Our family vacation this year was one for the history books! We planned for months and finally the day arrived. Our flight took off from KCI at 6:20 a.m., so we left our house at 3 a.m. to begin our adventure. Evie and I look a little sleepy, but ready to go! And Evelyn was excited to see her purple bag being loaded on the conveyor to the plane.
Everything went very smoothly on our flight and we took a taxi to pick up our "home" for the trip at the BWI RV rentals.
This year's RV was slightly longer than the ones we've had in the past, and the big bonus was a couch!
Russ still claims that it drives just like a truck. Oliver helped navigate some of the time, but mostly I sat shotgun with the atlas while the kids looked out the windows at the ever-changing scenery.
We are cheating a bit in saying that we went to Virginia on this trip, but we DID drive through it (for about a minute) and saw the sign letting us know, "Virginia is for lovers" on our way to Harpers Ferry in West Virginia.
I had forgotten John Brown's huge involvement at Harpers Ferry. There was so much interesting history to learn about with the raids that took place here. The boys recognized a replica of the famous mural they've seen at the Kansas state house.
John Brown's Fort was the only Armory building to escape destruction during the Civil War.
The entire area was so pretty and peaceful.
Calvin met up with the Appalachian trail that we'd hiked last summer while in Tennessee. It still amazes me how people do this entire 2200 mile trek from Maine to Georgia.
The Catholic Church was really gorgeous sitting on top of the hill. This church was built by Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1830s and escaped the Civil War unscathed.
We hiked up to Jefferson Rock, an area Thomas Jefferson visited in 1783.
Hiking back down we found the St. John's Episcopal Church, which hasn't fared quite as well as St. Peter's, which we admired as we passed by again.
From Harpers Ferry, we traveled into Pennsylvania with our first stop being Gettysburg.
The Visitors Center was new and beautiful. We were all humbled to think that there were over 50,000 casualties in this city during that battle back on July 1-3, 1863.
From the Visitors Center, we drove out to the battlefield and cemetery.
This is the actual site where President Lincoln delivered his 2-minute speech that has become one of the most famous is all history.
I'm so thankful we were able to visit Gettysburg and remember the sacrifice so many made so that ALL Americans could remain free.
We had one more stop in Pennsylvania before it was time to head to our campground: the Statehouse at Harrisburg. This would be the first of many capitols we'd be visiting on this vacation.
We had called ahead and were told it would be open, and so were a little disappointed when it wasn't. But the outside grounds were still really pretty!
After a VERY full first day (remember it started before 3 a.m.!), we headed to our campsite for the night at Hickory Run State Park in White Haven, Pennsylvania.
We made a simple dinner (Chicken Voila and mixed veggies) and got ready for bed, excited to get ready for Day 2 of our New England Adventure!
The bonus couch in this RV made into a bonus bed, which was awesome because everyone got their own bed this year!
After a good night's sleep, we had a special stop to make Saturday morning: Mount Airy, where Russ and I honeymooned almost 21 years ago! It has since been turned into a much nicer resort and casino, but the grounds looked the same.
Russ looked at the golf course and remembered a day in August of 2000 that he golfed here :)
We also definitely remembered taking a picture by a gazebo (in the green dress that I wear each year on our anniversary). When we got home and looked at the picture, I'm not sure the gazebo is the same, but it was still fun to reminisce.
I would have never guessed we would ever be back at the site of our honeymoon, so this was just about the highlight of our trip!
We stopped at the Mt. Pocono Walmart (where Russ and I had shopped a few times on our honeymoon) to get groceries for our trip, and we found a Boston cream pie just like the one we celebrated Russ' 22nd birthday with!
We continued our journey north to Cooperstown, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the adorable Nelson Avenue Pines, a cute B&B where we also stayed on our honeymoon after leaving the Poconos. It looked just the same!
We enjoyed walking downtown in Cooperstown and checking out all of the shops on our way to the Hall of Fame.
When we checked in at our reserved time, the nice lady told us that with the price we'd paid for our admission, we could get a complimentary season pass. She set us up with the 2021 yearbook, a couple of magazines (with more to come in the mail throughout the remainder of the year) and our very own Royals-themed membership card.
The kids got scavenger hunts and went to work finding everything on their list throughout the museum. It was cool seeing lots of Kansas City memorabilia throughout.
The Royals locker had some really special items, like Ventura's hat and Hosmer's jersey from the 9th inning of Game 5 of the World Series. So many great memories.
Evelyn thought Violet would get a kick out of the funny mascots on display.
This Honus Wagner card is worth like a bajillion dollars.
The kids took a picture by the Babe Ruth and Ted Williams statues. . .
. . . which made Russ remember that he had taken a picture by this statue before. Before we left, he remembered the picture from 2000 and realized that he still has the shirt and shorts he was wearing that day. Isn't he adorable??
The kids finished their scavenger hunt and got baseball cards and gum for a prize. They had fun looking through them when we got back to our RV.
After Cooperstown, we headed to Albany to see the New York Capitol. We weren't sure we would be able to find a place to park, and then realized they had center-street parking -- perfect for an RV.
We walked by a beautiful church on our way to the state house.
The kids agreed this state house looked like a castle! We did a virtual tour of the inside and it was really gorgeous, too.
We passed by an impressive education building and some cool buildings downtown as we headed back to our RV.
Our campground for the night was called the Battenkill in Arlington, Vermont.
It was very unique, as it was located right along a river, but also had a huge open field with all sorts of playground equipment, volleyball, tether ball, etc.
We enjoyed our traditional trail suppers for dinner. . .
. . . and some Boston cream pie for an early Fathers Day dessert.
It was a perfect evening of sitting by the fire and playing pitch. Calvin and I were the winners this first night of playing.
On Sunday morning, we started our day driving along the Scenic Route 100 Byway in Vermont. I'm sure this area is absolutely breathtaking in the fall, but it was still pretty in the summer.
We stopped at the Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site and woke our Calvin up to take a picture by the sign.
The grounds were really pretty and all of the old buildings were neat to look at.
The cemetery where Coolidge is buried was just down the road from the State Historic Site. The thing that struck me the most was just how humble his gravesite was. The three flags in front of his headstone was the only indicator that a president was buried here.
We went to church this Father's Day Sunday at a very welcoming church in Graniteville, Vermont. There were less than 20 people in attendance, and we really enjoyed worshiping with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Vermont.
After church, we found a really pretty spot to take a Father's Day picture.
Then we went on to Montpelier, the smallest capital city we visited with less than 7500 people.
Then we found some yummy ice cream at the Ben & Jerry's headquarters in Waterbury, Vermont.
We were cracking up at the "Flavor Graveyard." It was fairly obvious why some of the flavors died ("Sweet Potato Pie"), but others were not so obvious (Evelyn really was hoping to get "Cake Batter", but it was in the graveyard).
We crossed over into New Hampshire to find our next campground, the Sugarloaf II in the White Mountain National Forest. It was definitely the most secluded campsite we had on this trip and certainly felt "foresty."
We got our bearings and decided to go exploring and hiking.
Can you find Oliver and Evie in this picture??
We made it to a really nice waterfall area. Of course, Calvin was trying to decide if this could be a natural rock slide like he did in North Carolina last summer.
Rather than hiking back the normal, boring way on the marked trail, Calvin led the way through the riverbed on the boulders. For what seemed like about 5 miles. It took awhile and our feet were all wet as we ended up in the river on multiple occasions, but it was really fun. I love the adventurous spirit of my kids!
The White Mountains didn't disappoint!
Exhausted, but very content, we headed back to our campsite and roasted some brats for dinner.
We'd already explored parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, but this epic road trip vacation is just getting started!
