I'm a few days into my epic coast-to-coast road trip and finally settled down from days of hard driving so I figured I should post the first in a series of trip updates.
On the first day we drove the bulk of the day and stopped at Salt Lake City. We found a nice inexpensive campsite near a reservoir with a lovely mountain view. The next day we found a similar free campsite near a reservoir outside of Lincoln Nebraska.
The next day we drove to Hannibal, Missouri and checked out the boyhood home of Mark Twain and explored the cave that inspired Tom Sawyer. In the evening we went on a riverboat dinner cruise down the Mississippi river and got caught in a lovely rainstorm that ended in a nice sunset.
After that we drove to Indiana and spent the day catching up with some family. Then today, we drove to Lansing, Michigan and set camp next to a lake. Tomorrow we start the less hectic parts of our trip.
Next stop is Niagara Falls, Ontario. We arrived yesterday afternoon and spent the evening walking along the falls. The volume and power of the water, and of course the natural beauty, are absolutely incredible.
We decided we didn't get a close enough look, so today we took a cruise right up to the bottom of the falls. We didn't get wet enough, so next was a water park. Father's Day dinner will be spent at a revolving restaurant overlooking the whole area.
Bar Harbor marked the northernmost part of our trip. Yesterday we started south and visited Rockland and Camden, where we visited the Farnsworth art museum and saw some great examples of Andrew Wyeth and Hopper. We also saw the lighthouse museum and visited the Owl's Head lighthouse. This was our last day in Maine.
This is our last day in DC and we had a great time while braving heat and humidity we aren't used to in California. We saw a lot of the standard sites but as our son studied US history in school this year, everything we saw had an additional significance.
A few highlights include the Spy museum, dinosaurs in the Natural History museum, a personal fire truck tour, the Lincoln memorial, and seeing a surprisingly good play in Ford's Theater.
I want to give a special shout-out to the DC firefighter who saw us peeking through the window of the firehouse at their shiny trucks, and opened the front door as we were walking away to invite us in for a personal tour of their ladder truck and fire engine. Right as we were leaving they got a call and the engine we had just been looking at drove past us as we were walking down the street!
Yesterday we visited Nickelback Mansion near Charlottesville, Virginia (the locals call it Monticello). My wife and I had visited some years ago and I thought along with the historical value, my son would appreciate seeing Jefferson's designs and inventions.
Then we toured the Edgar Allen Poe museum in Richmond, Virginia. The exhibit was somewhat small but had original artifacts and did a good job walking you through his short life.
@hehemrin The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death are great places to start!