Though we left New Hampshire on Friday, we still had a few more days in New England before we began the meandering trek home to Florida. At least, meandering was our intention for the trip back to Florida.
Our first stop, recommended by a friend who lives near us and is from Plymouth, MA, is to visit Cape Cod. She said if she had to choose one thing in New England, Cape Cod was at the top of her list. That was perfect for us. More than 10 years ago Randy saw a 2012 movie called Monumental, hosted by Kirk Cameron. It was about the Monument of the Forefathers, unassumingly located in a residential neighborhood in Plymouth, MA. Randy put visiting the monument on his bucket list. Happily, for him, that monument was about 5 miles out of the way on the route to Cape Cod.
We’d heard that seeing Plymouth Rock was a bit anticlimactic. It’s small, they said, so we assumed the Monument to the Forefathers was small too. In reality, it’s actually thought to be the world’s largest solid granite monument. At 81 ft tall, it’s imposing, and thought provoking. It was commissioned by the Pilgrim Society in the mid-1800s. The monument honors the ideals of the Pilgrims (faith, morality, law, education and liberty) which were later generally embraced by the United States. Our brother-in-law remarked that every city and town in the country needs a version of this monument to remind people what the concept of America is all about.
We drove on to Cape Cod, that beautiful autumn day and spent about 36 hours there exploring quintessential New England. We drove all the way to the end of the peninsula and marveled at the beauty of the National Seashore. Randy and I took off our shoes and socks and grounded for a while on Race Track Beach. The sun and sand were warm even if the wind had a little bite. There was a big sign on the beach that warned that great white sharks hunt seals in the water there (in other words, beware if you choose to go into the water). Peak shark season is October. We stayed out of the water.
Leaving Cape Cod Saturday morning, we drove against the heavy traffic coming onto the Cape for the weekend. We stopped in Hyannis for a light lunch and toured the ferry terminal to Nantucket Island. Then we drove on to Providence, RI, to explore the historic residential district of College Hill. We were awed by buildings far more interesting than anything we see in the mid-west or Florida.
We parted ways with Kristine and Gary in Providence and drove back up to a suburb of Boston to visit our Goddaughter Katrina, her husband Aaron, and their 2 children, 5-year-old Stevie and 2-year old Jordy. Aaron is a native of the Boston area, and on Sunday, the 6 of us piled into our car and drove into downtown Boston for a tour of the historic places I was so keen to explore while we were here.
Walking through Boston is such an interesting experience. There’s such a contrast of old and new. It’s beautiful, historic, compelling, thought provoking, and crowded beyond anything I’m comfortable with. Yup…not a city girl.
We left Katrina and Aaron’s Monday morning on the meandering portion of the trip home. Gary had suggested Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl, PA as a destination restaurant (what can I say? We’re buffet connoisseurs!). Since that was relatively close to Gettysburg, PA, which also interested me, we discussed going there on the first leg of the meander. But when I started looking at routes and times, I got so confused and frustrated we decided to skip it. We didn’t want to venture anywhere near NY City, Baltimore, or Washington DC coming home, but not doing that added so much time to the already 22-hour trip that we rejected that goal as well.
As it turned out, we were more anxious to get home than I thought. And we were facing 3 full days in the car without any meandering at all. So, we just picked the route Google Maps told us was the fastest and pointed the car toward Florida. We drove nearly 500 miles today, but still have 923 miles to go. We were in the car for about 11 hours. Traffic is horrific in the northeast US.
Which brings me to the biggest take aways from this trip.
New England is really beautiful, especially in the fall. We were surprised by, and it was great to see, how many of the roadways on the trip there, and once we arrived, were through truly magnificent rural areas. You wouldn’t suspect, driving THROUGH, that it was so densely populated. The good was being with family who are also your best friends. It’s a sweet time to connect to our roots and remember what’s truly important in life – relationships.
And the ugly? You might recall I said in a previous blog post that Randy and I had never been north of I-40 on the east coast. I understand now why that’s a very good thing. Driving up to New England from Florida stinks. We’ll NEVER. DO. IT. AGAIN.
Our brother-in-law, Gary, originally wanted to fly from their home near Raleigh, NC. We talked him and Kristine into driving. We should have listened to him. He has actual experience driving up there. After leaving us in Providence on Saturday, they drove home with only a 3-hour nap at a rest stop because they were unable to find a vacancy at any hotel along the way. For us seniors, that is brutal.
His conclusion, with which I wholeheartedly agree, is that the amount of driving for this New England excursion was negatively disproportional to the amount of fun and activities we accomplished. So next time (if there is a next time, which certainly won’t be to New England) we’re going to fly and rent a car.
We’ll have 2 easier days coming up. We wanted to visit some friends in Charlotte, NC, but that route takes us quite a bit out of the most direct route home. We called our friends and begged off this trip.
This trip will soon be a memory. We won’t forget the drive, but it will be eclipsed by how wonderful it was to see, with people we love, parts of this great country we’ve never seen before. I’ll tell you about them next week.
Life is good.
P.S. The 6 of us had a discussion about next year’s Annual Sibling Reunion. We’re thinking about Alaska. And yes, definitely flying. What do you think?
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