State Number 24 was amazing. The course scared me but it really wasn't so bad. I did better than I imagined considering my last half was 5 days before.  The weather was prefect. It was 25 degrees cooler than Connecticut race. 

The race was very small and I was concerned again with being last. But thankfully I wasn't last...close by not last. There was always somebody in front of me and somebody behind me. I ran it entirely without somebody. It is different experience. 

The worse hills were during miles 8 and 9. They really sucked! I would say this race was almost better than the Connecticut...I was still running regularly during miles 10-12...granted they were all downhill. I have said this before but I think hillier courses are better for me even if I don't like uphills.

Its too bad this race doesn't get more runners because it is a nice course.

 

We left our weird inn in Manchester and headed to Calvin Coolidge Historic Site. It was neat little place in the middle of nowhere Vermont. Calvin was born on July 4, 1872 in Plymouth, VT. He spent a lot of his life in this tiny town. The town has been preserved as it was when Calvin Coolidge lived there. His church is there, the general store his family ran, the house he was born in, the house he grew up in and the place where he took the oath of office for President of United States on August 2, 1923…his dad swore him in! He became the 30th President after Warren Harding died.  He is even buried here. Literally everything important to Calvin Coolidge happened here. How cool is that?  I think his wife would have been awesome. I mean she did keep a raccoon and many other animals as pets.

On the way to Franconia State Park we stopped at the Quechee Bridge and Gorge. I remember this place when we visited in 2006. It was nice to stop again. I looked back at old pictures and there wasn’t a fence on the bridge. I’m sure they had to add it for safety reasons.

 

We also visited Franconia State Park when we were there in 2006 but it was so foggy we couldn’t go up the Tramway. Well this time it was sunny…well to start. Haha!  I got a few good pictures when we got to the top before the fog came in. Darnit!  It was also very cold up there.

The next stop was just down the road at the Flume Gorge. It was very cool to hike back to the gorge and see what nature does to rocks. Of course there was a waterfall back there too. I love my waterfalls!

We made one more stop at Glen Ellis Waterfall before heading to our hotel. It was a short hike from the parking area but totally worth it.

 

We stayed in North Conway, New Hampshire this night. Our hotel had a couple waterslides in the pool area. There were no kids in there, only a few adults in the hot tub, so Eric and I went down them a couple times. It was so much fun!

The next day we drove in to Maine to say we had been. It wasn’t that exciting. Our next trip out to New England will be mostly to Maine. I want to go to Acadia so bad!

We drove the Kancamagus Pass through the White Mountain National Forest. We also did this in 2006. I remember because I slipped off a rock and fell into the river. The good ole days. Haha.

We stopped at one last State Capitol/House in Concord, NH. We stumbled upon the tour and it was very interesting. We went into the governor’s office and the secretary of state’s office. It was interesting to hear about how much the state representatives and senators make….$100 and $200 a year, respectively. It really is a volunteer job. For comparison, a Minnesota Legislator's salary is $45,000 per year. Crazy difference!

That was the end of our touring. We drive back to Logan and had a late flight back home.

On our way to Vermont we stopped in Plymouth to so the rock (not that exciting) and the stuff around town. There really isn’t much to see. The Mayflower II boat is currently being renovated so there isn’t much to look at. We walked around the couple statutes and the gravesite of the Mayflower people. That was about it. The rest of the day we meandered through backroads to get to Manchester, Vermont for our next half, Maple Leaf Half Marathon.

 

The next day, after the race, we went to Hildene. Hildene is the former summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln, President Lincoln’s son. The gardens are pretty and the views are amazing. The history of the house is interesting. They also had a Pullman car since Robert was President of the Pullman Palace Car Company for a while. I learned how awful the Pullman Palace Car Company was…yikes!

After that we decided it wasn’t that far to Albany, NY and State House #4 of the trip. On the way there we saw this large monument in the distance when we got to Bennington, VT. I googled it and found it was the Bennington Battle Monument (Revolutionary War battle). I’m so glad we stumbled upon it. For $5 we got to ride the elevator to the top to see the amazing views. The elevator operator was very informative. Also, his daughter and son-in-law went to school in North Dakota and have a dog named Itasca and a cat named Bemidji because they love their time in school. They live in upstate New York now. He told us his goal is to get to Itasca State Park and walk across the Mississippi river.

From there we headed to Albany, NY. The New York State House is incredible. It doesn’t look anything like the other State capitol/houses we have visited. We couldn’t get inside because it was the weekend, but the outside was very cool. We walked around a bit, but it was not somewhere I’d want to hang out at night. 

On our way back to the hotel in Vermont I wanted a good meal. Unfortunately, all the restaurants in Albany are on the northwest side of time, way out of our way.  We drove back to Manchester and ate at the Italian restaurant. I didn’t get steak. :(

Like most of our trip, the weather was amazing, it was bit chilly for swimming in the ocean (I hadn’t planned on it anyways).  We rearranged my trip plan a bit and stopped at the Adams National Historical Park on our way out to the Cape. The visitor center was located in an office building in Quincy, MA. It took us a while to figure out where to go and park. I had planned to do my own self tour of the places but that wasn’t allowed. We had to pay $15 for a tour. That’s fine but it was a two-hour tour! That really cut into my Cape Cod time. OH well. The first site the trolley took us to was the birthplace. President John Adams and President John Quincy Adams were born in houses that were literally right next to each other. Back in the day the houses were surrounded by farm land but now they are built around. It was interesting learning about both presidents.

The second stop on the trolley was Peacefield which was acquired by John Adams. The tour started in the library which was built in a separate building by John Quincy after the senior Adams died. It was a lot of books! The main house was very interesting as 95% of the items belonged to the Adams family. It was interesting looking at the globes that the Senior Adams had. This was the one of the times Dylan’s death hit me hard because this is something I would have sent him a snapchat.

After that we headed out to the beach and the Cape Cod National Seashore. I have been wanted to go to Cape Cod for as long as I knew it existed. I was surprised at how different it was from what imagined. I imagined miles and miles of beaches on both sides of the road. I saw a lot of trees instead. LOL! When we got closer to P-Town, what I imagine was came true and that was cool.

Because it was off-season, we lucked out and didn’t have to pay for the beaches. That was nice but the water was very cold (I expected that). We stopped Coast Guard Beach first. After that we stopped at Nauset Lighthouse and Highland Lighthouse. We saw Race Point Lighthouse of in the distance. I got some nice pre-sunset pictures which were nice, but we should have stuck around for the actual sunset because it was amazing! We saw it on our way back to our hotel. Bummer.