Colleges and Monuments

Sunday's travels took me through Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania (again), Maryland, and the District of Columbia.  The main attractions on this day turned out to be college campuses and various impressive monuments.  Toward the end of the day, I stopped at a location that was historic, but had no markings at all.

My first stop was Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.  It is an architecturally-beautiful campus, but my main interest was in seeing the building once named for John C. Calhoun whose name has been changed to the Grace Murray Hopper College.  Since Calhoun's name is actually carved into the façade, I don't know to what lengths they will go to remove it.

The beautiful structure on the left is NOT the Calhoun/Hopper building.  It is north of it.

On the right is the inscription above the door of the Hopper College above the courtyard gate.

I passed through a small portion of New York state, but turned on the outer loop in order to avoid the traffic.  In Westchester County, I stopped at the "Great Hunger Memorial," which pays tribute to Irish immigrants who came to America during the time of the potato famine.  The statue of a family, nearly starving, is lifelike and touching.



This route took me across the Tappan Zee bridge (being replace by a spectacular new one) and through New Jersey.

I visited Princeton, NJ, on my ride down the Lincoln Highway a few years ago.  This time, I their HUGE battle monument (American Revolution, George Washington) and drove by Princeton University.  I read quite a bit about Princeton when I was studying Woodrow Wilson, who was president there.

I also tried to avoid most of the Philadelphia traffic, since I had seen the downtown sights there as well.  I moved south into Maryland and Baltimore.  On an earlier trip, I had seen the sports stadiums and Fort McHenry, but not the downtown area.  I was surprised to see that they had a "Washington Monument," which is in a downtown square next to a statue of the Marquis de Lafayette on horseback.

As a kept moving down U.S. 1 toward Washington, I passed through Laurel, Maryland.  Right on the highway is the Laurel Shopping Center, where Alabama's George Wallace was campaigning for president on May 15, 1972, when he was shot several times here by Arthur Bremer.  Wallace survived, but was paralyzed for life.  The details and the film remnants are sketchy, but historians believe the most accurate assessment of where it happened was in the direction that the old "Giant Food" sign is pointing.  Between that and the actual grocery store is a Bank of America, and the shooting happened somewhere behind where that building is located today, near the shopping cart storage.


Here is the only proof I drove through DC.  It was getting dark, but (driving by) I saw FBI, Justice, some Smithsonian museums, the African-American Museum, the Vietnam wall, the Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson Memorials, Arlington, and the Pentagon.

Spent the night near Fredericksburg, VA.

Two kinds of Patriots

Most of Saturday was spent in Massachusetts.

Just northwest of Boston I visited the Minuteman National Historic Park.  This includes the Revolutionary battle sites at Lexington and Concord and the "battle road" in between.  Armed conflict between Great Britain and her American colonies began at these sites on April 19, 1775.  British soldiers marched from Boston toward Concord, where rebels were purportedly storing arms and ammunition.  On the way, they clashed with colonials at the Lexington Green, then moved on to the Concord area.  The battle at the North Bridge at Concord was immortalized in a poem as the "shot heard round the world."  All the way back to Boston, the British were ambushed by minutemen at places like Barrett's Tavern, where I saw a musket demonstration.

Memorial Statue at

Lexington Green

Old North Bridge at Concord. Minuteman

statue at this end, memorial at the other.  The

Americans forced the British away from the

bridge from this direction.

Barret's Tavern, left.  On the right, park employees give musket demonstration.

Despite the rain, it fired on the 3rd shot!

In the early afternoon, I got a look at the home of another group of "Patriots," the ones who play football in the National Football League.  This is in Foxboro, Massachusetts.  The New England Patriots' home field is called Gillette Stadium, and it is part of a modern complex with a hall of fame, restaurants, and shopping.  There were many people there doing sightseeing, having lunch, and enjoying the shops, despite the fact that there won't be a game there for a couple months.

Soon afterward, I passed through Rhode Island and its capital, Providence, then moved on into Connecticut on I-95, a road which continues all the way back home to Georgia.

The White Mountains

After departing Norwich at about 2 p.m. on Friday, I traveled east into New Hampshire and was soon in the heart of the breathtakingly-beautiful White Mountains.




This is the town of Littleton, NH.  This is their Friday afternoon traffic!








I saw a couple of these signs in Vermont as well.  We don't have these in south Georgia!!

Following U.S. 302 East, I came to Twin Mountain, New Hampshire, and started seeing some impressive ski resort communities with spectacular mountain views.









Mount Washington resort...







The highway then ran through Crawford Notch State Park, where I saw a railroad depot at a location where the railway line had to be cut through a stretch of solid rock at the top of the mountain.  As I was checking out the depot, some hikers came off the Appalachian Trail and took a break there.  From there, the road descends quickly from the pass to the valley below, passing a pretty waterfall on the way.




All along the roads of Vermont and New Hampshire were these gorgeous mountain rivers.  They are lined with stones in most places and run pretty rapidly at times.







From New Hampshire, 302 travels through the southern regions of Maine.  As you gradually fall out of the highest mountains, there are some huge, beautiful lakes.  When darkness fell, I crossed through a very small part of New Hampshire and into northeastern Massachusetts, where I spent the night.

Note:  This is much farther north than I had previously traveled.  The summer solstice arrived while I was in Vermont, and the sun was rising at about 5:00 to 5:10 a.m.  It sets around 8:45 or 8:50 p.m.  That's a LONG day!