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« Last post by jtstill on October 09, 2025, 07:59:53 pm »
Just returned last weekend from a 2 week trip through New England (my first!), which marks my first significant mileage boost of the year that I can recall and the addition of 6 new states to bring my total to over half of the US (28 states, plus DC) since I started keeping track on here in 2022! I wasn't too concerned with TM-eligible roads, since it was primarily a sight-seeing vacation with the wife, but I did try to prioritize new miles whenever possible.
We started by taking the familiar I-83, I-81, and I-78 east through PA before hopping on I-287 and I-95 to take us most of the way through Connecticut. A bit of time around Mystic and an out-of-the-way hotel further north before snaking our way down to grab the ferry to Block Island for a day. We then continued east through Providence to Cape Cod, where I was happy to grab the endpoint of US 6 in Provincetown. From there, we spent a couple days in Boston before heading up the coast to the furthest location on our trip, Acadia National Park in Maine. After spending a few days biking around and enjoying the fall foliage, we zig zagged west toward New Hampshire, where I unfortunately got a little lost and ended up unintentionally forgoing a bit of state route mileage in favor of some gravel back roads. Whoops.
We circled around there for a bit, driving scenic US 302 and ascending Mt Washington (where we frighteningly had to skirt the outside edge of the auto road near the top because of active road work!) before taking the Kancamagus highway toward Franconia Notch. Fall colors were exceptional, lots of stops to hike over these few days. Continuing to Vermont, we checked out tiny Montpelier and looped around Stowe and scenic VT 108 before finally turning toward home and taking a couple days to come down past Lake Champlain and spend the next two nights near Lake George and in the Poconos.
In all, I added 1,751 new miles from the ~2,500 mile road trip (1,932 TM-eligible), bringing my rank from 315 to 293. I surprisingly increased my travelled routes by 24%, from 501 to 623, clinching 13 along the way (80 to 93 total). I'm still missing 3 numbers under 100: 46, 47, and 73 (I got 84 and 91, both interstates). I did pass a 46 (ME), but didn't realize I didn't have one (of all things though, this is one aspect I don't care too much about). The only other noteworthy thing is perhaps that I-95 is now my second-most travelled route behind I-70, pushing I-81 to third by nearly 50 miles.
On the county front, I added 53 across 8 states, not consciously taking detours to grab any besides Bristol in RI, but that was to complete the set, a pretty easy task for RI.