Handstands Around the World

Day 5. The last day of our cross-country road trip.

After catching one last glimpse of Niagara Falls, my mom and I set off for the long drive across upstate New York. We drove all the way to Schenectady, before branching off onto Highway 7. This wasn’t the fastest route. But, as per usual, we decided that if we were going to be in the northeast, we were going to visit as many states as we could.

First stop: Vermont.

We followed Vermont Highway 9 across the state, winding our way through the Green Mountain National Forest. After descending from the mountains, we stopped somewhere – I can’t recall where – for lunch.

Eventually, Highway 9 led us to New Hampshire, separated from Vermont by the Connecticut River. From here, we headed south. We weren’t in New Hampshire for very long. In fact, we’d been looking for an interesting place to stop and put our feet on the ground when we suddenly saw the “Entering Massachusetts” sign up ahead. And so we pulled over right there and killed two birds with one stone, putting our feet on the ground in both states.

From here, we headed into Massachusetts.

By the time we arrived at my new house and unpacked the car, darkness had fallen and we became aware of just how rural this part of the country can be.

This was an odd concept for me, seeing how rural many parts of the west are. But this was rural in a different way. There are houses scattered everywhere, but grocery stores and restaurants are few and far between. Thankfully, a very helpful man at a local gas station was able to point us to a local restaurant, which has since become one of my favorite local pizza places.

I always thought the fact that northeast pizza was so much better than any other pizza was just people being snooty. In fact, it is not. Or I’ve become one of the snooty ones. Either way, there is some fabulous pizza out here.

By the next morning, my mom and I still had two things left on our road trip to-do list: (1) visit Connecticut and Rhode Island and (2) stand in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever. We weren’t particularly picky about how we accomplished these two things, so with a map in hand we set off through a corner of Connecticut and into Rhode Island, and ended up in the quaint beach town of Narragansett.

And so, off the coast of Narragansett, my mom and I put our feet in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

Sadly, this was our last stop. I was settled into my new house and oriented (somewhat) to my new town, and it was time to drop my mom off at the airport.

My first few days weren’t the greatest. In fact, adjusting to living on the east coast was a long and difficult process. I’ve been here for multiple years now and I’ve realized that I’m never going to be okay with the humidity or the constant terrible traffic. I’m always going to miss the mountains, the big skies, and the wide-open spaces of the west.

But I’ve also slowly gotten used to my new home. And living here has paved the way for a new batch of adventures, ones I never thought I would experience – travels up and down the East Coast.

So where this post leaves off is where the next will begin – at the start of my adventures out east.