New England Trip: Day 3
Tracy and I are currently in the middle of a New England road trip where we are going to see seven states in four days. Here are some daily highlights:
AUGUSTA TOWNSHIP, Maine — Day Three comes to a close and I have all the pictures I need for Assignment: America. We wrapped up the trip with stops in the capitals of New Hampshire and Maine and now I have 33 states completed. Tracy also found postcards for her collection, which I was surprised to find out are harder to find than one would think. There really isn’t a great place to look for them on a consistent basis, although we seem to have found that Rite Aid might be the place to start, as we found cards in three different states.
Today we also traveled throughout the backroads of New Hampshire and passed a couple of awesome signs: “Moose Crossing” and “Bear Crossing.” Tracy was really excited, as she was hoping to get a chance to see one of these animals. I didn’t think moose were native to New England, but apparently they are common as deer in this part of the country. Alas, we didn’t see any moose or bears on the trip, so Tracy had to settle for a picture of a moose on one of her postcards.
Finding welcome signs today was also difficult to spot along the New Hampshire/Vermont border. We were driving down I-89 and while looking at the GPS, it indicated we crossed the border into New Hampshire and didn’t see a welcome sign. Convinced we made a mistake, we decided to loop back and try again. On the second attempt, we saw a marker on the bridge for the official state line, and saw the welcome sign located on a hill, but had already passed the exit ramp. So, we had to make a third pass to get the picture. While driving on the ramp, we noticed there wasn’t a shoulder, so we had to drive around behind a grocery store and climb the hill for the picture. It sounds like a lot of work, but there seems to be one sign per trip that causes a lot of hassle.
After picking up some Vermont maple syrup at a roadside store yesterday, Tracy wanted to stop at another roadside store and look for antiques. We had such good luck yesterday, we thought we had an eye for a good store today. Yeah, that wasn’t the case today. We stopped at a store outside Augusta and the lady running the store would not stop talking to us about our trip. We decided to duck out and give up on antiques for the rest of the trip.
One last thing about driving on backroads: I continue to be impressed that every small town and every rural gas station seems to have a Dunkin Donuts store. I remembered that Boston had a ton of locations and seemed to have one on every corner, but it seems even more amazing that these areas can support so many stores (and even a periodic Tim Hortons!). Guess New Englanders need donuts to balance out their seafood.
With all the capitols done, we’re headed back home tomorrow. We’re driving down from Maine to Boston to drop off the car at the airport and take in a few sights before our flight leaves in the evening.
Distance driven: 281 miles (805 total)
Capitols visited: 6 (RI, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Signs seen: 7 (RI, MA, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Michigan license plates seen: 1
AUGUSTA TOWNSHIP, Maine — Day Three comes to a close and I have all the pictures I need for Assignment: America. We wrapped up the trip with stops in the capitals of New Hampshire and Maine and now I have 33 states completed. Tracy also found postcards for her collection, which I was surprised to find out are harder to find than one would think. There really isn’t a great place to look for them on a consistent basis, although we seem to have found that Rite Aid might be the place to start, as we found cards in three different states.
Today we also traveled throughout the backroads of New Hampshire and passed a couple of awesome signs: “Moose Crossing” and “Bear Crossing.” Tracy was really excited, as she was hoping to get a chance to see one of these animals. I didn’t think moose were native to New England, but apparently they are common as deer in this part of the country. Alas, we didn’t see any moose or bears on the trip, so Tracy had to settle for a picture of a moose on one of her postcards.
Finding welcome signs today was also difficult to spot along the New Hampshire/Vermont border. We were driving down I-89 and while looking at the GPS, it indicated we crossed the border into New Hampshire and didn’t see a welcome sign. Convinced we made a mistake, we decided to loop back and try again. On the second attempt, we saw a marker on the bridge for the official state line, and saw the welcome sign located on a hill, but had already passed the exit ramp. So, we had to make a third pass to get the picture. While driving on the ramp, we noticed there wasn’t a shoulder, so we had to drive around behind a grocery store and climb the hill for the picture. It sounds like a lot of work, but there seems to be one sign per trip that causes a lot of hassle.
After picking up some Vermont maple syrup at a roadside store yesterday, Tracy wanted to stop at another roadside store and look for antiques. We had such good luck yesterday, we thought we had an eye for a good store today. Yeah, that wasn’t the case today. We stopped at a store outside Augusta and the lady running the store would not stop talking to us about our trip. We decided to duck out and give up on antiques for the rest of the trip.
One last thing about driving on backroads: I continue to be impressed that every small town and every rural gas station seems to have a Dunkin Donuts store. I remembered that Boston had a ton of locations and seemed to have one on every corner, but it seems even more amazing that these areas can support so many stores (and even a periodic Tim Hortons!). Guess New Englanders need donuts to balance out their seafood.
With all the capitols done, we’re headed back home tomorrow. We’re driving down from Maine to Boston to drop off the car at the airport and take in a few sights before our flight leaves in the evening.
Distance driven: 281 miles (805 total)
Capitols visited: 6 (RI, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Signs seen: 7 (RI, MA, CT, NY, VT, NH, ME)
Michigan license plates seen: 1
Labels: Assignment: America, New England, Road trips
posted by Brian Schick @ 9:17 PM
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