The Amazing Race Series 2 - Day 4 - Drive to Albany (Border crossing, State Capitol Building)

[neilhd]

Given our early bedtime the night before, it was obvious we'd be up early again today, and we were, at about 06:30. We were up and out the hotel by about 07:30, after packing everything up, because today we're leaving Canada!

You don't need to be an Egghead to work out that we went back to Eggspectation for breakfast again. At least by now he must have used up all the Egg jokes I can hear you Eggsclaim. And you'd be eggactly right. We re-visited the branch we went to on our first day. The Vin Diesel look-alike server remembered us. I ordered an Omelette, Joe had the same pancakes and scrambled eggs as he had yesterday, Ele had poached eggs on toast and fruit.

With the food, and the egg jokes, finished, we walked back towards our hotel, calling in at Avis on the way. Somehow the planets had aligned to make sure that Avis was both the cheapest, and the closest to our hotel. I had originally thought we'd check out and walk the cases from the hotel to the car hire place, but it seemed easier to get it now and drive it to the hotel.

We went in and there were 2 agents serving people, each busy with an existing customer, and one other woman waiting who had arrived about 10 seconds before us. We had to wait maybe 10 minutes, but we were early anyway, arriving at about 08:45. Our car was booked from 09:30.

Getting the car is always the most nerve-racking thing for me, because you just don't know what you're going to get, or even if they're going to actually have a car available, as once happened to me with Budget. With much of our next 2-weeks plans resting on a suitable car being available right now, I was a little jittery.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that I had booked a huge thing. I was a little unsure as to what I'd get, as the booking said "Chevrolet Suburban, or similar Group Z car". The trouble being that Group Z is actually the Tahoe-class group, and the Suburban is in Group L.

I shouldn't have worried. We were soon seen by a lovely, friendly, helpful woman who took one look at our booking and said "Oh yes, we've had that put aside for you - we've got you a Yukon XL".

Perfect! (A Yukon XL is basically a Suburban with a GMC badge).

I have never agreed to any extras before, but she offered some extra roadside assistance for a very reasonable price ($5 per day I think). Given the amount of mileage we were going to do, and the fact we were leaving the country, I took it for the peace of mind. If this was just for pootling around Orlando I'd have definitely gone without it.

I triple made sure our voucher was applied to our booking (I had booked it with BA) so that no nasty surprises would later manifest, and she bought the car around:

It was a beauty! SLT spec which is pretty much top of the range. Only 3000 miles on it. 8 seats, too. Absolutely loaded with every toy and gadget you could ever want. Blu-Ray players for the middle and rear rows? Yep. Sat nav? Of course. Full leather with heated and cooled seats? Why are you even asking?

It was also equipped with a 5.3l V8 (350BHP), with a clever thing to turn off half the cylinders when cruising down the freeway at a constant speed in order to improve fuel economy.

Presented in black, with tinted rear windows it looked like a real Secret Service-mobile! I loved it immediately. Even the staff were impressed with it, and told me to enjoy it. We got in it, drove the 30 seconds back to the hotel, parked up, and then spent about 15 minutes playing with all the toys. This was clearly going to be an awesome car for a road-trip.

Here is the car, parked extremely badly (hey, it is over 5 and a half meters long), from the 23rd floor of our hotel. Yes it's big:

We checked out of the hotel, loaded the Secret Service-mobile up, programmed the Sat Nav for Albany and hit the open road!

It took about 45 minutes to reach the border. We spend the time playing with the satellite radio. The 90s station was still there.

The queue was fairly short and we only waited 10 minutes before≈ pulling up to a booth. As expected, we were sent over to secondary inspection, so we drove to where we were told, parked up, gave the keys to the≈ man and went into the building.

Annoyingly, we had managed to time it so we arrived as they had just started processing a coach load of Japanese tourists, and we had to wait until they'd done the entire coach. It didn't take that long though - maybe 10 minutes and we were being processed. This was quick and painless and cost $6 each for the visa waivers (we had Estas, but these don't count for land entry). We quickly restroomed, retrieved our keys and our car and hit the road once more.

Within about 10 minute we again stopped, at the first services we came to, as we were hungry and thirsty. We bought drinks and snacks (nothing like choosing a selection of incredibly unhealthy American snacks for the first time on a trip!), and also visited Dunkin Donuts to buy a donut and some coffee. They do surprisingly good coffee.

So, hitting the road for the third time we continued on to Albany, which was about another 2 and a half hours away. The car was awesome, and just ate up the miles and soon we were pulling into Albany - the state capital of New York.

First impressions were that it was actually really nice. Whilst waiting for the never-ending train in Montreal, Ele had been talking to a random woman and mentioned we were going to Albany (I don't know why, but Ele likes to tell everyone all our plans). She had replied along the lines of "Why the hell would you go there?", and since then we'd been a bit worried about it.

But, actually, it was really nice. It was also completely deserted. It was a Sunday, which was possibly why. Our hotel wasn't actually that easy to find. We drove past it without realising, looped back around and turned down a side road and discovered the car park, more by luck than judgement. There aren't any obvious signs on the building itself.

The hotel was the Renaissance Albany, which is a Marriott hotel. We self-parked the car and found the entrance on the second floor of the car park. Turns out, the hotel is actually really nice indeed. It's a mixture of old and new ,so it had wood paneling, large chandeliers, old-looking artwork on the walls, and then a really modern reception desk.

We were checked in immediately and even though it was half past two and therefore not check-in time for another couple of hours, they found us a room we could have straight away. He said it had a view of the Capitol building. Turns out it didn't, but never mind.

The room was absolutely lovely. Really modern, totally clean (I think this is a recently renovated hotel) and just all-round great.≈ We chilled for 30 minutes or so, and then went out for a look around the town.

The main attraction is the State Capitol building, which was conveniently located right opposite our hotel. It is very impressive:

From the side:

We mooched around there - we were the only people around - and then crossed to road to this plaza:

And saw The Egg, which is some kind of concert venue:

And I really want to know what's down here:

We then took a stroll down here:

And worked our way to the river. I was hoping for a nice riverside area, but actually it's just the river next to a busy road. This is the Hudson, by the way - you can float all the way down to New York City if you want.

Things got a little confusing on the way there, when we actually bumped into another pedestrian. She was standing next to her bike next to a statue of a dog, and said to us "Doing the nipper tour then?"

Now to us, we assumed that she was referring to Joe as the Nipper, being as he's our child and all that. So we said, "Um, yes" and took a picture of Joe next to this flag:

We then walked off. Further down the road we discovered another dog statue, and it became apparent that the dog is called Nipper, and there are a bunch of these statues over the city and you can visit each one to win a prize or something, if you get your photo taken with each one. So the fact we had said we were doing it but then didn't take the photo with it, must have made us look odd. I am presuming that Nipper is the HMV dog. Fun fact - the real HMV Nipper is buried in Kingston-Upon-Thames, which is where I work.

On the way back up the street she was still there. We looked down at our feet and just walked past her.

This shop made me laugh:

Some other nice things in downtown Albany:

It will not have escaped your attention that we checked in to our hotel at half past two, that it is now much later than that, and that there has been no mention of Lunch (snacks and donuts do not count). Obviously, we were starving. And obviously, I had a solution. On the outskirts of Albany there was a Cheesecake Factory and an Outback Steakhouse, 2 of our favourites. We held a democratic vote and Cheesecake Factory won 3-0. We went back to our hotel, got the car and headed that way.

The sat nav took us a different way our of town to the way we'd come in. And within about 20 seconds of being in the very agreeable downtown (the Capitol is not the only amazing building, there's several others I didn't get pictures of), we were suddenly in ghetto-country and we didn't feel safe at all. So much so that I locked the doors. I guess the only saving grace is that the car made me look like I was in the FBI.

Luckily we reached the freeway quite quickly. The drive to Cheesecake Factory was actually longer than I thought and took about 15 minutes. When we arrived it reminded me of the Mall @ Millennia from the outside. The whole complex was pretty much identical.

Much like every other Cheesecake Factory, it was busy and we had to wait for a table. We waited about 15 minutes. We were seated and given menus. I wanted an Americana Cheeseburger (my usual). Joe had the same. Ele had some sort of skinny burger, and they both had the fresh lemonade. I had a beer and a Dr Pepper, but not in the same glass. The food was delicious, as expected, and despite being full we ordered an Original and a Nutella cheesecake. We managed about half of it. We didn't get it to go as we had no way to keep it really. The bill was $63 plus tip which is very cheap - about the same as breakfast was!

Back to the hotel, we were asleep in the amazing beds by 9:30.

[Melbatb]

You can't get away from eggs, can you? Albany looks lovely - and what fab weather you are having!

And that car - a beast!

[jocat]

It looks like a gorgeous day for you there. The part of Albany you visited looks lovely - good planning of yours to choose your hotel in that part and not the rough part you drove through later! That must have been what the woman in Montreal was referring to.

All days that involve a visit to the Cheesecake Factory are great.

[WileyCoyote]

Albany looks awesome and even pays egg homage. That's fab.

What a ride you picked up. I thought my other half was a bit car crazed , he picked a flippin Ram flat bed truck for one leg of our trip. I could barely step up into it. The secret service SUV definitely has better swag style point value.

Hotel sounds lovely and definitely the right side of town! Glad you made it to the Cheesecake Factory .

Did you not do the Nipper tour ?!

Great day.

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote

Albany looks awesome and even pays egg homage. That's fab.

What a ride you picked up. I thought my other half was a bit car crazed , he picked a flippin Ram flat bed truck for one leg of our trip. I could barely step up into it. The secret service SUV definitely has better swag style point value.

Hotel sounds lovely and definitely the right side of town! Glad you made it to the Cheesecake Factory .

Did you not do the Nipper tour ?!

Great day.

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Your OH clearly has great taste!

[smithlane]

Loving your report so far, Montreal looks like a beautiful city. Your itinerary is exactly what we would like to do in a few years.
We had a Suburban on our recent trip to Florida which I loved. I'm well and truly spoilt now and don't think I'll be able to book anything else!
How funny you work in Kingston upon Thames, I live about 20 minutes away. In fact I was there just this morning! Gutted they've moved the HMV to the LG of the Bentalls Centre, the original shop was a staple part of my teenage years 😂.

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by smithlane

Loving your report so far, Montreal looks like a beautiful city. Your itinerary is exactly what we would like to do in a few years.
We had a Suburban on our recent trip to Florida which I loved. I'm well and truly spoilt now and don't think I'll be able to book anything else!
How funny you work in Kingston upon Thames, I live about 20 minutes away. In fact I was there just this morning! Gutted they've moved the HMV to the LG of the Bentalls Centre, the original shop was a staple part of my teenage years 😂.

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Kingston is a pretty cool town!