New England Part 2: (almost) Everything Else

In part 1 I shared photos of the colorful flora, fungi, and leaves of New England… this is (almost) everything else:

9 days, 4 states, 2 house museums, 5 graveyards, 1 cog railway ride, 1 art exhibition, I distillery, and 1 aquarium. We packed it in…

Locations visited: Cranston & Providence, RI; New Bedford, Ipswich, Newberyport, Milton, and Boxborough, MA; Newport, Tamworth, Jackson, and Mt Washington, NH, and Mystic, CT

From sweeping vistas:

at 6288 ft above sea level on the (rocky) top of Mt. Washington, NH

a bit lower in North Newport, NH (I took this at 6:30 in the morning… those who know me will understand the significance of this…)

Somewhere in NH…

…down to 10 ft above sea level in Mystic, CT.

To iconic viewpoints:

 

 

And interesting details:

 

 

 

Every quintessential New England town features…

a white Congregational Church (preferably at the top of a hill), a library, a monument to the Civil War (liberty!), and an architecturally significant city hall/police station.

 

 

 

But of course, the best time to visit is in the fall… there is no better place for Halloween decorations…

and beautiful fall flowers in colorful doorways (my favorite)…

 

 

And of course… graveyards… both for searching for ancestors…

 

and literary heroes (who as it turns out may also be found on the family tree… more to come on that later.)

 

While writers leave trinkets to their heroes, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s grave contained a note: “He who left his birthmark on future writers”

There was always something odd or interesting to be found…

 

 

And whales… because… what would the history of New England be without whales…?

 

We were lucky to see the coolest exhibition of a little-seen Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World… painted by Benjamin Russell and Caleb Purrington in 1848, designed to exploit the 19th-C (pre-cinema) panorama-craze with tales of the high-seas. It was both enormous and highly detailed (and in a really cool renovated New Bedford mill building.)

 

 

And if you want to get drunk while in the mountains of NH… Tamworth Distillery

 

And here are a few photos I am partial to, that didn’t seem to fit anywhere above:

 

 

And this one on the Mt. Washington Cog Rail:

a BIG thanks to friends and family who housed us, fed us, and went along on some of these adventures (because not everyone finds house museums and graveyards as fascinating as I do!) We are lucky to have friends in beautiful locales… with cute puppies…

 

 

And as always…thanks to my favorite traveling companion…

Stay tuned… there will be no “part 3” but I do have thoughts to share about the two historic houses we visited… as well as some family genealogical finds… (2 more posts?!)