Northeast from the Northwest

We're off!

For years, Nancy and I have talked about traveling to New England for an exploring vacation. We've been fortunate enough to travel to various corners of the world on extensive trips, but we really haven't taken much of an opportunity to explore parts of North America.  So, with no classes to teach Spring Quarter at the UDub (Nancy), and an understanding boss at Seattle Seaplanes (Kit),  we're off to explore the upper right corner of the US/lower right corner of Canada!

We have few plans apart from our flights there and back, our first night hotel, and our desire to see the coastline, airports, seaplane bases, libraries, lobsters, etc.

So, welcome to our improvised trip!

A few random observations on our departure day:

• Absolutely glorious day in the Pacific NW - on climbout, we could see all the Cascade volcanoes from Mt Baker all the way down to Mt Jefferson
• In the departure lounge at Sea-Tac, sat near a woman who'd had to leave her handgun behind in Billings, because she didn't know you had to have it in a locked, hard shell case for airline travel
• Saw the first forest fire of the season, somewhere south of Spokane
• It's clear across Montana!

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21:12 EDT, Tarrytown, NY

So, we're settled in for the night, in a Courtyard by Marriott, pre-reserved.  Arrival at Newark airport was as easy as could be: on time, bags arrived promptly, found our way to the "Airtrain" monorail & the car rentals.  Friendly Enterprise guy helped us choose a suitable intermediate-size car, a Dodge Avenger with Massachusetts plates. It will be our mobile home for the next three weeks, in a manner of speaking, and it'll do fine.

We wound around to the Garden State Parkway, courtesy of my Jersey native navigator.  Enterprise gave us an Ez-pass for the tolls, which makes life easier.  It was then just a straight shot up the GSP, across the state line into NY ("LAST EXIT IN NEW JERSEY" said the signs), and then I-87 across the Tappan Zee Bridge to Tarrytown.  It's a beautiful night here - not as warm as Seattle was today, but still quite pleasant.

And now?  Looks like tomorrow, we'll set off east towards Connecticut (not hard to do - its only about 10 miles away!!) and the coast. The plan is to aim at Newport RI, and take it from there.  I think we'll go up the coast, mostly, for the first half of the trip, then make our way back southwards and inland, as there are numerous places inland that we'd like to see.  The biggest rule, though, is "there are no rules!"  Nothing can go wrong: nothing's planned, so nothing can go wrong! 

Stay tuned! 

Cheers,

-KW & NJG