In October, Samson was put into storage in Spain, together with our friends Mike and Brenda’s motorhome. Anything attractive to ants (the bane of our life along with mozzies) has been double wrapped and packed away or dumped! Samson was to be cared for by a Dutch family, surrounded by several large Alsations and Doberman(s) in a 10 foot walled and fenced enclosure, wedged between caravans and boats, safe as houses!
For those who didn’t know how this trip evolved, we made friends with Mike and Brenda in Portugal, about 18 months ago. They mentioned a trip to Detroit to a 5 day Motown musical event, in about a year’s time and asked if we wanted to join them, we said that sounds great! Last autumn, they added in a wedding event after Mike proposed! It was booked for Friday during the Motown A Go Go, so we became part of the wedding party!
David and I decided to continue our stay in America after Detroit and do a short trip on Route 66 and down to Kentucky for David to experience the genuine Bourbon trail, being a bourbon fan! Mike and Brenda asked to join us on this part, we said sounds great! Cheapest flights were with Norwegian Air from Barcelona to New York so a 5 day stay in the Big Apple came first. **We can highly recommend Norwegian Air, Dreamliner planes, and option to bid to upgrade from economy to Premium class and superb service.
Our flight left Barcelona airport on time on the 16th October 2019 and flew through the afternoon, arriving in New York at 9pm, to a blustery and wet evening! We finally returned on the 12th November, heavier, wiser, happier, more knowledgeable and much much lighter in pocket!!
This blog is mainly pictures with a short write up about each stop during our trip, we experienced so much that it would take months to write about! We hope you enjoy the pictures, as much as we enjoyed taking them!!
New York, New York – so good they named it twice!!
We arrived in New York’s Newark airport on a wet windy evening and got into a taxi to our Hotel in Newark just a few miles away. Newark is opposite the island of New York so we negotiated the numerous transport options each day and made it to Times Square on one day, and “Downtown” another day. To us Europeans or Brits, Downtown is an area outside the City, in America Downtown is the City! We left Penn Station Newark and arrived at Penn Station NY! Confused? Yes, we were too!
Standing opposite Macy’s store one day (the store takes up a whole block) Mike and David negotiated a 3 day pass on a tourist bus, a brilliant idea when we realised how BIG New York is!! We thought we would just wander up to Central Park, head down to the financial district, sail down the Hudson River or trot over Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn.
Yeah!! Right!! A block takes several minutes to walk and take into account stopping and turning to check out and watch every ambulance, fire engine and police car crawling past, getting neck ache from looking up at all the immensely tall buildings, and the sights, smells and sounds that invade and overload all the senses, walking just half a mile took well over an hour!!
The bus ride took us one route “Uptown”, through the theatre district, up the edge of Central Park, through the posh Washington Heights, through dodgy Harlem, and back down Museum Mile, passing the American Guggenheim, Central Park zoo , Carnegie Hall and Times Square!
Route 2 was “Downtown”, Times Square, Rockerfeller Centre, Macys, Empire State Building, Flatiron Building, Soho, Little Italy, China Town, Canal Street, City Hall, Garment District, Meat Packing District, Chelsea and the port of New York.
Route 3 was a mix of the above plus areas like Upper West Side, the Bronx, East Harlem and Midtown.
We crossed the Hudson River one evening just as sun was setting, to tour around the Statue of Liberty and saw New Jersey and Brooklyn in the background on the horizon.
We visited all the usual tourist buildings – we had to! We gawped at the size of Macy’s and Bloomingdales (didn’t actually have time to go into them), went up the viewing platform on floor 89 of the Empire State building, paid an emotional visit to the eerily quiet 9/11 monuments, went to Madison Square Gardens to see if anything was on (it wasn’t) and marveled at Broadway, attending a matinee showing of Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre.
We saw some very strange things – hot dog stalls on every street corner and steam vents in the roads (as you see in the films), a group of about 150 stake boarders snaking down a road on a Sunday morning, and every nationality you could ever imagine wearing all sorts of different types and styles of clothes.
So how would I describe New York? Its clean, friendly, noisy, unruffled, happy, busy, easy going, beautiful, eerie, fashionable, structured, and amazing!!!
A regular monster truck! 
Penn station, but which one??? It was Newark. 
Downtown New York 
David checking out the hard ware! 
A traditional bus!!! 
Penn Station New York! 
Accosted by Batman! 
Interior of Penn Station Newark 
David & Mike supping on the Pier 
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA as it’s known locally) 
Waiting to see Phantom
Images from the top of the Empire State Building, approx. 4pm until sunset
Hudson River in the background 
Statue of Liberty trip & other pics
Mike placing his order with the NYPD, a night in the cells! 
The cast of Phantom of the Opera at their final curtain call. 
A modern shopping centre. 
By heck, it was freezing on the River Hudson! 
Images from the 7/11 Monument
The new building. 
Motor Town Detroit
What a different 2 hours makes in American weather! We flew to Detroit, a short 2 hour journey and arrived to sunshine and a bit of warmth. Our hotel was just outside town so we discovered the delights of UBER drivers over the next week.
Detroit is named “motor city” where car production and manufacture “made the city”. Ford, Chrysler, GMC, all started here but as production was killed off in the 1960s or 70s, the city took a huge downturn, became a bed of riots, rotting buildings, derelict factories, unemployment and dire living. The other thing Detroit was famous for, and this is what has helped the rebirth of Detroit, is Motown music, where Berry Gordy lived at the time, created a recording studio and where he created his empire of record labels that made people like Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the Temptations famous.
Berry had worked on a production line at Ford, realised the advantages and benefits of well skilled, smart, organised teams and applied this method of working to his artistes. If anyone fell below his standards they didn’t make it. His first house, bought by him and turned into a recording studio, is now the Motown Museum, along with the neighbouring 8 houses with displays of personal items, his original apartment, musical instruments and memorabilia given to him by his stars.
We had a tour of the museum, which was fascinating. One afternoon we visited a house that Berry Gordy once owned for a private party. The house is now owned by a local paint artist who is trying to keep the house as original as possible, however he had covered over the swimming pool and put away all the antiques!
The Motown event was amazing, although I have to confess that I was born after most of the artistes sprung onto the scene! Every evening we were entertained with old Motown musicians, I will attach a copy of the event’s line up, easier than trying to remember them all!
We took time out during the day to explore the city, we walked along the sea front and looked over the river at Canada. We visited an area in Downtown that is simply full of restaurants and casinos, we spent an afternoon at a museum where the original Ford Models A to T were made, before the production became too big for the building and they moved to a huge premises out of town. Our guide was an ex-Ford worker and very obviously took pride in still being involved. The collection of all working models from A to T is the only one in the world. Note : they ALL run!! The museum is sometimes used as a wedding venue, and was recently patronised by the current Ford family, who held a wedding on the top floor.
Detroit is an interesting city, being modernised and updated, with a large financial section in the heart of the city, and everyone we met was pleasant, polite, friendly, helpful and very interested in talking to us.
Because of the wedding itself, we felt like one big family, people came up to us to congratulate the bride and groom, people who turned out to be old Motown singers, or band players or someone who knew someone in a Motown band – the connections were there even down to an Uber driver we had one day who used to play in a supporting band!! We felt humbled by their pride in the improvements in their life and city, it was a relaxing, happy stay during our week in Detroit.
Looking across to Canada 
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