I may as well give away the secret: today’s weather will be poor all day. If there was a speck of blue sky, we missed it. There is a good view of the ocean, though, and that makes up for the disappointment that the sun has dipped out.

This penguin is in disguise as a seagull, those black tail feathers are the giveaway. Maybe I should choose a day from this trip and just lie about everything? In town here in Plymouth, we stopped for some coffee at Lalajava and tried their cranberry nut cream coffee, good stuff, and so we make a note to get on the internet when we get home and order some. (We never did do that, and as of 2018, as I’m back-filling these blog entries, they are out of business)

So this is the alleged “Plymouth Rock” that is not likely the landing spot of anyone from the Mayflower. The problem with the story is that no pilgrims ever mentioned the existence of this disembarkation point in any writings. It wasn’t until 121 years later that someone started the myth that this was the very spot where these early pilgrims set foot in North America. So, while it is interpreted as a symbol of that early colonization, its factual historical significance is relative.

Our first sighting of a cranberry bog. You can bet this elicited a stronger curiosity than the rock in the previous picture. We also passed the Ocean Spray World of Cranberries headquarters. Apparently, we are in cranberry country.

Sadly, we just weren’t motivated enough to go stand in the rain and try to grab a selfie in front of the Rhode Island state sign. Welcome to the smallest state in America from the car.

We needed to do something to commemorate being in the smallest state in America, and so during a break in the rain, I made this WTF face after wondering how Caroline made herself blurry.

I had to catch this Connecticut Welcomes You sign while driving down the road. Anyone who knows me probably knows I giggled at the “Town of Stonington” part of the sign.

This Connecticut place is kinda pretty, even on a drab gray day. At least the rain let up.

We arrive too close to the museum closing, and with the weather what it is, we decide we’ll have to wait for another day to visit the Mystic Seaport. We are disappointed but certain we’ll return. Something I should point out about this cross-country journey we are on, this is more an orientation of discovery to get a better idea of the lay of the land known as the United States. If we don’t get to a particular place, that’s okay because this is just the scouting exercise.

I didn’t think for one second that while the majority of our trip had been rural and that we’d kind of freaked out in Boston due to the congestion, we might have the same reaction in New York City. Heck, this was so exciting, this idea of us visiting the Big Apple together for the first time, that the thrill propelled us right in. From entering Manhattan via the Bronx, we head south, making our way over to the Hudson Parkway. Wow, we’re on Broadway!

Okay, that was a supremely bad idea with the concert of beeping horns and bumper-to-bumper traffic. We headed for the exit leaving Manhattan via Brooklyn and then crossed over to Staten Island on the Verrazano-Narrow Bridge.

This was the best handheld shot I could get of NYC from Staten Island before we tried to put even more distance between us and the chaos.

I’d only ever had these from the frozen food aisle at some random grocery store out West; they suck fresh and in person too. What do people see in White Castle? They need In-N-Out Burger.

It’s 10:00 p.m. when we enter Pennsylvania, our fifth state today. It will be 11:45 before we finally find a Ramada Inn in Reading, Pennsylvania. We must have stopped at half a dozen other motels that were all sold out. We are tired.