Just how many states was that?

Today was another busy day, lots to do and see and drive through. We started off by driving out of Maine, through New Hampshire and in to Massachusetts. Our first stop was in Salem, which was really quite interesting (but quite commercialized, kind of like Banff). The area has a fascinating history, with a graveyard that contained one of the original Mayflower settlers. It also has a storied marine history, apparently, involving pirates and the like, and some incredibly old buildings. Navi took us on a tour through the city, where we got a chance to see some really neat historic houses that are still in use today. We did have a few issues with her, though, as she did route us through a few somewhat questionable neighbourhoods!

For some reason that I don't quite remember, we decided to skip Boston - too much to do there and not enough time to do it. So, we left Massachusets and drove to Rhode Island, where we stopped in Providence to see H. P. Lovecraft's grave in Swan Point Cemetery (if you don't know who H. P. Lovecraft is, I recommend googling him). What a beautiful but convoluted graveyard! Even with a map that led us specifically to the gravesite, we got lost! We did find his grave, though, along with that of his wife and his parents. We left a silver key on his grave, which relates to one of his stories. There were a surprising amount of trinkets and flowers on his grave, including one with cyrillic letters, translated to "From Russia with love". We were clearly not the first to make this pilgrimage! From Rhode Island (by the way, I survived rush hour in Rhode Island - kind of has a nice ring to it), we drove through Connecticut and have stopped for the night in Newburgh, New York, with 4009.4 km (2491.3 mi) under our collective belts.

Our next destination is Centralia, Pennsylvania. a ghost town with a population of 7, apparently. There is a coal fire burning in the mine under the town, which has been burning since 1962 and has made the town uninhabitable. Then we will be headed to Philadelphia, with a tour planned for an interesting if somewhat unusual museum - more on that tomorrow, though!