Eastern Seaboard USA

6/11 – 3/12/2000

After pausing at the transport museum on the ouskirts of Bangor,

we spent a couple of days in the Acadia National Park;

visiting Bar Harbor

and driving to the top of Cadillac Mountain to take in the view.

Coninuing south, we passed through Augusta, the capital of Maine, and stopped for coffee in Portland;

before crossing into New Hampshire.  After touring the White Mountains (on a day when the clouds were too low to see any of the famous ‘notches’) – we spent another cold night in a national forest campsite near Lincoln.

known for its glacial boulders.

We stopped at a Shaker Village near Canterbury Center – at the time of our visit, there were just seven surviving members of the community (unsurprising, given the Shakers’ code of celibacy).

Across the border in Massachusetts, we drove through the centre of Boston on our way to camp in the Shawm-Crowell State Forest on Cape Cod; where Geoff, a fellow traveller invited us for dinner.

Nearby Plymouth marks the alleged landing spot of the Pilgrim Fathers,

has a replica of the Mayflower,

and a waxwork museum featuring the pilgrims themselves.

Continuing south through historic New England,

we crossed ino Connecticut to spend a morning at the maritime museum at Mystic Seaport.

We dined on king crab.

We hurried through Connecticut and New York State (by-passing New York City on Interstate 84) into Pennsylvania Dutch Country; where we spent an afternoon at the Landis Valley Museum.

We camped near Strasbourg, in the heart of the Amish country.  As we drove through the rolling farmland, we passed more horse-drawn vehicles on the roads than cars.

We camped the night in Trap Pond State Park, Delaware,

before crossing into Maryland and continuing south to Chesapeake Bay.

We stopped in Ocean City to do our laundry and camped a Chincoteague Bay, famous for its ill-humoured Chincoteague ponies (allegedly descended from pit ponies that survived a Spanish shipwreck),

before crossing the 28km Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel

into Virginia.  We spent a couple of nights in a B&B in Colonial Williamsburg – giving us plenty of time to explore the partially preserved/partially reconsructed 18th Century town; with its workers in period costume.

Afer a night when the temperature fell to 20°F, we crossed ino Norh Carolina and onto the Outer Banks – a sandy spit of land and collection of islands linked by bridges and ferries.

We stopped a Kill Devil Hills (a few miles from Kitty Hawk);

where the Wright brothers made the first powered flight.

On Thanksgiving Day (which marks the Plymouth colonists’ first harvest in 1621), we joined the many surf fishermen on the long, sandy beach;

before taking the ferry to Ocracoke Island; where, in 1718, the British Navy finally caught up with Blackbeard the pirate.

Continuing south, we passed through South Carolina, pausing for lunch in Charleston, and across the State line into Georgia.  We camped at For McAllister State Park;

and stopped in Savannah next day.

In northern Florida, we spent a day at St Augustine, south of Jacksonville; which describes itself as the oldest, continuously inhabited European settlement in the USA – founded by the Spanish in 1565.

From the old to the new, we spent an afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canavaral;

before a 300 mile drive west to camp at the Apalachicola National Forest;

where we visited Wakulla Springs.

Next day, we drove through Tallahassee, the State capital of Florida.  TV and radio News vehicles were clustered round the State Capitol; awaiting developments in the vote recount that would determine the results of the Presidential election that would end in favour of George W. Bush.

We stopped for two nights at Panama City on the Gulf of Mexico,

before passing through Pensacola and into Alabama.