Fifty nifty

We went on another road trip, this time a little swing through New England for some leafing, and to check a few more states off our list, which is my latest obsession. Forty-eight down, two to go. The last two are biggies, Alaska and Texas. Well, this might take a while. I am working on pictures. Here is the only family photo from the trip, on top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine. Not the best picture in the world (it's kind of fuzzy and I had to crop the heck out of it), but it's kind of my fault for having an insanely pimped camera and then forgetting to turn it on before I handed it to the complete stranger British cruise passenger who kindly took the picture at all, so I should just stop complaining now.



It's weird for a couple that met in Rome, but we haven't been out of the country in more than five years. All our travel has been within the country, and I have to give Justin credit for encouraging me to visit all the glorious places between my comfy coasts. We live in such an amazingly diverse country, in regard to geography, culture, cuisine, accent, politics, religion, everything. I had one of those shouting-at-the-radio moments a few weeks ago...some supposed political satirist suggested that the country would be a much better place if all the red-staters visited Europe for two weeks. And God knows I would not deny anyone a two-week trip to Europe, but I don't think that was his point exactly--anyway (Justin will attest) I responded to Mr.-Political-Satirist-Who-Couldn't-Hear-Me that all the blue staters should visit the red states for two weeks. So there! We who have spent our lives ensconced in our coastal enclaves with our independent bookstores and our espresso and our feisty college towns should know our own country, especially since we are the ones who claim to be all cosmopolitan and open-minded. I include myself in this description because blue-state moderates and conservatives are prone to this sort of parochialism too, and maybe it's worse because we fancy ourselves the champions of middle America but still shudder at the thought of traveling somewhere more than ten minutes away from Starbucks.

Of course there is nowhere more blue than New England these days (not Upper New England so much as our own environs, of course), so this was not exactly the same as venturing into Kansas or what have you, but it was still enjoyable and lovely, and eye-opening in its own way. The foliage was superb in many of the places we visited. I will say this again when I get to more detailed posts on the places we visited (I really intend to do so this time), but VISIT ACADIA right after Columbus Day. It is not insanely crowded and the leaves are still gorgeous. We timed this perfectly--with much thanks to Justin's fall break, of course, but the felicitousness of our scheduling makes up for the fact that I spent last autumn too busy to see all the leaves because I was busy having a baby. Yay.