On the road to New England
It has been over thirty years since my first epic road trip to New England. That was in my mid-twenties during a particularly difficult period of my life. I clearly remember experiencing the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the first time and camping near Mount Washington. The soundtrack to the trip was REM’s Monster. I think I played it on repeat the the entire trip. I can’t remember if it was cassette or CD…did CD’s exist 30 years ago?
Flash forward to the present. A hastily planned trip back to New England during much happier times. This time, I had the the experience of living in Maine for over a decade behind me. This time, I had a purpose in mind–to visit friends and family along the way. Although I had a loose itinerary in mind, it was altered significantly when I learned my brother and sister-in-law was RV’ing in northern Vermont. This resulted in a significant departure from my original plans but I needed this type of serendipitous change of plans. This time, my soundtrack was Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher. Again, I must have played this over twenty times but Spotify makes this so much easier to manage.
The trip details: Louisville to Pittsburgh to visit family, Pittsburgh to Kennett Square, PA to visit cousins I have not seen in well over 10 years, Kennett Square to South Hero, Vermont to visit more family, Vermont to Portland, Maine (via the Kangamangus road in NH) to visit friends. The trip included a two day stay at Wolfe’s Neck Oceanfront Campground.
Highlights of the trip included:
- All of the food prepared by friends and family
- The 20 mile bike ride through Freeport and Brunswick, much of it on roads I road many times when I lived there
- The epic storm at the campground after our bike ride and our near death experience almost getting struck by lightning
- The epic golf team match in which Rick and I prevailed over Derek and Paul even though we were huge underdogs
- Being around my cousin and his family after more than 10 years and catching up on a lot of time
- Being in Freeport, in general, as I lived there for over three years.
- The masks, of course.
This was the first time I have traveled to Maine where I didn’t go into Portland’s old port one time…strange.
Some of the better photos:
And a short video of our campground storm experience:
Awesome. I love this kind of stuff. Last Tuesday was a very good day
Nicely done. I love the shots.