50 States in 2021: 47-50

We did it! All 50 states in 2021!

We covered a lot of miles today! By our regular standards, that is - nowhere near the number of miles we drove on some of the days during our summer trip!

We started the day in Massachusetts, but as I mentioned in my previous post, we couldn't get a photo of a welcome sign yesterday. One of the signs was on the left side of the interstate and we had zero chance of a pic there; a second sign was kind of far off the right side of the highway and was situated in the middle of overgrown foliage, so I had to stand way back to even see the word Massachusetts! Ridiculous!

get it together, Massachusetts!

much better!

We went to breakfast at a place called The Friendly Toast and we were excited about it because we'd been to one of their other locations in Boston back in December 2018 and we really loved the food. Today's breakfast was amazing!

After breakfast, we drove to Salem and while I expected to see some cool things, I was not prepared for how strong a reaction I would have to all of the witch trial history. I was so disgusted by the injustice. A very somber reminder of how people's ignorance irrational and fears can lead to unspeakable atrocities. Humans are the absolute worst sometimes. The memorial has a stone marker for each of the victims with their name and info and there were flowers and notes/letters on many of them. It was a very moving experience. The town itself is pretty kitschy and has really leaned into the witch theme, and since I'm not really a Halloween lover, the touristy stuff was not my thing. But I am very glad we went so I could learn more about the witch trials.

After Salem, we drove into New Hampshire and right through it to Maine, where we visited the L.L.Bean flagship store. If you know me, you know how much I love their tote bags!

From Maine, we drove back through a small section of New Hampshire before arriving in Vermont, which is STATE #50! We went to the Ben and Jerry's factory in Waterbury before heading to our hotel for the night!

YAY!!!

On another note, I forgot to share this yesterday...my mom sent me this pic of Ginny and given the obvious sass, she is clearly not happy to have been left behind on this trip!

Happy Tails to you!