Three states in one day

Janet took me on a mini tour of New England yesterday. We started in Massachusetts, then New Hampshire and finished in Maine. Places in New England are a lot closer together than in the other states I've visited!
The countryside is quite different to what I've seen so far. Lots of trees along the roads, more hills and, of course, the ocean. Saw the Atlantic Ocean so now I can say I've been coast to coast :)
We visited the towns of Newburyport, Mass., Portsmouth, NH., York and the Nubble lighthouse, Maine. They are all very pretty and I had a great time wandering around playing tourist. It was good to see the ocean again. I didn't realise that I'd missed it until I saw it. There's that special 'waves hitting the shore' sound that you just don't hear anywhere else.
I had to laugh in York when Janet told me she was taking me to "miles of sand" at Long Beach. The tide was in and there were just a few feet of rocks along the water's edge. :)
Nubble lighthouse, Maine, is very cute. It sits on its own little island, accessible only by boat. The shoreline at this part of the coast is rocky, no sand, but it was so nice to just stand and look out to sea. Scuba divers kept popping up which was a bit startling at first :) Lots of lobster pot markers bobbing about in the water, so perhaps they were checking them out. Don't know.
Eventually we headed back to Lowell, the town Janet lives in, and visited friends of hers. Played "Apples to Apples" and drank a proper home made margarita. Fun :)

Today is July 4th. We went to Janet's cousin's house in New Hampshire for a barbecue. Lovely property. Great hosts too :)
Back to Lowell this evening and the roads were deserted. Everyone seems to be downtown Boston for the celebrations. There are hundreds of thousands of people down there. Far too many people for me! And we're both tired after a couple of big days. So we're at home watching it all on TV. Well, Janet is watching, I'm typing this :)
Just for the record, I don't do the big Australia Day celebrations either.

I'm looking forward to exploring Boston during the week.

Later....