It’s a trip I’d talked about taking for several years: touring New England to see the fall foliage. I didn’t quite realize, though, that I’d be touring six states in nine days (October 6-14), and I’d do a lot more than just look at pretty leaves.

The trip started in Boston. From there, the tour bus circled New England, going to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, back through Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and then back to Boston again. Whew! It was a whirlwind journey, and I have a hundred pictures. My husband probably has a hundred more (he took the one above).

So this post will be photo heavy. I’ve devised some categories in an attempt to organize for both you and me what I saw, ate, and learned.

What I Saw

Fall foliage, of course!

It’s not fall foliage, but I can’t not post this picture. Remember the TV show Cheers? Here’s the bar in Boston which served as the opening shot in every episode.

What I Ate

Be sure to eat some lobster and chowder, I was advised. So I did.

I had chowder three days in a row for lunch: Boston clam chowder, haddock chowder, and New England clam chowder. I may have overdone it a little. I don’t think I want clam chowder of any type for a while now.

I also ate a Boston hot dog, which differed only in that beans were in the chili, and Maine blueberry pie for dessert with that lobster dinner pictured above. Maine is a big blueberry state and the pie was good, but not any better than the blueberry pie I enjoy here in eastern North Carolina.

What I Learned

From history to architecture to art, I picked up some new information in New England.

For example, I learned that Newport, Rhode Island, is home to the oldest synagogue in America as well as the site of the Catholic church where Jackie and John Kennedy were married in 1953.

Newport is also home to the summer “cottages” of the rich and famous of the Gilded Age, a time beginning in the late 1800s before federal income taxes and ending with the stock market crash of 1929. The Vanderbilts, for example, had loads of money to lavish on their summer home, the Breakers.

Did you know whaling was once big business in New England? I toured an old whale ship in a place called Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, a re-created maritime village.

I love this picture taken by my husband of a lighthouse in Maine.

A visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was a highlight of the trip. Rockwell’s often humorous illustrations of American life graced the covers of 323 Saturday Evening Posts.

There’s so much more I could share about this trip: quaint covered bridges, the many historical sites of Boston, the rocky New England coastline, the small New England towns. But I’ll stop here with a final picture. A good trip is even more fun when shared with friends.