Road Trip October 2023

We embarked on our longest road trip yet - 2509 miles - and it was a success.

Departing home early on October 20, we arrived that afternoon in Lancaster County, PA to spend a couple of days with our friends for our annual autumn getaway.  As always those too short hours included lots of good talks, delicious food, campfires, and the search for the perfect pumpkins.  This year we also had basketball, a fall hike, and Amish icecream.

On October 23, we hopped back into the van and made our way toward Boston.  As I think I have mentioned before, Craig and I have a goal of visiting all 50 states and while we have been able to check some Northeastern states off our list, this was our chance to knock off the rest and let the kids expand their own lists.  

On the way to Boston we stopped in Connecticut to pick apples (in order for a state to count we have to do something in that state - just driving through is not enough).  Craig and I had been to Connecticut a long time ago when I was a summer camp counselor at Yale University, but we figured why not make a quick excursion to let Connecticut count for the kids on this trip, too.

On Monday evening, we reached our trip's VRBO home base where we met our friends from Germany whom we had not seen in six years.  They traveled from Berlin just to be with us.

October 24: Kittery Point, Maine (Fort McClary); lunch at River House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where the epic cat drawing contest went down in history; and Salem, Massachusetts

October 25: Freedom Trail in Boston

October 26: Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Massachusetts and lunch/shopping in Vermont

October 27: Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower and Newport, Rhode Island

The two days it took driving back home after all of these great adventures were pretty rough, but it was worth it for many reasons.  We were really proud of how the kids held up through so much daily activity and had a wonderful time re-connecting with our friends.  

Thirty-five states down, fifteen to go.