Pretty colors

Last weekend Jim and I took a short weekend trip to New England to see pretty fall foliage colors (you can guess whose idea this was). I always thought Michigan was pretty in the fall time, but it doesn't quite compare to the scenery we saw in Vermont and New Hampshire area. It was a wonderful trip, and we did it on the cheap (relatively speaking) so it really wasn't that bad.

Here are a few highlights on the way:



This was the route we took. We went through 12 states and 2 countries, 7 states I had never visited before.



We stopped for lunch in the Niagara Falls area. We ate at the Hard Rock Hotel, something of a tradition for me and jim, but it was way overpriced for what we had this time. Don't think we'll be back. It was kind of funny that we sat at the same table we ate at last time. I did enjoy our stop at the Coca-Cola Store where we had some yummy maple walnut ice cream. We drove to Latham, New York (near albany) and slept in our car for the night.

In the morning I rinsed my hair out with shampoo using a gallon of purified water in the parking lot.. it worked surpisingly well! We had breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, which were very common in New England (I had a pumpkin muffin and pumpkin latte, mmmmmmm). We drive the remainder of New York into Vermont, and start along Route 100 - considered one of the most scenic routes in America. The whole drive was filled with beautiful colors. It wasn't just one pretty look-out here and there, the whole route was just gorgeous.. We stopped at cute little country stores, ate yummy fudge and vermont cheese, and just enjoyed the scenery. Here are some of my favorite photos from route 100.
















We stopped at Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, Vermont. It was really crowded for some reason, so we decided not to wait an hour for the factory tour and just ordered ice cream and walked around the "flavor graveyard"



After that, I drove through most of New Hampshire while Jim slept. The scenery there was just as stunning, if not more. We saw a moose at one point, though I was driving too fast to get a good photo of it.

We drove through the "Kancamagus highway", another route that's considered one of the top scenic routes in america during fall foliage. We got there at twilight so the colors weren't as spectacular as they would have been in the day time, but it was still gorgeous.



We slept in a nice place called "Alyssa's motel" about twenty minutes into Maine, past the new hampshire border. The beds were soooooo comfy that night, especially compared to sleeping in the car from the night before. The next day we headed to the coast of Maine near Portland. We went to the beach at Kennebunkport, Maine, it was a beautiful sunny day and the maine coastline was gorgeous! I'd love to go back and go even further north where the coast is even rockier.



We had lunch at a lobsterpound place, called "the clam shack", where we had the freshest and cheapest lobster ever. I had a "lobster roll" with clam chowder - delicious! Jim had a lobster taken from the ocean just that morning. We sat in our "lobsterondack" chairs and ate our yummy meal.








After our yummy meal we drove the short distance to Boston, Massachusetts. This is where we got lost in an alternate universe for more than an hour and I go absolutely crazy! Finally we find the beginning of the freedom trail and start our little history tour. Boston was CROWDED that day and everything I wanted to stop at had hour long waits. Everyone in the world had the same new england itinerary as i did that weekend. We still really enjoyed the historical stuff along the freedom trail, but didn't have that long to visit. We'd really like to go back and spend more time in boston.






We stayed at the Days Inn in Salem that night. We were going to go on a salem ghost tour, but decided to just relax in the hotel that night. Jim showed me something called "Dr. Horrible's sing along" or something, it was cute.

The next day was our last day, and we had 16 hours of driving ahead of us. We stopped real quick in Salem though, since we were there, and went to the witch trial memorial and the super old graveyard nearby. Nothing was open the time we were there (early in the morning), but it was a quaint area, i'd like to return one day and do more stuff.








We start our long drive back home, through Rhode Island and Connecticut. We stop at "pepe's pizza" in New Haven, Connecticut, for some famous pizza. We ordered half clam pizza, half pepperoni. The pepperoni was delicious.





We got stuck in traffic in New Jersey for an hour, due to a bad accident, then we drove the remainder of the distance into Pennyslvania, ohio, indiana, and back to kalamazoo michigan (yay?), getting in at 6:30 am, a little later than planned. It was an awesome trip. I enjoyed spending the time with jim and singing showtunes with him in the car! I highly recommend a fall foliage trip into new england to anyone though. Even though me and jim were probably the only people there that weekend younger than 50, it was a lot of fun. Had we had more time there were a number of things I would have liked to do in the area. Beautiful country!

Well that's all I'll say for now. I will post again soon!

-mary