The Things You See Along the Way: Why I love New England…

Earlier this week, Greg asked me and Olive, the pug, if we wanted to go for a ride to do a little Leaf Peeping.  We both said yes, of course, and off we went.  I let him decide where we would go and Olive and I sat back and enjoyed the ride.

We headed up north toward New Hampshire where the leaves are nearing peak.

  Here are a few things we saw.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man...

Was there ever any doubt?

When we got close to Hillsborough, New Hampshire we saw a sign indicating that the Franklin Pierce Homestead was close by so we stopped to admire his beautiful house on that fine fall day.  For those who don’t know, Pierce was the 14^th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857 and the only President from New Hampshire.

Moving on, we finally made it to Keene, New Hampshire where we had a nice lunch outside with Olive at a local establishment called Local and then a little after two o’clock, we turned around and admired the leaves all the way back to Massachusetts.

I love fall in New England!  It simply sings and dances with color.

  What can be better than that?

Nothing, in my book.

Bumper stickers of the day:  Do you think this woman likes horses?

I'm back...

About a month before I had my knee replaced, I saw a article in Travel Section of the Boston Sunday Globe about Apalachicola, Florida.  It sounded to me like the perfect warm weather retreat for Greg and me.  It's in northern Florida so I didn't suspect it would be too hot.  Plus it sounded like it had a lot of cool old Florida charm.  So Greg set about making plans for us to stay for a week to escape the New England cold.

A few days before we were scheduled to leave, I managed to come down with what I am calling The National Cold, because it seems like at least half of my Facebook friends and folks I know around town are in some stage of this miserable affliction.  But, cold be damned...we had plans and having plans means I loaded myself in the car feeling like a deep fried crap sandwich and we set out for Florida.

The good news is that Greg, Olive and I are now here in Apalachicola, Florida, and enjoying our stay.  My cold inches better every day but it is not gone yet.  However, having survived the car ride down I will share with you some of the sights we saw along the way.

The sun begins to set in Pennsylvania.

Hi from someplace in Virginia.

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

On a country road off the Blue Ridge Parkway, a couple of guys let us know that we weren't welcome.

This fellow was outside Striplings General Store, Cordele, Georgia.

Olive asks, "Are we there yet?"

Drive by shootings: Ohio Barns…

We drove by a lot of barns on our recent trip to Ohio.  I drove a lot of the way through Pennsylvania so I didn’t really get any good shots until we reached Ohio.

I guess “good” is relative.  These are “good” for driving by at 70-75 mph but you notice that I did do a bit of messing with them to try to hide their flaws.  Here are my barns for Barn Charm this week.

LINKING TO Bluff Area Daily's BARN CHARM.

On the road...

We found ourselves on the road last week.

Over the George Washington Bridge and through New York City.

Through Baltimore and the absolutely horrible traffic around Washington D.C.

Past South of the Border.

And into Charleston, South Carolina, where the camellias are blooming.

Greetings from Folly Beach!  We had a great time but it’s good to be home.