Graduation & New England Fall Trip

 

My last blog post was about the epic adventures Leah and I had with my sister & niece in the United Kingdom as a graduation trip for Leah.  We held Leah’s “official” graduation ceremony/party on July 11^th, so before I write about our latest family adventure to New England, here are a few photos from that ceremony/party.  Leah began her first semester of online college at Moody Bible Institute in August.

 

Our family adventure this year took us to Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont & Maine.  Whew-10 states in 10 days!  Instead of pulling our travel trailer this year, the four of us flew into Philadelphia, rented a car, and travelled to all 10 states and flew home from Boston. 

Oct 26:  Our first excursion on the trip was to tour the air mobility command center museum in Dover De. We spent a total of 3 hours here, and we were the only visitors for at least an hour in this rather large indoor/outdoor military air museum. We had our own military tour guide who was a retired chief mechanic on military planes. He had great stories and got us into areas of the museum that were restricted without a guide. Leah, Nolan, and Scott even got to try out the flight simulator.

 

After grabbing a quick lunch, we headed north into New Jersey toward Princeton to go tour Princeton University. I had no idea how pretty some areas of New Jersey are.

Princeton was beautiful and the campus of the university was gorgeous. We ate at a local restaurant right across the parking lot of our hotel which made it extra convenient, and it was delicious, and our waiter was super friendly and helpful. It was  perfect start to our vacation.

 Oct 27:  We left New Jersey and made our way through New York state (we had agreed ahead of time to plan NYC as is own trip), into tour Connecticut, with destinations that were supposed to be the inspiration for the Gilmore Girls.  We found this lovely coffee shop near Washington Depot with picturesque scenery. After some delicious “dirty maple chia” drinks, taking in the gorgeous scenery near the café, and sourdough bread and pumpkin roll purchases, we made our way to Yale to check out where Rory was to have attended college.

 After arriving in New Haven and at the Yale campus, which is surrounded by the city, we jumped out to see if there was a way into the center of Yale to tour the campus. Alas, it was reminiscent of Oxford, where only students and staff were allowed into the campus area, as it has gates all around requiring a key/pass to gain entrance. The outside of the campus was unimpressive, and Leah and I both decided for the expansiveness of the city of New Haven-and the underwhelming ambience of the exterior of the campus-Rory Gilmore would not have chosen Yale over Harvard (though we'd yet to visit Harvard). From Yale we drove through Rhode Island, with our final destination for the night in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

 

Oct 28:  Scott and I woke up early and left our hotel to catch the east coast sunrise on Cape Cod, while the kids were still sleeping soundly in the hotel room.  After spending some time on the beach, we made a pitstop at Trader Joe’s to pick us some snacks and other essentials and met the kids for breakfast.  We then made our way to Plymouth to meet up with our friends from Missouri who flew in earlier that day.  We toured Plymouth with the Scarr family, and we all headed back to Cape Cod for 1 more night before our adventure at our timeshare in New Hampshire began.

 

Oct. 29:  We all left our hotel early on Cape Cod and headed to Boston for our morning Freedom Tour.  Chance of rain was forecast, but our tour was rain or shine, so most of us prepared for rain.  It was slightly drizzling when we arrived in Boston and finally found parking.  It was much more crowded on a Sunday morning than when Scott and I visited Boston in October 2010.  We toured the streets of Boston and as the tour continued, the rain got a little more aggressive.  By the time the tour ended, it was beginning to rain pretty good, so we found an indoor marketplace to dry off and decide where to go to lunch.  We found an old pub to have some tasty food, before making our way to Salem, MA.  

Two old fogies who don't know how to take selfies

When were arrived in Salem, it was so crowded, despite the rain, as they were having their annual Halloween Festival that began on the 28th and went through the 31^st.  Finding nowhere to park, we drove through the town to do some car sightseeing and people watching of the crowds in their costumes.  Once we made it through town, we fueled up and made our way to North Conway, New Hampshire. 

Oct 30:  Leah had homework to catch up on, so she stayed behind at the condo while the rest of us took a drive to Vermont to visit a goat farm and get yummy goat cheese.  We also planned a visit to Maple Grove Farms.  Since the weather was misty rain-the goats were in the barn-but we were able to browse through the small local self-serve stand of cheese products, pet the goats and even met the owner as we were leaving.  She gave us a recommendation for a pitstop on the way back to New Hampshire. 

The Maple Grove Farms was not really farm, just a factory with a Co-op gift shop that sold products from Vermont including maple syrup. The factory is not open to the public but we still had a lovely time taste testing the syrups, browsing all the gifts available,  being schooled about a “New England Tradition of Bread in a Can served with beans” and that you do not “toast the bread as some people do”.   

We left the Maple Grove Farms gift shop and found a local diner open for a late lunch. After we finished lunch, on our way back to New Hampshire, we made a pitstop at Dog Chapel as recommended by our cheese maker. 

 Dog Chapel is located in St. Johnsbury, VT.  It is really quite something, especially if you are a dog lover. It was started by an artist named Stephen Huneck. Here is the website as my description won’t give it justice:  https://www.dogmt.com/Dog-Chapel.html.

 Oct 31:  Today we made our way to Portland, Maine.  We visited the Portland Head Light located in Cape Elizabeth, ME where it was first lit and used on January 10, 1791!  We toured the area (the lighthouse was not open) and also the adjacent Fort Williams Park with old Goddard Mansion and Battery Keyes. 

After spending a bit of time touring the area and letting our budding photographers (Leah and Grayson) take their share of pictures, we made our way into downtown Portland for some Maine Lobster!

 

Nov 1:  Today we said goodbye to our dear friends as they continued their vacation touring Washington DC.  We spent the day catching up on work, while Leah got caught up on schoolwork. 

Nov 2:  Today we took a train ride through New Hampshire White Mountains on the Conway Scenic Railway.  This adventure took most of our day and the four of us enjoyed seeing the fall colors and the waterfalls, but I think Scott enjoyed it the most because he wasn’t driving!  Our train car had hardly any people on it so we were able to move back and forth across the aisle to get the best scenery.

On the way back to our condo after our rail excursion we stopped at a couple of covered bridges in the area.

Nov. 3; Since Leah was not able to make it to Vermont with us on Monday, we took a drive to the same Maple Sugar Farms store where we tried the maple syrups again and bought a few souvenirs.  We then toured the town of St. Johnsbury, stopped at the visitors center and had a picnic lunch.

 Nov 4:  Today we met up with my brother who was finishing his last leg of a summer road trip.  He’d been staying at my sisters in Michigan and had been trying to keep ahead of the weather.  We met him and his dog Mei Mei at a local state park for an easy hike.  After the hike, we met up with our cousin who lives not too far from North Conway for lunch.  We had not seen him in many years, and it was good to catch up.  

We parted ways hoping to meet back up for dinner later.  Our family toured the town of North Conway for a bit before heading back to our condo to get cleaned up for dinner that evening, and pack up, since we’d be checking out in the morning.

Nov. 5:  We left New Hampshire heading toward Boston and made a quick pitstop at my cousin’s place to check out his tiny house.  Leah says she’d move there when he’s done.  The sheep reminded her of our UK visit. 😊 

We then made our way into Boston in hopes of touring around it for a bit-however the weather was sunny and beautiful, and the place was more packed than when we’d been there the previous Sunday.  There was absolutely no parking.  So, we did a drive through tour of the area and then made our way to check out Harvard so we could say we’ve been to Princeton, Yale and Harvard.   Hands down Princeton is definitely the winner in regard to atmosphere, ambiance and general hospitality!

We checked into our hotel just outside of Boston, had an early dinner and got to bed early for our 5:30am flight home. 

And that wraps up our New England Adventures.  It was such a fun trip, and we were so pleased to be able to spend some time with our friends in Missouri once again on our state adventures.  With the kids being older and more independent, Scott and I did a lot more things solo on this trip and it was a small taste of what life will be like in the very near future when the kids are off on their own. I have to say, this empty nesting-it didn’t seem so bad. Of course, they’ll be welcome to join us anytime, and I know they are both in for our trip to Alaska (hopefully in 2025) to get the last state off our list of visiting all 50 states.  Yes, you read that right.  Three of us have now visited 49 US states. 

***Leah missed out on Oklahoma and Arkansas last summer, but we plan to get those for her next November when we spending Thanksgiving in Branson, Missouri.) ***