My New England and Mid-Atlantic States road trip had a good start with my stops in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and I was ready to take on the other four New England states and one national park on my list to upgrade my earlier perspectives. With the next phase of the trip starting in Massachusetts, basically the most foundational New England state, I planned two stops to explore, the Cape Cod seashore and Salem. I felt that trying to include the historical sites within Boston would be tricky trying to navigate the traffic within the major city on a tight road trip schedule. I started out early from my motel and headed for the main road into Cape Cod. My planned trip had the national seashore at the end of the cape, but when I discussed the planned trip a few weeks earlier with one of my neighbors, he recommended that I make a quick stop at Hyannis, a small port along the south side of the cape, so when I saw the exit sign to Hyannis, I decided to make the short stop. I took the exit and focused on following the road signs, but somewhere I suddenly found myself on a westbound road heading away from Hyannis. I turned up to head back to the main cape expressway, but since this turnoff trip had taken a few hours, I decided to skip the trip to the national seashore and headed off toward Salem.

Even though I had concerns about Boston traffic, I was able to navigate the west bypass expressway in sufficient time to make it to Salem by early afternoon. My choice of Salem as a stop on the trip was based on finding a mention of an historical cabin related to the Salem witch trials in late 1600s, which made me feel this stop would be a quick one. However, when I arrived at the small center area of the city, I realized that most of the locations were better reached by foot, leading me to park in a three story garage next to the city’s visitor center. Taking the time to make a quick stop at the visitor center, I discovered there were more interesting things to explore in Salem. I walked over to the Salem Witch Museum, checked out a small city park with a World War II memorial, bought a tarot deck in a witch gift store, walked down to the Salem Wharf National Historic Site to look out into the Atlantic, and went over to the historic House of Seven Gables, which was the inspiration for the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne novel. The afternoon was an inspirational experience into the early colonial history of this country.

Witch Museum/House of Seven Gables – Salem

After an impressive afternoon in Salem, it was time for me to head to the nearby hotel in which I had reserved a room online the night before through Expedia. Since the hotel’s location was a bit more complicated than my first two hotel stops, I went on the Expedia app on my cell phone to get the proper address information to search on the Apple Maps app. I noted that Expedia had a Maps link on the reservation page to direct the location into Maps to view. What surprised me was that as soon as the location was displayed on Maps, a calculated route path from my current location was instantly displayed. I quickly learned how to use my phone as a GPS guide for the rest of my road trip, something that would have been helpful earlier in the day to make that side trip to Hyannis.

The next morning was the start of a scheduled road drive day to Maine. Since my next exploratory stop was to be Acadia National Park, I had planned a full day in my schedule to re-experience the park 48 years after my first visit, so I had reserved a two-night stay at a nearby motel surrounding the day. I used the travel day to get used to the Maps GPS program on my phone, which I was able to keep charged up with a USB connection in the rental car dashboard. The only side stop beside gas and lunch along the drive was a quick stop at the Maine Welcome Center just across the border from New Hampshire. Besides picking up travel pamphlets, I also took a few photo shots of the forest area around the center, then headed on to my target location.

Acadia NP – Maine

The majority of Acadia National Park covers more than 50 percent of Mount Desert Island, which lies right next to the Maine mainland with a small bridge connection. My two-night stay motel was in a small town on the north side of the island. After enjoying breakfast at the motel, I gathered my camera and positioned my national park pass hangtag on the rear-view mirror, then headed out to experience the park. My first mission was to drive to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse location at the southernmost peninsula of the island. One Kodak photo from my visit 48 years ago was taken by my friend of me sitting on the rocky shore in front of the lighthouse, and my goal was to get a park ranger or another visitor to get an updated photo of me in front of the lighthouse. However, once I reached the location parking lot and carefully walked down a rocky shore area with other visitors, I discovered that the rocky shore had ebbed back from the ocean, taking away the broad open view of the lighthouse I had witnessed so long ago. The few shots I took barely show the lighthouse peeking out from the trees beside it. I headed back to my rental car and drove up to the main attraction of the park, the drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Because Acadia National Park is one of the most visited parks in the eastern US and Cadillac Mountain is its prime attraction, the national park service now required an online reservation to enter the road up the mountain. Before I started my trip, I had gone online and paid for my reservation for 2pm on my scheduled day to visit the park. I drove up to the road entrance and handed over my reservation before heading up to the top of the mountain. The ocean and bay views were fabulous as I trekked around the small trails around the parking area. I took my camera shots and headed back to the car. Having experienced the park, I headed back to the motel, picking up a dinner along the way. My timing proved to be perfect, as a thunderstorm built up and started pouring as soon as I settled back into my room.

White Mountains Creek/Lake Champlain Bay

The next day I headed out to experience New Hampshire and Vermont. Per my schedule, I headed west to drive along the Kancamagus Scenic Byway through the White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire on the way to my motel reservation in Colchester, Vermont, next to Lake Champlain. In a bit of bad fortune, the previous night’s thunderstorm left a cloud cover over the upper New England area, so my quick stops along the byway gave me a darker cloudy view of the White Mountains and the nearby rocky creek area, but the natural experience captured was still interesting to view and experience. When I got to Colchester, I discovered the motel I had made my reservation in was a small 12 room location next to a four-screen drive-in theater. Each room was named in honor of a Hollywood legend, and my room honored the only living legend who was slightly younger than me, Tom Cruise. Check in was by phone, and the key was left in a flowerpot next to the door of the room. Inside, I found a complimentary ticket to the drive-in theatre. However, since it was around the first day of summer, I felt I had time to head toward the lake, and even with the cloudy skies, I would get good photos. As I headed down roads marked on the Maps app as ending by the lakeshore, I discovered that the ends of the roads became private entries to lakeshore homes. After driving around for a while, I discovered a small parking lot in a forested area which had a small dirt path to a bay shore attached to Lake Champlain. I collected a few good photos to represent Vermont and headed back to the motel. I had covered the New England states, and tomorrow would be a long drive to get to the Mid-Atlantic States on my journey.

To be continued…