After leaving the Boston area, we visited our niece in Massachusetts and a college friend of Bonnie's in Plymouth, MA. Yes, Plymouth Rock is right there at Plymouth, and yes, it is a large rock:
While it is a rock, it is not just any rock. It is very important in the history of the U.S. as evidenced by the structure that protects it.
There is also an exact replica of the Mayflower in Plymouth
Continuing on to Rhode Island, we visited Newport, the home to many luxury summer "cottages". The "small cottage" shown below was built by the Vanderbilt's and is 130,000 square feet.
There were many summer "cottages" built in Newport by wealthy families during the Gilded Age, 1870's to 1900 to show off their opulence.
We moved on through Connecticut along the coast then around NYC on down through New Jersey, around Philadelphia, and into Delaware before crossing into Maryland to see a family friend. Upon leaving Maryland, we went to the Shenandoah National Park to drive down Skyline Drive. The views were absolutely gorgeous and unending for more than a hundred miles. We stopped and hiked at a few of the summit hikes.
We continued on from Skyline Drive to Blue Ridge Parkway which had the same views. We are already making plans to return because there are hundreds of hikes along the way including many accesses to the Appalachian Trail.
At one of the campgrounds along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the ranger told us there was 160 year old apple orchard on the grounds. We walked around and found some trees that have not had any spray for at least 100 years, so we picked these:
and thought of our friends, Brandon and Rachael, when we turned them into homemade applesauce:
OBSERVATIONS:
Once upon a time there were Rest Stops along the interstate highway system, but technology is slowly changing that thinking, in a good way. We noticed this mostly in the northeast states:
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