Philadelphia, PA

Wednesday afternoon it was time for us to return the rental car. We had had the Fiat for almost a month, and it was a bit sad letting it go. We had kept a mileage total going for the duration of our rental, and when we dropped it off we had driven just under 2,550 miles. Also, according to the car log, we had gotten an average of 35.3 miles to the gallon. This, compared to the measly 13 miles to the gallon that the truck gets (when not towing, towing its closer to 10), was a huge improvement. If I just do the simple math of the better gas mileage, factoring an average price of gas in New England at being $4/gl, the savings in just gas comes to $495. So, this plus the added benefit of no extra wear and tear on the truck, we pretty much came out even after taking into account the actual cost of the rental car. (I’m pretty sure all the finance nerds are still with me here…and everyone else has dropped off from boredom…but I LOVE math, so sorries!) Driving the Fiat and parking it was a heck of a lot more enjoyable than driving and parking the truck, so either way, it was totally worth it.

New York City

On the last day of visiting Lindsay in Stamford, Skyler and I took the train back into New York City, this time to explore by ourselves. We had been to the city before several times so we didn't have a specific itinerary of must-see things. Instead we chose to just wonder around and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city streets. We walked from Grand Central station to Times Square, through the Fashion District, to Chelsea. We’d recently watched a documentary on Netflix about urbanization and one of the projects included in the video was the High Line park installation. Since we were in the city and were nearby, we decided to visit the new addition.

Visit With Friends in Stamford, CT

Remember Lindsay, who flew out to Seattle to go to British Columbia with us? Well, Ms. Lindsay permanently resides on the East Coast, just outside of New York City in the fine state of Connecticut. We had a week left on our rental car, and we were only 3 hours away, so we decided to drive down and visit Lindsay at her place in Stamford. Lindsay had recently moved to Stamford from Norwalk, and now had a brand new roommate that we were excited to meet. Kailee, the roommate, had also invited a friend of hers to town, and we had a sizable group for the night.

Boston, MA

Boston is one of our favorite cities in the United States. I first visited Boston with my parents, while on a college touring trip. The way my mother tells the story (which is most likely the true version...knowing teenagers) is that they showed me all the city had to offer, took me to the museums,  and the historic place markers  and all I wanted to do was go shopping at the Ann Taylor store. (What? we didn't have one back then in our little city in Arkansas...). I just remember walking away from the experience with a memory of how cool the city was. Its possible the newly purchased Ann Taylor dress had something to do with it, but even so, I remembered Boston being somewhere I'd want to visit again. Fast forward several years (of maturation) and I returned to the city,this time with Sky by my side. We've been back twice since, once on a trip two years ago, and then again on this trip. I'm pretty sure Boston is one of those cities that we will never grow tired of.

8 Month Tripaversary

Today is our 8 month anniversary of setting off on this Great American Road Trip of ours. It's hard to put into words how I feel about that number. In one sense it's as if we just left yesterday. In another sense it seems like We've Been Everywhere (Man!) and its about time to settle back down. All at the same time we find ourselves craving the stability and comforts of living in one place (a gym membership, running groups, a bath tub!) and then again we aren't necessarily ready to settle down in just one place.

Newport, RI

On the last day of Pattie’s visit we decided to go out for a nice seafood dinner. We had had already visited Boston, Plymouth, Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, so we were brainstorming for a new place to go to explore. My friend Lindsay had suggested we give Newport, Rhode Island a try, and we figured why not? We made the hour long drive just after three and arrived in Newport a couple of hours before dark.

Martha's Vineyard

During Pattie’s visit we also visited Martha’s Vineyard. To reach the island we had to take an hour long ferry. Monday, when we made the voyage from Woods Hole to Vineyard Haven (one of the six towns on the island), the ocean was really choppy and the ferry rocked back and forth on the waves. On the way out there I entertained myself by watching for lighthouses off of the back deck. We spotted the Nobska lighthouse, the West Chop and the East Chop lighthouses, as well as several fishing boats.

Cape Cod

When Pattie came to visit us, one of her biggest wishes was to visit the National Seashore on Cape Cod. The National Seashore is a coastal area that is designated by the federal government as being of natural or recreational significance as a preserved area. In other words, it’s a long stretch of pristine beach where you can walk for miles and never see any commercial or residential developments. There are currently ten protected areas known as National Seashores in the US. The Cape Cod National Seashore was established by JFK in 1961 and it encompasses 43,500 acres of land and has nearly 40 miles of beach.

Plymouth, MA

Skyler’s mom flew in from Fayetteville (our hometown) on Tuesday night. Her flight was due into Boston’s Logan Airport at 10:30 pm, but because of delays the flight didn't actually get in until just after midnight. Needless to say, all three of us were pretty pooped that night and slept in well into the morning on Wednesday. After a slow breakfast and a long walk with the pups around the beautiful RV park grounds we decided to make the 15 mile drive to Plymouth for the afternoon. On our way out there we drove by a few local cranberry bogs in hopes of showing Pattie the wet harvest.

Recipes From The Road- Cranberry turnovers

A few Thanksgivings ago Sky and I made too much cranberry sauce and had left overs sitting in our fridge well after the holiday. We had no idea what to do with it and we were tired of eating it with our left over mashed potatoes. Then we had an idea! What if we bought crescent rolls dough, smeared cranberry sauce in the middle of each roll, roll them up and bake them to make tiny cranberry turnovers? So we did, and it made for an awesome dessert!

Cranberry Harvest Festival

Saturday we were back to our "home" in Massachusetts, following our 6 day, 1000 mile journey through New England, and all we wanted was to stay home and relax. We were completely wiped out and really tired of being cooped up in our coupe. (ha!) BUT, we came home just in time for the Cranberry Harvest Festival and I really wanted to see a wet cranberry harvest in person.

A Fall Trip through New England: Part 2

One fact we quickly learned while driving around New England is that most highways here don’t have their exit numbers tied to mile markers. What is that about? Every other part of the US we've visited so far has followed this golden rule, why not here? In case you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about: most highways in the US tie their exit numbers to miles traveled on that highway, so for example, if you entered the highway just past exit 20, and went 40 miles, you’re going to be looking to get off on exit 60. This makes so much sense! Here we get on the highway around exit 10, and our directions say to get off on exit 14, and we go 50 miles in between. What happens when they need to add a new exit in between 10 and 11? Is that how we get 10a, 10b and 10c? Yuck!

A Fall Trip through New England: Part 1

Sunday early morning we woke up to the sound of rain. Although this put a damper in our plans, we were so excited about setting off to see fall in New England that we didn't let the rain get us down. We ate a quick warm breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and then started packing our stuff. We had a 1,000 mile trip planned for a loop through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, and we had set aside 6 days and 5 nights to do it in.