The End of the Road: New England, Retirement, and Nashville

First off, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who let me sleep on their couch, bought me a meal, or even just met up to chat and catch up. It means more than you know. And thanks to everyone who has and still is following along with the blog! Now that business is out of the way, let's move on to the east coast!

Having lived in DC for a year, I was able to do quite a lot of traveling on the east coast during that time so I focused on the places I have not yet been. I began my eastern US travels by making a stop to see my homies in Cincinnati. It was a sports-packed weekend, I got to tailgate a Cincinnati Bearcats game with the Dombarts, watch the Packers game with Mike and Kara, and attend an FC Cincinnati game as well!

The Dombarts and I doing what we do best :)

Kara and I at the FC Cincy game 

Samantha and I in Columbus

After Cincy, I made a pitstop in Columbus to visit my favorite Buckeye and long-time neighbor Samantha, drove through Pittsburgh, and passed the 100,000 mile mark with Syd (my car) before stopping somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania for the night. The following day I continued my long drive through beautiful areas of upstate New York and ended in Burlington, Vermont. With the fall leaves coming in, the Vermont scenery is gorgeous. Burlington is situated on Lake Champlain and is a great quaint "big" city and it caught my attention. I could definitely see myself living in this area at some point. The city reminded me a lot of Boulder. The following two days I did some hiking in the Green Mountains. I summited Mount Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont, as well as Camel's Hump Peak via the Long Trail. Although the weather wasn't ideal, they were both great hikes.

Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT

Pedestrian street in Downtown Burlington

Mount Mansfield Hike

Camel's Hump Sumit

Next up was New Hampshire, Franconia State Park in particular, where yet again the fall scenery was gorgeous. I did the hike up to the summit of Mount Washington. Though it's not comparable in elevation to the majority of the hikes I have done in the past year, it was still a pretty challenging hike and had some brutal wind towards the top. The mountain has killed 150 people due to it's unpredictable weather and harsh conditions.

Onward into Maine I went, with my first stop being Acadia National Park. I'll let the pictures do the talking but this area had great scenery. Bar Harbor, the little tourist town just outside the park, was a great place to walk around and have a traditional New England meal - clam chowder and a lobster roll - delicious! I went to the top of Cadillac Mountain, climbed up the Precipice Trail (cool trail with lots of scrambling and use of ladders), biked the Loop Road, and visited the Schoodic Peninsula section of the park. The hiking isn't exactly comparable to the parks of the western US and retired folk seemed to be the main demographic of visitors, but it was still a great place to see! And I got to celebrate the fact that I had officially driven across the country when I touched the Atlantic Ocean :)

After Acadia, I headed south to Portland, ME and spent a few days there hitting the state parks in the area and chilling out for a little bit. I thought it was a good sized town, it had a similar vibe to it as the Oregon version of Portland but not quite as extreme in the homeless and hipster departments.

Cape Elizabeth near Portland

Originally, I was supposed to compete in the North Carolina half Ironman in mid-October, however, hurricane Florence had other plans. Being that the race was located in Wilmington, which was underwater, it was cancelled. This along with a bit of tendonitis in my knee messed up my original plans for the east coast and I did a bit of a re-route. So ensued my long haul drive down to Florida. I made a stop in Providence and Newport in Rhode Island, crossing off my 49th state. Only Alaska is left! Newport was a very... we'll say well-off place. The town is right on the water and is known for its mansions. There's a 10 mile road along the water just lined with the most massive mansions you can imagine. You can even tour the inside of some of them. Let's just say this place wasn't exactly my style. Very pretty though.

Mansions along the water in Newport, RI

Continuing east, I stopped in New Haven, Connecticut to check out what all the hype was about that school they call Yale. It may be the prettiest school grounds I've ever seen. Onward east over the Tappan Zee bridge (so cool), around NYC, through NJ and Philly, finally concluding the 9 states-in-one-day adventure in Delaware for the night. Rising before the sun, I continued south going through Maryland and making a nostalgia-influenced pitstop in DC. I passed by my old apartment and got some breakfast at my favorite bagel shop - Bethesda Bagels. South, south, south I drove, trying to manage my boredom by listening to podcasts (check out Oprah's Super Soul Sunday conversations, great content). A mere 16 hours later I arrived at my dad's place in The Villages, FL. In two days I drove 28 hours and went through 16 states. Not to mention I slept in my car 10 out of 13 nights. Gotta love that unemployed life! Needless to say, I was very happy to arrive at my Dad's house that night.

For those of you that don't know about The Villages, it's this city in which you have to be 55 or older in order to own a home. There are about 50,000 residents and 12 little "downtowns" within the city. My grandma and two sets of aunts and uncles now live there. The main mode of transportation is via golf cart which, aside from the warm weather, is the main draw for me. I spent over 2 weeks there living the retired life. It was a great place to recharge and give some attention to my tan :)

The final stop on my way back up to the mitten was Nashville for an epic Illinois soccer reunion. I was also able to spend some time with some of my favorite family members!

Illinois Soccer wreaking havoc on Nash-vegas

What a ride it has been! My 17 months of travel around the world and the US has been incredible and has had a profound impact on the way I see the world, people, and how I want to live my life. I started with a pretty large bucket list, crossed off the majority of that list and then ended up with a list that was 10 times longer! There is so much to see in this country, let alone the world. So get out there! You can do it, just start planning. There's too many amazing experiences and opportunities for personal growth that you can have to not take the chance on travel!

My American Road Trip: 39 states and 15,000 miles in the past 5 months, 42 states this year

What's next? I'll be moving west after the holidays to be by the mountains :)