Did you ever have one of those moments where you feel like you have to just be on the road? Well, my mom and I did that for a week - without killing each other, even.
In anticipation of moving to Connecticut, I had put in notice at my job in Pittsburgh, with my last day being September 30. It turned out that I had about another week before Dave was due to come home (see Homecoming) so mom and I had a road trip.
Day One: We left Pittsburgh at 3am October 1 and headed north to the Thousand Islands. This is an awesome place! It's an area off of Alexandria Bay, NY made up of actually well over 1,000 islands, some as small as like 10 square feet. An island here is defined as any piece of land completely surrounded by water that can sustain vegetation. I think I have a picture somewhere of the smallest island... I'll see if I can find it. Anyway, this place is filled with vacation house millionaires from the early 1900's built there, as well as newer vacation homes. We took a tour boat through the islands. In doing so, we actually crossed into Canadian waters. No passport needed, however. Because we never set foot on Canadian land, we were in the clear.
The last stop on the tour is at Boldt Castle. Another awesome place. Those that know me well know of my near-obsession with castles (hence why I loved Scotland so much!). Well, Boldt castle definitely fits the bill. It was designed as a summer home by some millionaire for his wife. and construction was started in 1900. In 1903, the guy's wife became ill and died and he ordered construction on the house stopped. It was never completed. The poor guy couldn't bear the thought of ever being there without his wife. (For more information on the story and history of Boldt Castle, follow the link above to the web site.)
When we hit the ground again, we hit the ground running, so to speak. We had done a little site-seeing while waiting for our tour so when we were done, we hopped into the van again and hit the road. Let me pause briefly to give a little background detail. Mom and I decided to make this road trip "trucker style" as we call it. We took the back seats out of her minivan and put a futon mattress in their place. Our plan was to pull in truckstops like TA, Petro, etc. to sleep. Bigger truck stops have shower facilities and all the trimmings and are usually found on this highway so we wouldn't spend a whole lot of time finding out way to different hotels and whatnot. I had my laptop with me, loaded up with TripMaker(c) software and a 12V adapter. We left without a clear route in mind but we had a goal and we had an atlas. Our goal was to at least be in every state in New England on our trip.
Right. So, that was the plan. Unfortunately, there are no truck stops to be found in most of New England. Enter the motels. I think the people at the 800 number for Motel 6 knew us by name at the end of that week. :) Lots of last minute arrangements for sleeping. Anyway, after we left thousand islands, we decided to head toward the Castle in the Clouds (noticing a trend here) in NH. We drove up and around the Adirondack Mountains and spent the night just inside the NY/VT line.