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Visit 3 new states (#8)
I’m on a ROLL with the accomplishing of things lately. Considering that I am now on a countdown of less than a year (eek!) to finish as much as possible on my list, I need to keep this roll going.
During the first week of October, Dan and I took a trip to Boston to attend a wedding (of course). Because New England is one of the areas of the country I haven’t explored at all, we took advantage and got to 4 states within the week we were there. One (Massachusetts) I had been to previously, but Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island were all new to me. Adding in Arizona, which I visited in June, I have visited 4 new states, bringing my total up to 33.
On our trip, we had taken the red eye to Boston in order to maximize our vacation time. As we landed around 8 am, and wouldn’t be able to check into where we were staying until the afternoon, we decided we would rent a car and drive up to Maine – which only takes about 90 minutes from Boston. This completely blew my mind – after living in California, I forgot how quickly you can drive through states on the East Coast.
Our drive to Maine was SUPER foggy, rainy, and chilly which felt…appropriate. As we only had a few hours in Maine, my main goals were to see the Atlantic, wander a cute little town and eat a whole mess of Maine lobster. We had breakfast at a little cafe in Ogunquit, Maine (lobster benedict – check!) and then drove up to Kennebunkport. We wandered through town, drove around to see the lovely views, saw the Bush family compound, crashed after a night of travel and took a nap in the car, and then ate at a restaurant that was basically a shack on a fishing pier (lobster stew and lobster roll – check check). Maine is awesome.
On the way back from Maine to Boston, we drove through New Hampshire. Feeling like we couldn’t just drive through and count it as a visit, we pulled off in Portsmouth and did a fair amount of driving around the town and exploring. We decided that if we lived anywhere in New England ever, we would definitely return to visit, shop and eat. Super cute town.
We spent the next three nights in Boston – lots of wandering and exploring, LOTS of eating, visited the Sam Adams Brewery, and spent a day touring Cambridge/Harvard. I really liked both Cambridge and Boston – super walkable, nice public spaces, good public transit. I bet that we will be back.
Following that, we drove about an hour south of Boston to Rehoboth, MA for the wedding, and stayed 3 nights in that area. 2 of those days we ended up in Rhode Island…who knew there were 2 days worth of things to do in tiny Rhode Island?
We spent some time in Providence wandering around Brown’s campus and also driving through RISD (the two campuses are basically connected), and then spent some time in Providence itself. It’s not my favorite town ever ever, but it was more ‘metropolitan’ than I expected. It’s sort of a little town that is trying to be a big city. I did really enjoy the Brown University campus though – it was a much more open, inviting space than Harvard’s campus. More students were out and enjoying the weather, and while it still had an old, historical, New England feel, it didn’t feel as…snooty pants as Harvard.**
Our second day in Rhode Island, we drove down to Newport, which was apparently The Hamptons of the early 1900s. Super rich families (e.g. The Vanderbilts) built what they called ‘cottages’ in Newport and these ‘cottages’ are now open to the public to tour. The Breakers was one of the Vanderbilts’ summer cottages and it’s a 90 room super-uber-mansion. It’s totally unreal. We went in to tour, and so many people tour the house that they give you one of those personal mp3 players so you can self guide your way through the house, which took at least 90 minutes, and that was just through the public spaces. Ri.dic.u.lous.
Below: The back of the ‘cottage’ – on the middle level, in the archway second from the right, next to the column? That little blip is a person. Just a reference for scale.
**Harvard does win some points for their first year student dining hall, pictured below. That business is straight out of Hogwarts.
Well played Harvard, well played.
Maine IS awesome.
Your trip (minus the RI part) reminds me of last March. My parents came up to Boston for a week, so I drove down from ME (for reference, I lived about 2 hours north of Kennebunkport, and 3 hours north of Boston). We definitely did the Sam Adams Brewery tour and Cambridge/Harvard** as well. We then drove to NH for a wedding and stayed 2 nights. And then I drove back to ME.
I love New England.
**Want to see the actual Hogwarts Great Hall? Check out Oxford.