Touring New England

Fall in New England is beautiful, and before it's over, Colin and I will have managed to visit every single state in the region. (Plus Pennsylvania--we couldn't miss a chance to hang out with our favorite niece and nephew over Columbus Day weekend!)

Our New England travels, though, started with our camping trip in New Hampshire, which I mentioned in my last blog post. It was so peaceful and relaxing in the White Mountains, and we had a wonderful couple days of kayaking, hiking, and sleeping under the stars. Plus we saw two moose!

Our travels took us next to Rhode Island. I went to Newport in early October for a work meeting on offshore wind. (The nation's first offshore wind farm just began operating off of Block Island!) Colin went a few weeks later for his own work trip, to meet with a retired lizard researcher. Colin also went to Connecticut for a few days for work.

At the end of October, we then took a whirlwind trip across New York State. Colin has several friends living in Ithaca - which we realized while addressing wedding invitations - and two are about to move to California. That inspired us to finally plan a trip to see them all. And while we were in western New York, well, I really wanted to see Niagara Falls, which meant that we drove seven hours across Massachusetts and New York, all the way to the border with Canada.

It was worth it:

Niagara Falls: hard to see because of the spray, but very impressive!

Rainbow at Niagara Falls

Ithaca was, as they say, gorges. We had perfect weather while we were there, so we hiked through a state park on Saturday to see more waterfalls and the last vestiges of the fall foliage.

One of many waterfalls we saw in Ithaca.

Another waterfall.

A beautiful lake and waterfall on Cornell's campus.

We also, of course, spent time enjoying fall in Massachusetts, from kayaking and walking through the Boston Public Garden to spending a weekend on Cape Cod for Colin's aunt's wedding.
 

The Boston Public Garden

This past weekend we headed north again, this time to Vermont. A new state for me! The trip actually started as an "errand," since the Burlington airport had interview slots available for TSA's Global Entry program, and we would have had to wait five months to do the interviews in Boston. We figured the 3.5-hour drive was worth the five-month wait time. So, early yesterday morning, we headed north and made it to Lake Champlain in time for lunch. After passing our interviews with flying colors, we spent the rest of the day exploring downtown Burlington.

Lake Champlain in Burlington, VT

All that's left to round out our New England travels is Maine, and we'll be headed there for Thanksgiving in just over a week. It's hard to believe how quickly the season has passed!