Northeast Fall Tour Wrap Up. October 9th through the 14th

Unfortunately, I have not had any time to update the blogspot until now:

October 9th we drove down to Philadelphia to visit the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. I believe I went here when I was very young, but I cannot remember. I will say it was very crowded, but the history was very interesting.















October 10 we drove to Shenandoah Valley in Virginia for just an overnight. The campground was pretty hard to get to, but is very nice. There are rabbits everywhere!!! The campground even has a river flowing through it with a waterfall.











October 11 we drove down to Chattanooga, Tennessee (the campground was just inside Georgia). On the 12th, we toured the Battlefield which obviously has tons of history. They have an 8 stop mobile phone tour that was extremely interesting.

After the Chickamauga Battlefield, we went up to the Lookout Mountain Point Park.


















Our last day, was a short trip up to the Chattanooga Riverwalk Park for a hike. The park was nice and is just below one of the TVA dams; Chickamauga Dam.



October 14th, we had planned to drive down to Valdosta and camp one last night. Unfortunately, the campground was full due to some sort of construction project.

In summary, it was an awesome trip. My only complaints are the roads in New England (Narrow and low overpasses) and the ridiculous tolls. We paid over $150.00 in tolls during this trip.

We visited Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Wow!!

October 7th and October 8th.

October 7th.

Our trip down from Massachusetts to Florida, NY was pretty easy. I am getting happy we are getting further from the narrow roads and low overpasses. The gal at the campground up in Massachusetts made it pretty clear why they get so many complaints from the roads. She said they were originally constructed back in the 1600’s for basically two horse butts. Funny!!

Coincidentally we ended up in the same spot we had several weeks ago. It felt a little like home.

October 8th.

We made the decision to punish ourselves with the highways of New York and New Jersey. We drove down to New Castle, Delaware to the Historic District and National Park. It rained pretty much all day. I believe the rain was actually part of the Mathew Hurricane. This place is really old! Most of the buildings were built in the 1700’s or early 1800’s. We had lunch at a small pub right on Delaware Street.

After lunch we were blessed with a private tour of the Courthouse. Built in 1732 over the top of an old courthouse built in the 1600’s. The original courthouse was burned down as a distraction by an escaped prisoner. 

We learned that the original signing of the Declaration of Independence by the three Delaware Delegates were signed in this building.

We also learned that there were many disputes over the land of the three counties of Delaware with the Swedes, Dutch, Quakers, and the British. As a result of these disputes it was agreed to make the northern section arc based upon twelve miles from the cupola of the courthouse. Very Interesting.

The trials they had at this courthouse originally were with three judges and twelve jurors. This triangle was used based upon the decision. The backside is red. Red Guilty, The white side not guilty.

October 5th and 6th. Bar Harbor to Massachusetts

Due to the Hurricane Mathew, we changed our trip to go further west instead of through the Carolinas and the Georgia Coast. Our new plan is to head back to Massachusetts for two nights, return to Florida, New York for three nights, on to Virginia for one night then to Chattanooga, Tennessee for three nights. After that we will probably spend one night in Georgia and then on to Cape Coral. Hopefully we won’t have any damage at home in Cape Coral.

October 5th

We got an early start out of Bar Harbor so that we could have a somewhat easy drive to Monson, Massachusetts. It ended up an easy drive but the tolls ended up over $60.00. Wow!

We were warned numerous times by the campground staff not to follow the GPS. I now know why. Even though the route they gave us was longer, we could have gotten ourselves stuck. The campground is situated on a ridge that has numerous roads heading up to it. However only one going around the backside would be passable with a rig our size.

After setting up camp, we dropped the Jeep and headed to Springfield to tour the Springfield Armory Historic Site. It is a very interesting place with tons of history. I guess the government got out of the gun manufacturing business in 1968.

October 6th

We got up and decided to take a color tour of Northern Massachusetts, Southern Vermont, and Southwest New Hampshire. We took backroads all of the way up. Our first stop was Wilmington. What a cute town. We did a 3 and a half mile hike on the west side of Harriman Reservoir. We had a nice lunch right by the water with views of Wilmington. After that we took Highway 9 over Hogback Mountain to get the “100 Mile View”. There are not enough adjectives to describe the views.

The trees have definitely peaked in Vermont. We crossed the Connecticut River into New Hampshire and took backroads down into Massachusetts. 

October 3rd and 4th Bar Harbor

Our last two days in Bar Harbor were pretty spectacular as we have had very cold nights. Within the last three days, the colors had peaked.

October 3rd we started the day out by hiking around the Jordan Pond. We then toured the west and southwest of the Island. It was very peaceful over there with very few people.

We ended up having lunch at the Northeast Harbor Marina.

October 4th we woke up to 38 degrees. Yikes! There was frost on the Jeep and Motorhome. We really only did a half day tour of the Park Loop Road. Wow the colors have just gotten beautiful.