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The Final Sprint: 4 states in one day

Friday, October 21st, 2011

October 1st

We started the day with a cozy Saturday morning breakfast with Michelle and Noah (Toby had left early for work)- warm bagels and cream cheese and a real cappuccino. After a rainy night, the clouds were starting to break up and we could see a little sunshine and blue sky. Hopefully, Michelle would be able to take a long walk outside with Noah to enjoy the day. We had a long day on the road ahead of us.   Our first stop was near Worcester, Massachusetts. We stopped at Wal-Mart to do a little Christmas shopping (legos and electronics for the family in France.) We had a quick lunch at Subway (it was too cold to picnic outside.) Then we crossed the state of Massachusetts. We finally arrived in Gloucester, where we had an appointment with our future landlord to visit our apartment. We rented a short-term apartment for a couple of months to give us some time to get organized and find a job. Gloucester is a cute little fishing village. It’s also the oldest port in the U.S. and our apartment is in the basement of a house on top of a hill overlooking the ocean. It seems like the perfect place to recharge our batteries for a couple of months while we organize our life “post the big trip.”

From Gloucester, we followed the coast up to York, Maine. It was a slow road, slower than we expected, so we cut back to the highway 95. Just at the New Hampshire border, we made a stop at the state liquor store to buy some more gifts for the family in France. New Hampshire doesn’t tax liquor so it’s the cheapest in the region. I guess we’ll make the trip up from time to time to restock our “bar.” We finally arrived in Maine. Four states in one day: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.  It’s a big change from the West where you could spend days driving across the same state.

The road to Connecticut and reunion in Prospect

Friday, October 21st, 2011

September 29th-30th

After more than seven months of sleeping in a tent, our final night of camping was at a KOA in eastern Pennsylvania. The days were quickly growing shorter and by the time we had put up the tent and got dinner ready, it was dark. Ironically we had planned to buy beer to toast the final night, but they don’t sell beer in supermarkets in Maryland where we had bought our groceries.  We slept well in the fresh air. I always slept better outside during the drip than in a hotel room. We took our time packing up and took a few pictures to remind us of our days on the road.

We had decided to bypass New York City (too much traffic) and spend some more time in the outdoors. We crossed the Delaware River Gap Recreation Area which follows the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Some of the areas were closed because the river was flooding (they had record amounts of rain this year) but we managed to visit a waterfall that was amazing. After crossing New York State, we finally arrived in Connecticut at Michelle (an old friend from B.U.) and Toby’s place. They have a little boy, Noah, who’s about 6 months old and this was the first time we met him. We spent some time playing with Noah and catching up with Michelle while Toby whipped up a wonderful dinner.