New England (NE) Day 1

We landed and got settled in our rental vehicle just before sundown on the first day here, so I'm calling our first driving day as #1 of our trip.  We stayed with some friends from my time in Germany on staff.  Russ was very helpful in directing us where to go with our time in Rhode Island.

And saw some others who lived nearby for a quick visit, too!

We found a coffee place along our morning drive, and they also served apple cider donuts, so we had to try that too!  It was a fun little view!

Then we headed to a Seabee Museum, especially since that was my man's assignment while he was in the Navy Reserves.

They had just finished remodeling this chapel

Len showed me his main equipment he used when he was deployed.

After the museum, we went to a local lighthouse called Beaver's Point.  This was actually one of my 2 favorites that we saw along the trip.

Since we didn't take an official state crossing sign of Rhode Island, this will have to do.

After this, we started heading north towards Vermont

This was a beautiful stop in Connecticut 

The trees took our breath away.  SUCH great color and the camera does NOT do them justice

Once we got to our place of residence for the week, we went for a walk.  We took pictures along a stream and found out our phone's cameras can take pictures in the dark!  We had fun with this throughout the week!

AND, if you look super close at the above picture, I accidently took a picture of a comet falling (which I heard about 24 hours later!)

Our home for the week!

It was decorated with Norman Rockwell pictures in the hallway, and I later learned he had been a guest here during his lifetime!

NE Day 2

 The morning after we arrived, we went driving, and saw THIS.  I don't know if you can see from the picture, but the majority of the trees had already lost their leaves.  NOT what I had in mind in coming here.  So, having seen beautifulness on the way up, we headed south again instead of north.

Here the trees were MUCH better--see the difference?

I'm always fascinated by the clear water everywhere else I go.  Texas does NOT have any clear water that I've seen yet.

Although there were fallen leaves among the forest, the majority of maple trees, the bright red leaves, were already gone for the season.  So I had to collect a few for memory's sake.

My adventure boy

We caught a bit of the Appalachian trail again here.

And were told to take a hike--less than a mile--but we were NOT prepared for the steepness of it.

But THIS is where it ended--totally worth the climb!

Again, pictures just don't do it justice.

As we were up there, one of the locals came by and told us the pond we had seen previously needed to be hiked around.  So, we tried again

Then we got in the car and headed back to Vermont. . . until google announced to us, "Welcome to New York"!!  We had no idea we were that close!  And it was beautiful!

Because this was only the last hour of the day, we stopped for NY pizza and decided to come back the next day to visit longer.

NE Day 3

Our "oops" drive through New York became an actual planned day there once we saw the tail-end of a day there.  We knew we had to revisit it for a longer period.

We decided to hike to some waterfalls we had driven past signs for the night before.

And some beautiful glass lakes, too.

We decided to eat here, and met another Goldwing driver (motorcycle out front).  Len had to chat about that with him.

Then we headed to another overlook point I had read about, which was also combined with a waterfall hike.  It was gorgeous!

I decided to stay up on the upper level while Len made his way down to the pool.  See the tiny people in the bottom of this picture?

I had read previously that this particular waterfall had a NY hiking trail and a MA hiking trail.  We chose MA because it was shorter.  It was also STRAIGHT UP!!  NY was stroller walkable.  Bad choice on our part.

The TREES!!  I'm telling you, the camera does NOT do the colors justice.

We also came across a covered bridge or three on our way back to our lodge.  So in keeping with tradition. . . .