RoadTrippin’ from Chicago to NYC!

So here I am in NYC with a million-dollar view to gaze upon, penning down my road tripping adventures! Oh yes, the apartment which we stay has this one of a kind, stunning view of the NYC skyline which never ceases to amaze us! Thanks to Airbnb for helping people discover such amazing rentals. ❤

Sigh, I don think I could ever get tired of these stunning NYC skyline views!

Before moving to the roadtripping story, first of all a huge thank you to all the wonderful bloggers who poured down with such wonderful suggestions. 🙂 <3.In fact quite a few of them have inspired us to take another roadtrip exclusively to those cities rather than a halt on the way. (Like Philadelphia). And thank you SO much Meg at https://midnightwithmegs.wordpress.com/ for letting me know about the website roadtrippers.com. Seriously, if you are planning a road trip in US and want to know more about anything under the sun on the way, head to the site and have your wish! The site helped us enormously to choose the spots to halt on the way 🙂

So as planned we left our home in the wee hours of the morning around 4.30 am and feeling very happy and pleased with ourselves. 😎  iPad with all our favorite songs- Check, Snacks to munch on the way – Check, Phone Charger- Check, Sunnies- Check, DSLR- Check, Selfie Stick- Check! (Yeah, you did not think we would travel without our beloved selfie stick did you 😛 )

Me trying to capture the sunrise (or something similar to that! 😛 )

So we reach our first pit stop in Chicago for breakfast, which was a two and a half drive from our place and then the hubster goes like, “I think I did not take my wallet!”.

Errr. Say what?!

I stood there opening and closing my mouth like a fish, kind of waiting for him to say “Just kidding. Let’s go”. Normally he tries to trick me with these kind of stupid lies just to see me go bonkers. And every time I fall for it! Talk about predictability But that day when it did not happen, all I could manage was “Did you check your pockets well?” With a dead serious look, he confirmed the worst! This is NOT happening. I mean we had planned all our stops on the way so that we would be in time to meet our rental owner before they had to leave the city. It’s summer and everyone had plans! Now, losing 5 hours was not good, not good at all

Volume turned down, gloominess cast across the ride we started on our journey back. We were going through the if-onlys and what-ifs and took turns in telling each other “It’s fine, happens”. But deep down, we knew this was going to be a long monotonous drive if we had to make it before the owner leaves 😕  And not to mention the disappointment of missing all the awesome places we had planned….

BUT, oh yes a “but” came along the way. A much needed-miracle-like “but”! The owner messaged us asking if we could come a few hours LATE! Did you hear that? Late!!! 😮 Could we ask for anything more! We told them about our situation and it worked out perfectly for them and for us and everything was back on track again! Now, where was the volume button, crank it up please! Woohoo! Let’s go baby!

My click, my click! Pretty pleased with myself for this one 😎

We drove non-stop to Port Clinton, Ohio where we made a stop in a cute retro style diner nearby an aviation museum, with great views of the air strip and a lovely ambiance. We could watch the flights landing and taking off and their chili cheese fries were so yummy!

Outdoor sitting area

This actually reminded me of Harry Potter! Muggles please excuse 😉

Inside sitting area

Oh, umm before you scroll down further to avoid any shocking surprises just letting everyone know that I decided to color my hair pink 😉 One more item off the bucket list 😀 Yippeee! What? Don look at me like that! Pink is my favorite color! You should have seen it coming 😉

Couldn’t help posing with those blooms ❤

We (read hubby 😛 ) wanted to check the aviation museum as well but I was impatient to go to the Marblehead lighthouse nearby. I had seen so many pics of it and could not wait to see it for myself. And the sky was perfect and I was scared it should not turn overcast!

So we headed to the lighthouse which was only around 20 minutes from the diner and it was exactly like the pics we had seen or even better! It was absolutely gorgeous and the atmosphere was so relaxing and blissful. No wonder they say it is one of Lake Erie’s best known and most-photographed landmarks.

Yaay! We reached!

A looong shot! 😀

Oooh! I am in love with the sky in this pic ❤

We decided to call it a day and headed to the hotel in Ohio. The drive through Port Clinton was very scenic with the roads hugging Lake Erie and all the lush greenery which was all the more enhanced as we were passing by the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We hit the beds like a dead log but with brimming happiness that everything worked out well 🙂

Next day morning we were out and about to explore the Cuyahoga National Park. It stretches over a massive 32000 acres and we knew it was impossible to cover it in a few hours but we did what we could 🙂 We visited the Brandywine falls and the(haunted!) Everett Covered bridge and some other nice spots.

An intriguing welcome to the falls I must say! 😛

Brandywine Falls

Posing amidst the greenery 😉

The road to nowhere ?!  😮

The (haunted) Everett Covered Bridge! Can you spot any ghosts?!

My man and our ride ❤ I could gaze at this pic all day long! ❤

Then started our drive through PA, and it was one of the best drives we have gone till now. We are not strangers to winding curves and looming lush green mountains touching clouds (we hail from Kerala in India, which has such scenic and stunning hill-stations 😉 ) but this had an additional charm with light drizzles and I can only imagine how amazing it will be in fall season. There is nothing like a scenic drive with your favorite romantic songs playing and you and your guy crooning along with it ❤ And to add to it, the destination ahead is nothing short of a dream come true! *touchwood*

The only decent shot I could get on this route and this is not even the mountains 😛

The silhouette of the majestic New York skyline raising far amongst the clouds was indeed a sight to behold! I don think I will ever forget that feeling in my life, seeing it for the first time. The Chicago skyline is quite impressive I agree, but this is well, this is NYC! Maybe it’s the hype, maybe I am being biased, but I cannot stop gushing over it!

Years back a teenage girl had a dream. A dream of visiting the city of lights or city of love as they call it. She did not stop there. Parisian charms sure enamored her but she wanted to ride the London Eye as well. Do the gondola ride gliding through the Grand Canal, in the backdrop of the majestic Venetian palaces. And see the Keukenhof Tulip Garden in Netherlands. Giving her bucketlist in Europe a rest, she began to fancy the ones in US and yes, it is the Big Apple which she wanted to visit first. And of course the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was the ultimate dream come true for a Potterhead. All this seemed like a far far away wish then. Daydreams and fantasies. And today she is happy and thankful to the Lord and her happily-ever-after for making her dreams come true. For taking her to all the cities she had dreamt of the most. London- Paris-Netherlands-Venice-The Wizarding World-New York. Of course, the wanderluster in me still wants to fly and keeps on dreaming of cities when the current one is finished, but I am eternally thankful to the Lord and my hubby and the Universe for making these ones happen ❤

I am sorry if I got sappy! I promise I won’t do this again! 😀 The Big Apple does strange things to people I must say 😉 We are yet to explore in detail the city which never sleeps! Hubs has started work and we must now make use of the weekends to the max or maybe I can do some solo tripping too provided I learn some photography lessons and do something about my direction-retardation! We did make a short trip to the WTC and also got a bite from the famous Shake Shack(yummm) but I guess I would be sharing our adventures here in a later post covering more places 🙂