New York, countdown minus 5

OK, so we are 5 days out from riding out of NYC heading north into Connecticut. After a long flight from NZ to New Jersey via LA, we were off to a rocky start with a couple hiccups at the Motel 6 in Elizabeth New Jersey which resulted in us staying at the Crown Plaza next door. The whole sordid drama about the Motel 6 is not worth me wasting the blog on, suffice to say it’s star rating Should be in the negatives, how many of you have been booked in to a room that is such a tip, the sink is blocked and still full of scummy dirty soapy water and blocked so you can,t use the sink and have to look at the dirty crap sitting in it. Have you puked yet? I was close to it. After 4 hrs they had still not sorted another room so we checked out and moved next door. Why would you even let a room like that to he poor unsuspecting public. The words I used to describe this establishment cannot really be printed on this site. Looking out the window at 3.00 in the morning onto the car park of the Motel 6 next door, interesting to see how much attention the local squad cars paid to the internal courtyard. You get the picture anyway. Amazing what a bad experience can do to ones motivation. With 3 bikes and 82 days on the road that is over 240 room nights and none of them will now be going to the Motel 6 chain after that experience.

Up and about early on Friday and off to Mainfreight down the road to unpack the bikes and make sure they still going, yep all good.

Caught an Uber into Manhattan, awesome hotel, the Cambria on w 46 th near Times Square. Within a short time of hitting New York we had lunched in the Hard Rock Cafe, realized Time sSquare was pretty much just an intersection but got the pics anyway, did 34 th street shops, 5 th Avenue, Empire State, NY Library and back to the hotel.

Today NY is no harder to drive or walk that Auckland CBD but we learnt today it is gay pride week and there are 4 million extra people on Manhattan island this week, with the Parade on Sunday. Great news for a bloke who doesn’t,do crowds too well. Plenty to see and do over the next few days. Having trouble sorting out pics, leave it with me. Looking forward to getting that bike on the road.