LONG STORY SHORT By Kristine McGowan Back in Southern California, I used to sweat through every summer in eager anticipation of fall: the season of artificial pumpkin spice, when the leaves turned slightly more brown and temperatures dropped to a balmy 79°F. Little did I know what I was missing out on. This year, per my request, Jason designed our travel route to bring us to New England by October. I used to wonder what autumn felt like here. Were the fall foliage and cider mills really as spectacular as everyone said? Or was it all just hype, designed to lure naïve tourists like myself? Having spent three weeks romping around New England’s forests and mills, I can say for certain now: It’s not hype. The colors truly are stunning. The apple cider, delicious. The only pumpkins in sight—artificial or not—sit on porches, not coffee-shop menus. And the air is so crisp that I slipped on a sweater in early October for the first time in memory. Oh, and don’t get me started on the cider donuts. Sure, we’ve dealt with the crowds, too. We’ve stood in too-long lines for those donuts. And we’ve watched three different tourists strand their cars on the side of the road with one or more of their wheels off the ground. But none of that dulled our experience. Because for us, fall in New England isn’t just about colorful leaves and apple-flavored treats. It’s also about change: a change in the seasons, and a sign of more change to come. After 16 months on the road, New England was the last region of the contiguous U.S. left for us to explore. We’ve done the West and the South; we’ve roamed through the Northern Plains and the Great Lakes. Now, we’ve reached the northeast apex of the third and final leg of our trip. We’re almost done. In six weeks’ time, when we pull ourselves off the road for good, our lives will change completely—again. New England foreshadowed that. And it reminded us to savor the time we have left. Where have we been?Salem, Mass.  What better place to kick off the month of October than in Salem? Some say it’s haunted, some call it a tourist trap, and others—like me—say it harbors a fascinating history they’d like to sink their teeth into. To that end, we took a walking tour of the city that encompassed everything from the witch trials to Salem’s maritime history to various “Hocus Pocus” filming locations. We also made sure to spend some time running amuck, of course. Acadia National Park, Maine   Acadia—a place so beautiful that I couldn’t share just one or two photos of it. The red-and-orange-streaked mountains cascading into the Atlantic stunned us on their own, but Acadia had much more in store for us. We got an adrenaline rush on the Precipice Trail, where we scaled a 1,000-foot cliff via narrow ledges and ladders (see the lower two photos) for some incredible views. And, on our final night here, we got quite a show when the aurora borealis filled the night sky with shades of red and pink. We won’t forget this park anytime soon. White Mountains, N.H., and Stowe, Vt.  Talk about fall foliage. Even after we’d visited Acadia, the colors here left us gobsmacked. We spent a week wandering from New Hampshire’s White Mountains to Vermont’s Little River State Park and Stowe, drinking cider and eating donuts along the way. We also got an early taste of winter in Stowe, where several inches of snow fell during our visit to Smugglers’ Notch. Now, these two Southern Californians can say they’ve helped a Vermont local free his trapped car from a snowed-in parking lot. Where are we going next?Now that our time in New England has come to an end, we’re trekking south to check off our last national park in the Lower 48. We’ll also see family and watch a couple football games before we begin heading west for the last time.  134. Shenandoah National Park, Va.
135. Blacksburg, Va. 136. Blue Ridge Parkway, Va. 137. Knoxville, Tenn. 138. Nashville, Tenn. 139. Jackson, Miss.
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