An update on resources for planning an RV trip to New England.
Round Barns and Covered Bridges
Dale J Travis has compiled exhaustive lists of covered bridges and round barns by state. Each list includes the county in which the bridge resides, the bridge name, water the bridge is built over, the bridge’s length and year built, GPS location, and a photo. Not all bridges have complete entries; most do.
I hope to visit a number of covered bridges in New England. Dale’s lists make this easier for me and for you. He also provides reading material recommendations.
New England Foliage
There are a number of website to help tourists visit during peak foliage. I had thought the foliage developed first in Maine and moved south through the states. This is an incomplete picture. The foliage moves from the north-west toward the coast, running from Canada to the sea. I’m now thinking a loop heading north through Quebec, Northern Vermont and Maine; then swinging south along the sea-shore through Maine, and New Hampshire; turning inland toward central New Hampshire; then south and east through Massachusetts, visiting Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket along the way before dropping down through Rhode Island and Connecticut is “optimal”. This will be a rather long haul and will take some time if we keep our daily mileage minimal. New England is not Alaska, there are no vast expanses to be driven in a day.
I have no idea how long this will take. Optimal foliage started in late September last year and worked it way to the coast and into Rhode Island by mid October. That gives us about four weeks to tour the region with time before and after to visit friends and family along the way.
Foliage Resources
New England 2015 projection: yankee foliage
Maine past foliage: www.maine.gov
2014 “Best of”; www.wildcenter,org
A Vermont Drive: drive vermont
Main Resource Guide: visit Maine
I’ll be adding more resources as our plan develops. We use the iPhone app, AllStays, to research state and national parks and RV campgrounds. The app can search near your GPS location or around a city or town. I’ll publish our route once we have one!
Ron