Maine

Well, if this isn’t an under-rated part of America! Highly recommend this part of the States, we would love to come back and explore here some more (have found ourselves saying that a bit lately…who woulda thunk you could do this trip in 3 months?!! 6 months and you would still be coming back for more). But Maine was so lovely and green, lovely scenery, and looks like it has a great coastline and some really good parks.
We stayed one night and then headed up to Quebec, Canada, and en route we took a drive that was recommended for many moose sightings. Sadly for us, the moose were still too high up the mountains and not down at the road, but we still had a lovely drive :-)



Not sure if this sign is referring to crashes between moose (mooses? meese? moosi? Not sure of the plural for moose!!) or between a car and a moose!

Nice little stop by the road

Maine countryside

Border crossings....just!

So at the end of the trip when we count the total number of states that we passed through, we’ll be including them whether we spent four days there or 20 minutes there! This has been the case with a couple of states when we drive from one place to another….on the day we went from New York to Boston we passed through Connecticut and Rhode Island, meaning we were in four states on one day!
Rather than give each border crossing its own picture folder, for the states we have just driven through and only have a border photo, we’ll keep them in our “just-passing-through-but-still-got-the-all-important-border-pic” folder!

New Jersey

Connecticut

Rhode Island

New Hampshire (pity we didn’t stay here longer, this is one of the few states with no sales tax! Will make up for it in Montana, the next sales tax-free state)

Ohio

Indiana

Illinois
Minnesota

Alberta
Idaho

BC take 2

Massachusetts

Just in case you were wondering :-) Boston is yet another beautiful east-coast city! Really loved our time here, great people and once again, a lot of very interesting things to look at. Boston is often called the heart of the revolutionary movement that started the War of Independence in the 18th century, and on the walking tour we did of the historic part of town there was a lot of info about this period and before. Some old old buildings. Boston - go there!!




It was fabulous to see this memorial, we have read about the 54th Massachusetts Regiment many times during our Civil War learnings - it was the first all-Black regiment allowed to fight in the Civil War.

Lovely street in the historic part of town: Paul Revere, War of Independence 'legend', lived on this street.

Battle of Bunker Hill Memorial - site of a battle between the English and the 'Colonists' where the Colonists dug in and were told to hold their fire until they saw "the whites of their (English) eyes". A little close for comfort!

Acorn St, Beacon Hill (beautiful part of Boston) - apparently the most photographed street in America!

Cheers, Ben!

Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Sadly no game when we were there, but Ben was a convert!

Salem, Massachusetts, home of the infamous 1692 Salem Witch Hunt. Seems we saw it on a good day!

New York

New York, New York….what a great city! We had a ball here. We were really lucky, our hotel room was just 2 blocks from Times Square and we were able to walk everywhere in the city. We spent a day wandering around Central Park and then checking out Times Square and the area near us, and another day down near the former World Trade Centre site, the NYSE, Statue of Liberty, etc.

Wandering through Central Park

Ben and the Empire State Building

NY cabs! We can now see why people in the movies can walk out and hail a cab at any time….it’s because one is always there!!

On Broadway. There were many areas for pedestrians to just stop and pull up a chair at one of many tables and watch the world go by. Great people-watching!

Bryant Park

Statue of Liberty

Times Square at night

Pennsylvania

We had both really been looking forward to Pennsylvania, particularly to Gettysburg where one of the pivotal battles of the Civil War took place over three days in July 1863. Although the war still raged on for almost two more years, at Gettysburg (only a couple of hours from DC) the Union finally was able to push back the Confederate troops and gradually the war turned in their favour (the fact they had many more men also helped!). We drove a 24 mile route that covered many of the important sites of the battle, and it was amazing to comprehend almost 200,000 men converging on this space in 1860’s warfare. When you consider the fact that the best marksmen could fire off a maximum of three bullets in a minute (!!) the nature of the battle is hard to comprehend. We walked a field that was a mile long and it was where Confederate troops marched, in full sight of their enemy and into firing cannons, to a point where they could start to fire and then run, reload, fire, and so on……like lambs to the slaughter. After the battle, the line of wagons ferrying the wounded home was 17 miles long. The supply line was 60 miles long. Incredible.


Unbelievable numbers…..more men lost in this war than any other wars that the US has been involved in all put together.

We thought this was a particularly amazing story

There are many many monuments and memorials along the way, all of them in really lovely lush, green settings that was once the site of an incredibly bloody battle.

This barn was standing in this spot in 1863 and still bears the scar of a cannon shell up the top.

Battle site of the last day, note all the memorials.

Amish countryside – the buggies were enclosed but we could see inside one and the passengers were dressed in “old fashioned’ clothes, it was very interesting to see the culture still exist strongly today.

Washington DC

Washington DC - as Forrest Gump liked to say, "our nation's capital". I guess that only applies if you are an American though :-) This is a really beautiful city, very easy to get around, and the people here rivalled Texans as the "nicestAmericanswe'vemetsofar". For once we did have a favourite part - a visit to the Georgetown University Hospital where we saw the ultrasound and heard the heart beat of our little baby!! We are ecstatic to let you know that we will be parents at the end of December :-) We had hoped that this would happen (yes, yes, we've heard all the jokes about getting up to mischief in the back of the bullet!!) and were delightfully surprised in Yosemite (yes, all the way back then!) when a home test said positive....followed by two more positives over the next 10 days! We had things confirmed in Arizona by a doctor, and followed that up with the appointments in DC. We have attached an ultrasound below.

We know DC isn't a state, but it still deserves a border photo :-)



Yes, it's ours!

Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, Arlington Cemetery

Changing of the Guards, Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, Arlington Cemetery

Civil War Graves, Arlington Cemetery

Arlington House, Arlington Cemetery. Robert E. Lee (who was married to the step-great-granddaughter of George Washington) was a Confederate General who lead the Army of North Virginia in the Civil War, but who distinguished himself for the previous 30 years in the US Army. The US Army was deeply offended when Lee refused the offer of leading the US Army and 'defected' to the South, and took over his home in DC and buried Union soldiers all around it so that he could never return home.

View from Arlington House to the Lincoln Memorial along the Memorial Bridge. The Lincoln Memorial was intentionally built in line with Arlington House as a sign of peace: Lincoln was the President of the USA and Lee was a General with the CSA - Confederate States of America - both highly respected, and now they both see each other every day!

Graves of JFK and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and the eternal flame

A big White House that we came across :-) no Barack and the girls though!

National Mall area in DC - a lovely, open, green space for wanderings and also where the memorials are.

Lincoln Memorial from the front

Abraham Lincoln

From the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial, with the Reflection Pool in the middle.

Korean War Memorial

World War II Memorial

(Thomas) Jefferson Monument

Washington Monument

From the Washington Monument back to the Lincoln Memorial

Iwo Jima Memorial - this memorial is a tribute to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and features the very famous flag-raising on Mt Suribachi, Iwo Jima, in February 1945. Three of the six armed forces men depicted later died on Iwo Jima. It cost $850,000 to make and every cent came from former and current Marines.