Next adventure: New England!

 Back in early 2020, Jim and I had planned a nice week-long fall drive in new England to cross off some states that we hadn't been to. The pandemic scuppered those plans, but we kept trying to find time to reschedule. Finally last fall, we settled on late May of 2025 and Jim set to work planning our route, looking up places to stay, etc. We discussed what we wanted to see while on our drive. I had one week between the cruise and the road trip, which was just enough time to do laundry and repack my suitcase. 

We left Thursday after work and drove 3-ish hours to Wisconsin and I took no photos because we were just in the car and then in the hotel. Who needs to site-see in WI when you live in MN, although someday I would like to go to Door County. WI is delightfully wooded, but the drawback with woodsy areas is you get a lot of deer roadkill on the highways.

The next day we drove all day to just south of Columbus Ohio. It was a nerve-wracking drive because of the traffic through Chicago all the way to Columbus. I did not help drive at all. There was nothing interesting to look at, and we just wanted to get that leg of the drive over with because it was the longest stretch we would do for the whole trip.

Saturday, we left Ohio and drove a stretch through West Virginia. We have technically been to WV before, but a long time ago and only about 50 feet in (trip to see Mike when he lived in Maryland and attended Bethesda). So this time, we drove a few hours in WV and enjoyed the rolling forested hills. I did not take any pictures. Then we were into Maryland.

The first pictures I took were from a rest stop in MD. We had to walk up a steep ish path to get to this overlook. 

One of my bucket list items for this trip was to walk on the Appalachian Trail. I have a thing for watching AT thru hikers on youtube. We found a little parking lot with access to the AT and I happily hiked for a few minutes with Jim. We crossed a walking path bridge over the highway, through a few people's properties (the path was very neatly designated between a couple houses) and then into the woods. Two of the hikers that I follow on youtube had video clips of crossing on the bridge, which I was delighted to see! 

This is the footbridge we crossed that was shown in a couple of the videos

path between two properties

The woodsy area. 

After our tiny little AT hike, we drove off to Delaware, which unfortunately I did not photograph due to it being dark. Lots of the houses had candle lights in the windows, which I noted to Jim.

Lots of bridges on our drive. This was over the Chesapeake Bay possibly during our long-drawn out search for somewhere to eat dinner. We tried a couple places in a very nice town near Annapolis, but everywhere was PACKED. Looked like the Naval Academy was hosting graduation ceremonies and the town was overrun with visitors. There was no where to park. So we drove on over the river and tried another spot, which was CLOSED. 

Bridge architecture is very interesting

Very symmetrical and angular

Water!  We did finally find a place to eat at a little bar. We were so famished we really didn't care where we ate or even what we ate.

Our overnight accommodations in Ocean City MD, which was very loud and boisterous at night. Many sirens. The drapes and bedcovers were loud enough to keep me awake! 

The room had a few extra chairs, which was nice. You don't often get extra chairs in a place like this.

The place had 2 beds and a kitchenette.

Finally the long drive to the east coast was done! We still had a lot of driving to do, but we were finally into the vacation portion of the trip.