Fact: Day Seventeen

This was a big day for us. We (slightly sadly) left New York City to (happily) see other sights. We traveled just under 600 miles today. And that was after cleaning our NYC apartment for the next tenants, doing 5 loads of laundry, and re-packing the entire van (not to mention fighting our way out of the Bronx...an activity people have been doing for generations).


I have lots of pictures and not-so-many stories for today. We rode in the car. And made sandwiches in the rain. And talked about how different New England is from Arizona.


Here's what states we saw (and physically touched) today:

New York
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Maine
Vermont

And here's the proof that we did:

It took about 2 hours to get the 30 miles out of New York. It was slow-going but a nice day for travel (slightly cool, somewhat cloudy).

Connecticut is what we came to first. And we snuck into Rhode Island by a little freeway offramp and I was worried we wouldn't find a welcome sign. But apparently Rhode Island cares about welcoming people (definitely more than New Jersey does, anyway). Hooray!
I really wanted this "Massachusetts Welcomes You" sign...but unfortunately I'm not skilled with Jourdan's camera's 4-hour delay from the time I press the button to the time the camera shutter actually opens to capture an image.
Lucky for me there was another sign (with a handy shoulder for Jim to pull over) so we could see Dwight with the wild turkey sign. I wonder which state has a Christmas goose...
The AWESOME New Hampshire sign that Jim ran (with Dwight) all the way back to the freeway offramp to photograph while the rest of us went to the bathroom and did some stretching at the New Hampshire Welcome Center.
At the Welcome Center (when stretching was finished).
I can't explain why but I was obsessed with getting pictures while driving today. Maybe because we wanted to get to all the New England states in one day. This is one of my finest in-motion shots. Maine State Line! This is the farthest the kids have been from Arizona while still in the USA (Jim and I went to Hawaii in 1995). The sign just before this one (and the one I REALLY wanted to get) said "All Maine Points" with an arrow pointing ahead. It led to a good 15 minutes of puns about what the Maine Point is...
We stopped to get this sign and Jim said "everyone out!" He figured this is the only time most of us will ever be in Maine in our lifetimes (to which Will responded that just to prove him wrong, Will was going to move to Maine after college to which Jim replied that it would be great--we'd love a reason to come back!).

We got tons of honks and waves while standing on the shoulder of the freeway. We think Maine folks are really friendly. They may also have been warning us to get away from quicksand or snakes or something nefarious...
I can't wait for Matt to get over the phase where he thinks crosseyed in a photo is funny...
Dwight was interested in knowing where Nashua is...
Heading back across a bridge. Out of New Hampshire.
And into Vermont!
Out of Vermont and back into Massachusetts (I swear behind the van is the "Massachusetts Welcomes You" sign...stupid camera delay).
Welcome back to New York! Jim, Jourdan, and I were the only ones awake by this point tonight. I tried so hard to time it right for the camera lag...and the flash caught the rain-splattered windshield instead of the sign. We laughed until our faces hurt...what a HORRIBLE photo! But that Welcome to New York sign made it in the picture, baby!

Tomorrow it's off to Niagra Falls. It's a bit of a drive (300-ish miles) from here in Albany. But we're up for it.

One of these days I'll have to explain how I packed for this trip. No one has asked how we fit gear for 6 people on a 24 day trip into the back of a 2002 Toyota Sienna (the year of no-trunk-space for Toyota) with no trailer behind or carrier on top. But I'm going to tell you anyway...just not tonight (it's 1am).