This part of the US is so very full of history, whether it be of the Revolution or the Civil War. As we've mentioned before, the national parks in the East tend to be focused on historical significance. We visited Harpers Ferry, Antietam, and Gettysburg. The pictures below are samplings from them.
The Gettysburg park has a very extensive museum as well as lots and lots of monuments throughout the battlefield area. We have a history-buff brother-in-law in Ohio that we know would enjoy spending an entire week pouring over all the information here.
Adjacent to Gettysburg is the Eisenhower farm which is managed by the National Park Service. We took the tour through the modest home. The furnishings included a curio cabinet full of inexpensive mementos. One of the items was a plastic Eisenhower presidential plate Mamie purchased from Stuckey's. (Those of you of our generation will remember how prevalent along the nation's interstates Stuckey's establishments were at one time.)
We added 5 more state capitals to our list--Annapolis, MD; Dover, DE; Harrisburg, PA; Trenton, NJ; and Hartford, CT. The pictures below correspond to the list.
Of all the Capitols we've toured, we believe that Hartford's building is certainly in the running as most nicely done. Other than national parks and capitals, some highlights of our sightseeing included:
- Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum near Washington DC
- George Washington home in Mount Vernon
- Liberty Bell in Philadelphia
- Museum of Art in Philadelphia (with the obligatory "Rocky" pose)
- Nautilus submarine in New London, CT
- Lunch at Mystic Pizza in Mystic, CT (inspiration for the movie "Mystic Pizza"). Pictures from the movie cover all the walls of the restaurant.
While we were in Maryland, we enjoyed visiting family and friends that live in the DC area. We spent a couple of weeks deep in the Dutch Amish country of Pennsylvania. We were never able to find our way anywhere around there without the help of our GPS. The many small inter-twined country roads made navigating very challenging. When we moved from Pennsylvania to Connecticut, our route took us over several turnpikes, requiring us to hand over $40+ a couple of different times. We drove through the Bronx in New York, and paid $85(!) to drive our rig across the George Washington bridge there. We knew that tolls would be an additional expense in this part of the country, but shelling out over $150 in one move was still shocking.
We've now arrived in Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Neither of us have been here before, and we're looking forward to exploring Beantown!
