234. New England

I haven’t really written about regions of the country that I like, but I’ve made it pretty obvious that I like my part of the country and that I like travel. I’ve also written about specific spots and cities that I like, but I haven’t said that I love New England. While I can’t see myself leaving the Northwest, if I had to live anywhere else in the US I would live in New England. Like the Northwest, New England has similar seasons, family ties, and mountains. Maine even grows potatoes and has the White Pine as its state tree, like Idaho. Those things make a place home and I very much feel at home in New England.

I did my first trip to New England when I started graduate school in Vermont at the Bread Loaf School of English. I spent time in Vermont and Connecticut and driving through Massachusetts to get back and forth between those places. The thing about New England that I love even more than the Northwest is the sense of history. I had family colonize Plymouth and soon thereafter move to Milford and New Haven, Connecticut even before 1700. That’s really interesting to me. I’ve got a cousin who has researched the family genealogy and it pretty much matches the stories that have been handed down. So I have a strong sense of American pride rooted directly in New England. I love their sayings and accent. Things are “wicked cool” in New England and people in Boston are “wicked smaht.” While I might park the car in Idaho, in Boston someone “pahks the cah.” Obviously language and accents are a big love of mine, so the New England accent is just plain fun. And it’s not the same from southern to northern New England, ayuh (Vermonter for the NW yeah…).  

I also love the coastline of New England, the harbors filled with sailing boats and fishing boats. In Maine the mountains rise up out of the sea much like they do in Washington and Oregon. Boston Harbor exudes a sense of pride in being American and NOT British. The Boston Tea Party made us a coffee drinking nation. The Shot Heard ‘round the World was fired nearby in Concord and Lexington. American intellectualism was enshrined in Cambridge. It’s just a great part of our country and I love it in New England.