A Road Trip from Dallas to Boston

This past week was our homeschool group's fall break. Generally I use this time to catch up on school work, or spread the week's work over two weeks and just take it easy. This year we decided to take our school on the road and go visit my sister in Boston!  We had been saving for this trip‌ since the spring, so it was truly exciting to see it come to fruition.

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DAY 1: Drive to Nashville

When we arrived in Nashville, we were greeted by my sweet cousin and her family, and not long after, my Aunt and Uncle arrived to join in on the fun. Tennessee is a beautiful state, and we caught some beautiful weather for a night walk. It was so good to see them and get to know our littlest cousin better.

Day two we were aiming to get as far as possible so that we would have a shorter drive for our third day to Boston. We got up and out early again. On our second day, we listened to Sir Bentley and Holbrook Court and the third book of the Narnia series: A Horse and His Boy.

While we listened we enjoyed the beautiful country we were passing through. My favorite was the morning fog on the mountains. It felt like we were driving through clouds!

Unfortunately I forgot that we lost an hour driving on this day due to the time change, so we only made it to Harrisburg, PA before we crashed for the night. We passed through Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland for the first time though, and we were excited to see what Pennsylvania looked like in the daylight!  I booked a hotel from my phone on Priceline to get a cheap deal. While the room was comfortable, it's best feature was that it didn't make us sad to leave early the next day!

While day 3's drive promised to be the shortest from a mileage standpoint, don't underestimate the power of New England traffic. Oh but the views!  Wow!

So I am a puzzle lover (when I have the time) and one of my favorite puzzle artists Anthony Kleem paints the Pennsylvania countryside. I loved seeing the scenes in real life.

When we finally made it to New Jersey, I saw what would be the first of one of the most spectacular seasons of fall color that I have ever experienced in my life!  Breathtaking.

We quickly passed through New Jersey, and although our distance in New York was brief, our time there was not. While my husband and I have been to New York City before, we had never experienced driving in it!  What an adventure. We ended up crossing the Hudson River over the Washington Bridge, and while it offers stunning views of the New York City skyline, it costs $14 to cross.

We made it through the city traffic and everyone needed to stop to go to the bathroom. What I didn't know was that in the North east, they have service stations like our Texas road stops that offer what I would relate to an airport shopping experience: a selection of restaurants, a gift shop, and a large clean restroom. Since we didn't know this, we exited at the first possible moment and found a cute little gas station to stop at. It had a one seater bathroom around back that you had to borrow the key to use. But there were some amazing leaves there!

My sister had warned me that heading north through Heartford would get really congested, so we went east towards Mystic, CT and headed up through Rhode Island.

We were so close to my sister's house, but since it was a holiday weekend, the traffic was crazy. We finally arrived and enjoyed dinner at Amore's Pizza with family.

The fun of cousins and family was what brought us to Boston in the first place. While my family drove up, my mom hopped on a plane and met us there. On Saturday we enjoyed attending my nephew's soccer game. It was actually warm enough that my kids wondered why they packed long sleeve shirts!

After the game we took our picnic lunch to Minute Man Park and enjoyed eating among the beautiful trees. We checked out the visitor center and then drove down to the Hartwell Tavern and watched a musket firing demonstration. We could have spent days exploring this great wealth of history.

Wanting to get to the beach before sunset, we left Minute Man Park before we had seen it all. We made it to Rockport and spent the evening walking up and down the shoreline taking in the immensity of the ocean and the beauty of the sunset. It was a perfect evening for a walk on the beach.

The next day we woke up and got to go watch my niece play in her soccer game. She was adorable!

The rest of the afternoon was spent recovering my sister's dining room chair cushions and getting ready for church. We were honored to lead worship at Welspring Church where my brother in law pastors. The best part was my nephew played his cello with us and he is an incredible cello player. It was so beautiful!

Sadly, our time in Boston had come to an end. The good news was that our trip was far from over. Check back tomorrow for the journey home.