Some Impressions of Our Trip

The upper half of North Carolina, on Interstate 85, is very quiet and enjoyable to travel through. It is just woods – no major cities.

Years ago when teaching geography, I always taught about the Urban Arch, starting at Richmond, VA, and ending at Boston. Well, it definitely starts at Richmond – the traffic increased noticeably once we reached that point.

One does not realize until seeing it in person how totally dominating the Washington Monument is over the landscape of DC. It is more than just its height – its base is also massive. The Lincoln Memorial is huge also, and the Capitol Building is immense.

I was disappointed that the abundance of trees makes a number of places (such as the Capitol building and the White House) difficult to see well in the summertime.

We felt like northeasterners were much friendlier and helpful than we had been led to believe. Many times we had to stop and ask for directions or tips on places to stay or eat, and no one was rude or treated us unkindly.

Northeasterners do drive more aggressively than southerners. Boston was the only place where it was very difficult to deal with, but all over the northeast we noticed that drivers are quick to cut in when a slight place is available, or take advantage of any opportunity to make a left-hand turn.

We were amazed at how clean the landscape was, and how the people seemed to take pride in keeping their state clean and neat. Unlike the south, where it is everywhere on the roadside, we rarely saw litter.

We had expected the weather to be really cool, which it was for several days, but then it turned warm. That was a disappointment, as we had hoped to escape the oppressive heat of the south. But one lady said to us, “Please do not begrudge us our one or two days of hot weather this summer!”

We saw more churches than we expected to see. There were not churches on every street corner like in the south, but there were churches of many denominations of all theological stripes – but including conservative ones.

They really like puns in Maine. There are no "Main Streets" there; the primary street in every town is "Maine Street." Guess that's to be expected. But that "Maine" pun goes on and on. "The Maine Stay Inn." "Maine-ly Sewing." Etc., etc. We saw a lot of others - wish I'd written more down - but one I did write down was "The Baits Motel." A little too realistic for comfort.