Despite living on the East Coast for almost a decade, I’ve seen almost nothing of New England. Sure, I had spent a very cold month in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire back in January 2004, but I had never ventured to iconic New England destinations like Boston or Maine. Obviously, this needed to be rectified, and since I currently have an inordinate amount of time on my hands, my boyfriend and I decided to take a week-long road trip to New England in July. First, we went to Hershey, PA to ride roller coasters and gorge ourselves on decadent desserts. Following that, we drove through upstate NY, crossed Lake Champlain via ferry, stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory in Vermont, drove through New Hampshire and then spent a day at Acadia National Park in Maine. We spent the rest of our trip in Boston, visiting the Revolutionary War sites and taking in a Red Sox game at Fenway.

One of the highlights of the trip was definitely Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. The area is incredibly beautiful and I kinda fell in love with the place. Seriously. I want to move to Maine, become a park ranger at Acadia, and eat lobster rolls everyday.

Early morning fog

Bar Harbor

Islands off Bar Harbor

We went on a puffin and whale watching tour, but it was incredibly foggy.

Better view of the island with a lighthouse on it.

Hiking Gorham Mountain. Underneath all that fog is the ocean.

American pose on the summit.

View from Cadillac Mountain.

The sand and gravel bar from which Bar Harbor takes its name. At low tide you can walk across the bar to Bar Island.

More photos here.

On Sunday, Laura and I drove up to Pittsburgh for the day to see the Pirates play the Cardinals and scratch PNC Park off of our list of ballparks to visit. And yes, we did just go to Pittsburgh for the day. It’s about 3.5-4 hours from DC, and everyone thought we were absolutely insane for driving that far for a baseball game. It was worth it, though. My one complaint about PNC Park, however, is that the hot dogs there are probably the most horrible ballpark hot dog I have ever tasted. They could definitely improve on those.

With a capacity of just over 38,000, PNC Park is a rather small and intimate ballpark. Also, the ticket prices are ridiculously cheap. View from our seats in Row T directly behind home plate. Cost? $27!

Despite living on the east coast for eight years, I’ve never been to Philadelphia, so I decided to drive up there this past weekend and visit Moira, one of my friends from LSE.

The first thing we did was eat a cheesesteak from Dalessandro’s. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was gigantic and very delicious. After devouring our cheesesteaks, we toured some of Philly’s famous sites.

Rocky statue near the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Kids running up the Rocky steps

Independence Hall

American pose in front of Independence Hall

Liberty Bell

Elfreth’s Alley, one of the oldest continuously inhabited residential streets in the U.S.

Kind of odd to see someone flying the Union Jack…

After walking around the city for a few hours we had a few pints at the Dark Horse, a great pub in the Society Hill neighborhood. It reminded me a lot of some pubs we frequented back in London.

On Sunday afternoon we saw the Phillies destroy the Cardinals 9-2.

We are wearing leis because it was Shane Victorino day.

I had a great time up there and would definitely go again. Plus, I was seriously craving a cheesesteak all day today so I might have to run up there just to have another one.

I flew back to Southern Illinois over Memorial Day to visit my relatives and celebrate my cousin Katie’s graduation from high school. On Saturday morning some of us went skeet shooting at the World Shooting & Recreational Complex in Sparta.

The complex is so big that my uncle has a “gun cart” to get around it. As you can see, it holds shotguns instead of golf bags.

Katie and I

And with my brother, uncle, and dad.

That was the first time I’ve been skeet shooting and it was really fun, despite the fact that I only managed to hit one clay pigeon. I’ve found a place out here in Northern Virginia that has shotgun sports, so I think I’ll take a lesson there in June. Maybe then I can hit two clay pigeons.

Assateague Island National Seashore is perhaps my favorite place on the East Coast. Assateague is a barrier island located off the eastern coast of Maryland and Virginia and is a scenic three hour drive from Washington. I love it out there because it’s undeveloped (no gaudy boardwalk scene) and there is plenty of room for people to spread out. Of course, when it’s April and 59 degrees you don’t really have to worry about crowds. Here are a few photos of today’s trip to Assateague:

Tucker loves the beach

American pose…in America. Don’t usually do that.

Tucker thinks he is a lapdog, BTW.

I was in Houston earlier this week for a business trip. Continental upgraded me to first class, which was nice.

One night, for dinner, I had a gigantic chicken fried steak, covered in gravy, with a side of onion rings and two large Shiner Bocks. It was delicious, but still, nothing can compare to the chicken fried bacon I had on my last trip to Houston. (And no, Mom, I did not eat the entire steak. It was really too big).

It’s funny, though, because now I don’t really think about moving to Houston. Sure, maybe someday there is a chance I will, but for now I find Arlington quite enjoyable.

(And the title of this post really has nothing to do with the actual content, but it was a line from last week’s 30 Rock and I thought it was hilarious).

On Monday morning I drove down to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, about 60 miles south of our hotel in Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The surf in KDH had been rather disappointing (completely flat on Saturday, and blown out and choppy on Sunday) so I was hoping that Hatteras would offer something better. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case, but I didn’t mind, because it was absolutely beautiful down there.

The Cape Hatteras Light, built in 1870, is the tallest lighthouse in the United States. The lighthouse was moved inland several years ago due to erosion of the shoreline at its original site.

More on the actual trip later…

Outer Banks for the weekend, originally uploaded by lfincher.

In Kill Devil Hills until Monday afternoon.

From the 38th floor of the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Massive hotel, and Times Square is an absolute zoo, but still, not a bad view, huh?

Although this was my sixth trip to New York City, it was the first one in which I visited a few of the typical tourist sites. After the Yankees game, we went to the top of Rockefeller Center, which rises 70 stories above the streets of NYC. Unfortunately, I did not run into my hero, Jack Donaghy.