a chicken wrap and an iced tea, I hit the gift shop so I can top up my car CD collection – the four that I bought at the airport having already been almost played to death. I buy five more including albums by Tom Petty, Bob Seger and Bonnie Raitt – perfect US toad trip driving music to put on when the iPod battery fails. I also buy a Hall of Fame t-shirt (set to be the first of many ‘tour’ t-shirts), an exhibition guide, a metal guitar bookmark, and some plastic guitar picks. I then walk over to the Science Park for a quick browse and to grab a coffee before heading to the car park and the Mustang.
 
Driving back to the I90 through the Cleveland rush-hour at around 4.15pm I pass the Cleveland Indian’s baseball stadium, Jacobs Field. Overall it seems a very pleasant American city, with plenty to do and a nice situation on the lake. I reach the Ohio Turnpike, which is what the I90 is called here, just as the heavens open once again. Great forks of lightening streak through the sky accompanied by crashes of thunder. Plumes of spray from the big sixteen-wheeler trucks mean it is very hard to see far ahead and makes it impossible to tell whether the downpour has actually stopped. I also need to make sure I avoid the many sloughed off truck tyres which are strewn by the roadside. Pulling off to get some more gas – 10 gallons at $2.19 each, much cheaper than in NY and MA – I also buy a more up-to-date US road atlas and a car charger for my iPod.
 
Back on the interstate, I pass the Toledo OH exits at around 5.45pm and decide to head north to Ann Arbour MI to stay the night. This is in homage to my old friend Steve McGookin, who spent time as a Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbour. When I told Steve that I was embarking on this mad journey he suggested that I should find a CD for every state I cross. Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska will be an easy one for later (we are both big fans of The Boss), but for Michigan songs are harder to come to mind. I am going to go through Kalamazoo later (I know a girl there!!!??), however, and just north of Ann Arbor is Saginaw where Simon & Garfunkel hitchhiked all the way from in America! My stay in Ann Arbor is also a nod to one of my favourite US economic indicators – the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index!
 
The city is a quick 46-mile detour from the I90 and I reach it around 7.15pm. After cruising around the centre to get my bearings and see the University campus, I head back to the outskirts to find accommodation and food. I stop at a Red Roof Inn and check into a standard motel room at $59.99 for the night. Red Roof’s are actually a touch above standard motel fare being owned by French hotels giant Accor. The rooms have been refurbished to a good standard, with tasteful décor, carpets, and bathroom furnishings.
 
Head straight out to find food – I know most Americans eat early and you can often find restaurants closing by 8.30pm-9.00pm. I choose Carson’s America Bistro not far from the motel and have a tasty meal of deep-fried artichoke hearts and a 14-ounce ribeye steak with fries washed down by a pint of local Mad Hatter IPA from New Holland, MH.
 
Julian calls on my cellphone to check on my progress and is amazed by the distance I have covered so far. Not quite as many miles travelled as yesterday, only around 330 – but then I spent a lot of time at the Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Best sign I saw driving through Michigan, on route 23, said: Prison Area: Do not pick up hitchhikers! Car mileage at end of day: 3,348.

​The proper journey starts today! Once again the kids' banging and crashing downstairs awakens me at 7.30am but I get up and grab a quick shower and shave. I make it downstairs for a coffee in time to say farewell to Henry before he heads off to school and I hit the road. I read him the start of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island but he has a fit because he must leave for school before I could finish the concise Readers Digest version (as Karen called it). So no real goodbye for Henry.
 
Karen takes the young chap to school as Julian has a 9am work conference call, so I decide to delay my departure until around 9.45am. Pack my things back up and load the Mustang on the drive by 9.10am when Julian comes skipping out of the garage doors happy because the conference call has been postponed. So, we share a pot of tea and he gets a map to outline to me the quickest way from Boxford to reach the I495 highway to get on to the I90 interstate – basically the road I will be mostly following all the way across America. Karen arrives back from dropping Henry off with Caroline and it is time for me to make my fond farewells. Julian has a solo trip over to London in ten days’ time, ironically, and I tell him to say ‘Hi’ to those there who don’t know where I have gone. I will see the Troake family again in the UK at Christmas when all of them will be going over to stay with this family in Coney Hall.
 
I climb into the Mustang, fire up the V8 beast and waving goodbye to all head through the town of Boxford to North Andover and the 495 junction. It is an easy drive around the 495 to the I90 junction just outside Worcester MA. It only took 55 minutes to do the around 60-mile stretch, even having avoided Julian’s shortcut using the 280 because of road works. Aside from further occasional road construction, I manage to get up a good speed on the interstate, utilising the Mustang’s cruise control to a steady 70-ish mph speed – the speed limit varies between 65 or 55 mph. Handy little buttons on the cruise control steering wheel stalk allow you to incrementally raise or cut your speed level, which is very useful for overtaking. My feet spend their time tapping out the rhythm being played by my new airport-bought CDs on the car stereo as they have little else to do.
 
I reach almost the end of the state of Massachusetts around 12.15pm, just in time to stop for lunch – with around 150 miles completed. Julian suggested stopping at Lennox for lunch, home of the world-famous Tanglewood Music festival. But though I head that way having turned off the interstate, I twice miss the turning for the town centre and end up heading instead for Stockbridge, a town I know fondly having stayed at the Red Lion Inn there a number of times. So it is there that I stop for lunch at around 12.45pm, having a cup of chowder and a Steak Bomb sandwich at the Main Street Restaurant. Stockbridge is a pretty New England town that was immortalised by illustrator Norman Rockwell in a number of paintings – his studio is close to the town together with a very good museum dedicated to him.
 
I head back towards the I90, filling up with gas for the first time on the way. It costs around $35 for 12 gallons. I also buy a bottle of water and some Sour Rancher sweets (which turn out to be horrible!) and with these provisions switch on my iPod with wireless transmitter to provide music as I head towards New York state. The weather is very pleasant, blue skies with some high cloud, and a temperature of around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The miles are just eaten up by the easy and fairly clear interstate driving. I reach the New York state line around 2.15pm and on to the city of Albany by 2.45pm – though I have no desire to visit the state capital having only been back on the road for an hour or so.
 
From Albany, however, it is still a further 300 miles to my first night designated stop-off point around Buffalo. Traffic on the I90 remains fine but the weather deteriorates, slowing my progress. Just past Syracuse at around 4pm the heavens open and don’t stop. Syracuse looks nice from a distance, even in the rain, sitting as it does at the end of one of the region’s many lakes. The iPod battery runs down quickly – after around 3 hours usage – so then it’s a switch to radio (some good old country music) and back to the same four CDs I played earlier!!! Rochester NY passes by and the turn off for Niagara Falls and Lake Ontario and then its onto Buffalo which I reach around 5.45pm. Rather than turn off to stay around the big city I decide to carry on for another hour or so to try and find accommodation around the Lake Eyrie area, which Julian said sounds interesting. I would like to make it to Erie PA but that is still 88 miles and another state away and I would like to find a hotel by 7.30pm-sh, especially given the bad weather.
 
I shun the turn-offs for Angola and Eden but put in some more gas ($38 worth) and take the Silver Creek exit towards the indicated lodging of the Lighthouse Inn. I drive past the said inn, which is shabby and miles from the lake, and carry on into the town but there is nothing else available, so I decide to carry on along Lakeside Road to Dunkirk NY, which a sign says is eight miles distance. A familiar old name, and hopefully welcoming. I finally glimpse Lake Eyrie through the rain as I pass a run-down looking inn on the shoreline. Carrying on to Dunkirk I find that the Lakeside Road ahead is closed – not sure if it is construction or the weather – but the town is busy enough with a big harbour and a modern-ish Clarion Hotel. I pull in there and take a room for the night - $99.95 for a city view and $109.99 for a lake view. I opt for the lake view and have to squint out of the window to see it.
 
As it is still bucketing down with rain outside, rather than exploring the town, I decide to have dinner in the hotel’s Windjammer restaurant, which is next to the bar and lounge where karaoke is taking place. There is only one couple in the restaurant but the service is OK and the food surprisingly good – I have seafood bisque and sauteed grouper with scallops. The nearby karaoke is excruciating, however. The low point being the mangling of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, an outlier among many murdered country ballads. The highlight is hearing a Rodney Crowell song entitled It’s Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long! I retire to bed without having desert or a coffee to escape the noise.
 
That was my longest day of driving ever, ten hours and over 500 miles – in the UK I would have reached the end of all the roads and fallen into the sea! The only side-affect from the marathon journey is a crick in my neck and left shoulder. Importantly, I am within striking distance of Cleveland OH – two states away - for a trip around the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame tomorrow. Car mileage at end of day: 3,019.

​Make sure I am up earlier today in order to be on time to accompany Henry to his new school. The three-year old boy has only been going there for one week but seems happy enough. The school, in Boxford Community Hall, is only a seven-minute drive away in Julian’s Jeep Grand Cherokee.
 
The women also dropping kids their kids off at the school all ask Julian how he had enjoyed the game yesterday, mentioning that their husbands were all jealous, just like Karen was. Julian pointed out that his English visitor was his excuse for being able to go, which made them all eye me suspiciously.
 
We drive back to the house to grab some bacon sandwiches and switch from the Jeep to the Camry for a trip into the great city of Boston. Karen needs the Jeep which has the children’s car seats in so see can pick Henry up from school at 1pm.
 
It’s an easy drive into Boston down the I80 which takes you right into the centre of the city and, in fact, can speed you through it and out the other side all underground following the amazing Big Dig construction of the 1990’s, a project Julian’s father-in-law, Dick, helped construct as an engineer. We head for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) and park in a lot opposite it, on the roof this time – even Julian would not be able to forget that as his parking space!
 
As Julian and Karen as members of the museum, I get into the exhibition we have come to sees for free – otherwise a ticket cost $23. Entitled ‘Americans in Paris’, the exhibition is very good, although I could have seen it at the National Gallery in London earlier in the year, such turns the world of art. Lots of American women artists are featured; ‘Whistler’s Mother’ is here too; but the heart of the exhibition remains John Singer Sargent’s portraits, notably ‘Madame X’.  Beautiful but controversial, the bare shoulders picture scandalised the Paris Salon crowd – and that was after Sargent had been persuaded to repaint it with dress straps added! Madame X’s features remind me of an unrequited, married love interest in London – same profile and great figure.
 
In the gift shop after I buy the exhibition catalogue and also succumb to a framed print of ‘Madame X’ – just so I can carry it for 4,000 miles! Julian and I then lunch at the Bravo restaurant at the MFA, which is a cut above the café situated below it. Scallops and fettucine for me; Angus beef burger for him; half a bottle of Bordeaux to wash it all down.
 
The journey home is via a Stop & Shop for groceries, which is always fun, eyeing all the amazing things US supermarkets seem to have compared to UK ones. We get back around 3pm for tea with Karen who has picked up Henry, and then en masse we head out again, this time in the Jeep, to go apple-picking at Ingoldsby Farm. Both kids fall asleep on the way there – which was perhaps the aim – and when we reach the farm, we find that PYO apple-picking is only available at the weekends. Julian and I take Caroline into the farm shop anyway to buy some fruit and pies, plus some coffee to drink on the trip home and a Pumpkin Moon cake. Karen looks after sleeping Henry in the car.
 
We get back around 5pm to find dinner cooking on a timer. It is a special occasion as it is my last night in Boxford before my long road trip, so we open some wine to go with the very pleasant meal Karen has made. Henry, however, is overtired and mopes a bit. After dinner and a bath for the young chap, it takes Julian nearly an hour and a half to get him to sleep. Karen and I relax with a sleeping Caroline. Afterwards Julian whips up some cream – his signature food! – to go with a chocolate cake dessert and we eat that with a glass of wine watching TV in the room above the house’s integral triple garage.  It is showing President GW Bush’s address on the actual anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. His stand-out line is something like we will turn “the deserts of despotism into the fields of liberty”. Once again, I remember the events and feelings of five years before.
 
Julian and Karen both fall asleep on the sofa by 10pm as Henry has been waking them up early recently – it was 5.15am today. I empty out Julian’s piggybank – which he has said I could do – looking for statehood quarters, a series the US mint started a while back that I have been collecting on my trips to the country. I find four from 2005 and 2006 that I don’t have. The noise of shifting coins causes both Julian to wake and we repair to our beds. Car Mileage at end of day: 2,496.

​Awoken at around 7.15am by the sounds of the kids and the Wiggles, once again. Shower and shave first, then write-up yesterday’s journal entry before joining the Troake family downstairs for coffee and a perusal of the Boston Globe Sunday newspaper. Then, while Julian and Karen shower and Caroline naps, Henry and I watch Sagwa the Chinese Cats on PBS Sprout.
 
Karen takes Henry and Caroline off for a walk in the big stroller while Julian and I climb into the Mustang for a trip to Foxboro's Gillette  Stadium and the opening day game for the New England Patriots. It will be mine and Julian’s first live NFL game. Julian’s father-in-law, Dick Collari, has given us two $125 tickets for the game, donated by a contact, which Karen is a little miffed about as she is a big Patriots fan too and her Dad has never offered her any tickets!!!
 
We leave around 10.45am and stop at the Boxford Store/Post Office/Diner to grab two coffees which I almost spill when a big dog in a station wagon that I hadn’t seen barks at me in the car park through an open window. It is a good journey all the way down the Interstate 95 from junction 52 almost to the junction 9 turning for Foxboro. But from there it is very slow with all the vehicles heading to the stadium, taking us almost an hour to travel around 5 miles and Julian is worried about us getting to the game for the 1.00pm kick-off. We manage to find a parking space in the official car park – at $35 for the day – by 12.55pm and rush to the ground. Arriving just as a US Air Force Stealth bomber flies low overhead – very fast and very loud.
 
We find our seats in the big stadium – with no help from a local police officer – just as the Patriots score a first touchdown. However, we have already missed a similar move by the opposition, the Buffalo Bills, and the score is now 7-7. Having already grabbed a bottle of Budweiser ($7.50) on the way in, at the end of the first quarter, with the Patriots losing 7-10, we get lunch of a burger ($6.00) and a 22-ounce Sam Adams on draft ($10). The second quarter is just as bad for the Pats, but the third brings some relief. Star Quarterback Tom Brady is getting his throws in and the Bills make a poor strategic decision – throwing on a fourth down rather than kicking a field goal. Dessert of pretzels and peanuts is accompanied by a Pats touchdown to tie the game at 17 all. The Pats are very much in charge in the fourth quarter and score two points after sacking the Bills QB in the end-zone. After that they run-down the clock to hold on to a 19-17 victory.  At the end Minute Men shoot their muskets in the air and cheers ring out around Gillette.
 
We leave the stadium promptly and manage to get back to the Mustang quickly. It is a great journey back to Boxford, taking just 1-1/4 hours with few traffic jams, even though we get passed by a 1960’s Austin Healey. Arrive home around 5.15pm – the game only lasted three hours, albeit for four quarters of fifteen minutes each! Karen and the kids are out at a children’s party, so Julian and I have tea on the deck until they return, all very tired but still hyperactive. We then watch the US Open Men’s final – Karen is also a massive tennis fan – in which Roger Federer easily beat Andy Roddick in four sets.    
 
After a BBQ chicken dinner, the kids are put to bed and we settle into watch a documentary on 9/11. I had seen it before but it was still very harrowing, especially with all my memories of that day. Watching the planes flying into the towers in the Artillery Arms pub near work and being unable to contact the six AFX New York staff in their World Trade Center office or on their cellphones for so long. I had only visited them there the month before the attacks and was even being considered for the position of bureau chief in NYC at that time. The office’s were low enough down, and the attacks early enough for half the team not to have reached the area, so we had no casualties, thankfully, though some of the team were still suffering from stress and trauma. We head to bed around 10.30pm, where I write up this journal. Car Mileage at end of day: 2,496.

​I am awake by 7.30am after a good long sleep in the spare room which has two single beds. I can hear the kids downstairs watching the Wiggles so I get up, shower, shave and join the family downstairs for some breakfast. Henry, who is three, has Baby Gym, to which Karen takes him. Julian and I are left in charge of entertaining 11-month-old Caroline for two hours. Karen and Henry return around 11am and we make ready for a trip to the Massachusetts coast at Newburyport. Julian drives us all in the family’s second car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, up the I95 interstate.
 
We park close to the moorings on the harbour front and walk around the boats to the centre of the busy tourist town stopping at Groggs restaurant for lunch. I have fish and chips and an Ipswich Ale. Julian insists on paying, saying that I’ll be paying for plenty of meals for myself soon enough. We then head to the Cook store to buy some coffee beans, plus two iced coffees for Julian and I. The weather is again warm and balmy, but less humid on the coast. We also stop at the bakery to buy chocolate cakes for desert tonight – though Henry gets a pink sprinkles-laden cup cake.
 
We wander back through the harbour area as Julian wants to see if a boat trip is possible. Karen is sceptical given that we have the kids with us. A cruiser pulls out just as we arrive at the mooring, so we are saved. I never was much of a boat trip fan. Instead, we stroll up to the kids’ playground where Henry runs around for 15 minutes and then flags. The final stop is the Dragon’s Nest toyshop where Henry buys some juggling balls and I stop myself from buying anything – I have a long journey to finance and limited packing space!
 
We head back to the very hot Jeep. The temperature outside is 80 degrees celsius on such a sunny September day, so we drive back to Boxford with the aircon on full blast. The kids fall asleep and the adults detour to Benson’s ice cream store for refreshments – a great Black Raspberry flavour for me. We are home by around 4pm to play with Henry’s juggling balls and drink G&T’s on the deck.
 
Both kids are put to bed early and dinner is tossed on the BBQ by Julian. We eat it in the lounge watching Maria Sharapova win the US Open Women’s final in a black dress modelled on that of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Bed by 10pm – still slightly jet-lagged. ​Car Mileage at end of day: 2,385.

Up early (5am) to pack for a long 30-day trip after getting home late on Thursday following one leaving drink too many! Tardiness not helped by falling asleep on the train home and waking up at Oxted station – four stops down the line from East Croydon where I should have got off. I then had a 20-minute wait for a train back up, during which time my mother phoned and berated me for being late and drunk.
 
Very hard to know what to pack for such a long journey. Not sure what the weather will be like and I only have enough clothes – and a big enough suitcase – for two weeks. I have bought extra M&S boxer shorts and socks this week, however. Packing goes smoothly though, and I have time to check-in online for my Continental Airlines flight from London Gatwick to Newark Liberty International and then onwards to Boston Logan airports.
 
I leave my Addiscombe home around 7am and catch the tram to East Croydon station almost straight away. However, the train from there down to Gatwick has been cancelled and I have to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Still, I am at the airport by 8am, 2-1/2 hours before flight departure time. The check-in bag drop is smooth and although there is a long queue at security, I manage to push through and get airside by 8.40am.
 
Shopping time. I grab some CDs for the trip, just in case my new iPod transmitter plays up, as well as Bill Bryson’s ‘Lost Continent’ book for background, and a Moleskin pocketbook to scribble this journal in at WH Smith. Then I grab a juice and a croissant at Pret where I also phone my Mum to placate her – No hangover. Honest!
 
The Newark flight is called early and boarding goes smoothly. Onboard there is one of the campest cabin stewards ever – from San Francisco. Saying that he is very kind and efficient. Even so, two screaming babies all the way made sleeping off the non-hangover impossible. Movie choice is limited – I catch ‘Nacho Libre’ with Jack Black on the second cycle – so it’s lucky I have plenty of books.
 
We arrive in New Jersey around 30 minutes late at 1.40pm, after a slightly delayed departure taxiing around Gatwick, and I worry slightly about catching my 3.30pm connecting flight to Boston. But transfer is smooth through both immigration and customs – so glad I didn’t travel via New York’s JFK airport which is always mobbed – and I recheck my bag and grab the airtrain to Terminal A. I even have time for my first Sam Adams ale at the gate. From there, I call my old school friend Julian Troake – who I am staying with for a few days to prepare for my long drive - to let him know I have arrived in the good old US of A and that my departure on the internal flight is on time.
 
Arrival in Boston is swift after just a 38-minute flight, landing at around 4.45pm. However, like at Gatwick, there is a slight delay when taxiing, this time because Air Force Two, with vice-president Dick Cheney onboard has arrived at the same time. Once I have finally disembarked the plane and picked up my bag from the carousel, I realise that, unlike International Arrivals, there is nowhere for Julian to meet me. I wander outside of the terminal to a very busy car pick-up point and phone his wife Karen who can’t hear me very well amid all the honking horns and other airport noises, but she told me that Julian had left a while ago so should be there soon and took down my cell-phone number so he can call me. I wait at an information point back in the terminal after grabbing some water – it’s hot and humid outside – and five minutes later Julian arrives, looking flustered after a journey dogged by heavy traffic.
 
We return to the car park where he has left his Toyota, which was abandoned in a panic because he was late to meet me. Unfortunately this means that he failed to note on which level he had parked. It takes 20 minutes and three floors of wandering before it is spotted. Julian then drives me to the car rental centre so I can pick up my ride for the long journey ahead. There I negotiate an upgrade and pick up a blue Ford Mustang coupe (mileage 2,354). In this dream machine I follow Julian back up the Interstate to his hometown of Boxford, where we arrive around 7pm. That was just in time for his son Henry’s bedtime. After a brief meal prepared by Karen and a catch-up chat all of us are tired as well. So I am in bed in Boxford by 9.30pm, which is 2.30am in real time, so almost up for 24 hours. Car mileage at end of day: 2,385.

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