The Tri-State Area

Since it was still overcast this morning, my hopes of getting a morning pic from one of the national seashore beaches were dashed. But after checking out of the hotel, we went out to see the Nauset Light...

...and hiked over to see the Three Sisters Lighthouses. These were the original lights along the coast, but were moved inland when erosion threatened the cliff where they were located.

Photobomb!

Then we went down to see what we could of the Nauset Light Beach - not much of anything since it was so foggy this morning!

On our way out, we stopped at the visitor center to get my sign pic and junior ranger patches for the boys.

And that was the little taste we got of a Cape Cod vacation - it would be nice to come back and spend more time here, when the sun is actually shining!

From the Cape, it was about 1.5 hours to New Bedford, MA and the national historic site there interpreting the whaling history of the area. And the enrichment activity for our visit to this place was watching (what else?!) Moby Dick (the Gregory Peck original, not the one with Captain Picard!)

Seamen's Bethel

"In the same New Bedford there stands a whalemen's chapel 
and few are the moody fishermen shortly bound for the Indian 
or Pacific Oceans who failed to make a Sunday visit to this spot"
- Moby Dick

We also briefly checked out the New Bedford Whaling Museum...

Jonah and the whale

Tools of the trade

1/2 scale replica of the Lagoda whaling ship

Once we were back on the road, it only took us about half an hour to get to Providence, RI and the Roger Williams National Memorial. There wasn't much here besides watching a brief movie at the visitor center and the neighboring park area, which is the memorial. But at least that's one more NPS unit off my bucket list!

We walked up the street to see the State House, so the boys could say that they've been to the capital of Rhode Island...

Looking up at the capitol dome

Our next stop was Springfield, MA to check into our hotel. Tomorrow we'll visit the Springfield Armory NHS and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. But tonight we went to Six Flags New England, just south of Springfield. Our Magic Mountain season passes got us in for free (including parking), so it didn't make any difference to us that it was pouring down rain. Yep, we were the crazy people in rain ponchos strolling into the park while everyone else was going home.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night will stop these adrenaline junkies from riding Bizarro!

When we figured out that we could exit from Six Flags and drive south just a few miles to cross the border into Connecticut, the boys were eager to knock one more state off their list. Only 23 more to go!