Picking up the Car and heading North

Today is the day we pick up the Car for the road-trip which is the central part of our holiday. We collected it from Hertz in Salem. It is a Ford Fusion and is a hybrid car, so our mpg should be better than it has been since 2011 when we last got a hybrid car from Hertz.

This is the car:

But before we tell that story, time for our breakfast and check-out from the Harbor Light Inn.

Breakfast

I again had a great night's sleep and awoke at 3.30am ready for the day ahead. It is exciting that we have reached the first day of the driving part of the holiday.

I completed and posted yesterday's blog and then at 5.00am made coffee for us both. At 6.30am it was time for ablutions, I'm going to miss the shower here at the Harbor Light Inn, unlike many US showers it is not fixed but can be pulled down and used under the arms and other hard to reach places. It also has three speeds - hard spray, soft spray and pulse which makes it easy to use. I'm not sure I will have anything similar until we reach Seattle in almost three weeks' time.

We completed the remaining packing and went down to Breakfast at 7.30am. Today's hot dish was crispy bacon and an artichoke, spinach, onion and goats cheese souffle. The bacon was scrumptious and the eggs were unusual in a good way. I don't often eat artichoke, but here it gave a crunch to the softness of the other vegetables and the strong bite of the goats cheese, it was lovely. 

I followed up with wholemeal bagel and cream cheese while Drew had the same hot food followed by a homemade blueberry cake. 

We went back to the room and completed our last minute packing before coming down to checkout at 8.45am. 

We sat in the lounge until our Taxi arrived at 9.00am to take us to Hertz in Salem. 

Picking up the Car

The taxi was on time and took us through Marblehead in the reverse direction from that which we had walked yesterday morning, so we got to see the Waterside Cemetery again! The route we followed was this:

Harbor Light Inn to Hertz Salem - Map courtesy of Google

We arrived at Hertz at 9.20am, we had booked the car for 10.00am, but being early didn't case too many problems. It was a small Hertz Office, so we were seen almost immediately. A huge difference from the larger places we have picked cars up from, like Orlando Airport Hertz last year.

To add a driver always takes a while in Hertz, with all the details of Drew's licence having to be added manually. I don't know why Hertz don't allow you to book two drivers at the beginning of the process, but there we are. Still by 9.40am we were almost ready to go. One problem however, Karlene, the Hertz agent, couldn't find the car! After a bit of searching she found it had been double parked behind another car, so she was able to get it out and onto the forecourt for us by 9.50am. 

The Ford Fusion, similar in shape and size to the UK car called a Ford Mondeo, is a large car with great boot space. Karlene showed us the main operational features of the car. As she isn't a hybrid driver, and we are, that element of the car seemed easier to us than it was for her. By 9.58am we had settled in and were ready to go.

Captain Jack is, of course, comfortable navigating from the back street. Apparently it is OK to be a back seat driver if you are a Captain!

Beginning the Journey - The first 200 miles

The route for our journey today, a short one to begin to familiarise ourselves with the car, is as follows:

Salem, Massachusetts to Belfast, Maine - Map courtesy of Google

As you can see the route stays close to the Atlantic. A faster route would have taken the I95 all the way North to Augusta before turning for Belfast, but as we weren't in any hurry we decided to leave the I95 at Portland (Maine, not the famous one in Oregon) and follow the US1 along the coast through places like Bath, Rockland, Rockport and Camden before reaching Belfast.

For 84 miles of our journey, from the I95 Danvers junction until Portland we are travelling on a route we have travelled before. In 2011 we came south from Canada on our way to Boston on the I95, so we did these 84 miles in the opposite direction.

The route took us through New Hampshire:

Then into Maine:

and the route included some unusual sites, for example:

A defunct ride

A giant lobster to encourage you to eat here - not for it to eat you!

Lots of Maine's famous Blueberry sellers

A mad Gorilla

Arriving in Belfast

The journey went remarkably well and we arrived at the Belfast Laundromat at 2.10pm having driven 195 miles. We got our clothes into a large machine and I used the Laundry's wi-fi to check Facebook and do some emails. From washer to dryer only took 55 minutes, these big machines are fast. And now all the clothes, apart from those we are wearing, are clean ready for the rest of the holiday.

From the laundromat to our hotel is a journey of 3 miles which took 11 minutes, so at 15:20 we were checking in to the Fireside Inn and Suites, Belfast. We got to room 108 and sorted out and folded our clean clothes and repacked our suitcases for tomorrow.

We then went back into downtown Belfast, which is a very pretty, if somewhat eccentric, seaside town. The eccentricity is evidenced by a hippy culture of stores selling all kinds of things that might be regarded as junk elsewhere. The 'Instant British Accent' being just one example of this. 

For more of the images of Belfast please see Flickr.

The Fireside Inn and Suites, Belfast

The hotel is located on the opposite side of the bay from Belfast, it has a long grassy area which runs from the balcony outside the room down to the sea. This view is idyllic. With lots of greenery and beautiful blue see beyond. No wonder the place is so popular. 

This is not our first visit to this hotel, in 2011 we visited here when it was called the Ocean's Edge Comfort Inn, the rooms and the views remain the same, though the owners, and the branding has changed.

One of the reasons for coming back here, other than the primary one that it is 200 miles of a 430 mile journey north from Salem, Massachusetts to Quebec City, is another book. Drew has been a fan of the TV series Sharpe for many, many years. Having seen the series on DVD with him, I wanted to read the books. The Sharpe author, Bernard Cornwell, has written many other books, including the Uhtred books which have been on BBC2 as The Last Kingdom and other books set in British and American History. Starbuck, set in the American Civil War, Arthur, set in the dark ages in Britain, and the Harlequin, set in 14th Century England and France come to mind. I have now read most of Cornwell's books and last Christmas was given the one called The Fort. 

It turns out that 'The Fort' is a fictionalisation of real events of the 1779 Penobscot Expedition when Massuchutus was badly defeated in an attempt to resit the restoration of British rule to this part of North America. It took place right here in Penobscot Bay. I can see the locations so vividly expressed in the book outside the window as I type. Reading the book reminded me so much of my first visit here, that when I saw the opportunity I built a return trip in to this holiday. 

Another busy day, but one with a gentle less rushed feeling of driving through pleasent parts of the country. I'm ready now for dinner, but that will be in the next blog post.