Northeast Tour Day 7 (State Capitols)

Inspired by our visit to the nation's capitol, Ursa and I decided that we would add a few detours to our drive from Washington D.C. to Cape Cod. We wanted to see how many state capitols we could see during the drive. It brought a fun and educational flair to our day of driving.

Maryland Statehouse, at Annapolis

Our first stop was very near Washington, in Annapolis, Maryland. This is the oldest statehouse in continuous use, and dates to 1772. The statehouse sits in the middle of State Circle, a long row of government all built of matching brick, and passed by on sidewalks made of matching brick; so much brick that Ursa commented to me, "Who knew that this much brick even existed." And she was right, that was a LOT of brick.

Delaware Legislative House

From there we drove to Legislative Hall in Dover, Delaware. Delaware is known as "The First State" as that they were proudly the first to ratify the Constitution of the United States. Not far from Legislative Hall we had a quick lunch at the coolest coffee shop you've ever seen, Governor's Cafe, which is located inside a historic home on Heritage Trail near the Governor's Mansion. It's not often that one rave's about a grilled cheese sandwich, but I'm doing it now.

New Jersey State Capitol in Trenton

The next stop on our state capitol road trip was New Jersey's capitol, Trenton. The capitol building was easily visible from the interstate, but up close it was hard to get an angle to photograph. All of the other buildings were too tightly packed around it, and there was the State's World War II Memorial in front of it that was hard to get a photo around. This is the type of challenge that makes photography so much fun. There is always some new problem to overcome, always some new challenge to getting your shot. I finally found an angle along the back side of the building, similar to the view from the freeway.

Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford (photo by Ursa Davis)

Getting the photo was one challenge, but getting past New York City at 5 o'clock would be something else entirely. Even skirting the edges of the Big Apple at rush hour was a nightmare, and that's when the rain began to fall. It wasn't too bad at first but by the time we reached Hartford, Connecticut night had fallen, the roads were still clogged, and the rain was coming down in buckets. We did however get a slight reprieve from the rain just long enough for us to set up Ursa's camera to get a shot of the beautiful Connecticut Statehouse. (My camera envy again rears it's ugly head, as Ursa is able to take the kind of quality night photos that my camera simply cannot)

Rhode Island State Capitol in Providence (photo by Ursa Davis)

We drove on through the rain that continued to alternate from drizzle to deluge without much of a middle range. Our intention was for Hartford to be our last stop before we reached Cape Cod, but as it would so happen, our route took us right through the heart of Providence, Rhode Island, so we decided, what the hell, we'll stop for one more night photo. And we were again fortunate enough to have the weather cooperate by having the rains relent for a few minutes while we got our photo. Afterward we finished our drive to Cape Cod, and checked into our hotel late at night and laid down for a long rest.