The planning started in April. Three National Parks we had not yet visited: Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Shenandoah in Virginia, and Acadia all the way up in Maine. Along the way: the WTC Memorial in New York, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, family and friends in Philadelphia, Boston, a stretch of the Canadian border, Niagara Falls, and back home through Kentucky. A month. Nearly 4,000 miles. The forum at Xoutpost helped plan the route. The 4.8is did every mile of it without complaint.
This was not a sightseeing trip in the conventional sense. It was a road trip. The kind where the driving is the point as much as the destination — where you find yourself on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut because someone told you it is one of the most scenic drives in America, and they were right. The kind where you eat Frank Pepe’s pizza in New Haven and understand immediately why people have it flown to California. The kind where your daughter sees the WTC Memorial and you do not have to explain why it matters. Where you stand in a quiet field in Shanksville and feel the same way. Where you cross into Canada at Niagara and drive the Ontario side of the falls in a LeMans Blue E53 with the windows down and the exhaust doing what it does best.
The most visited National Park in the country. Mist in the valleys every morning. The Newfound Gap Road. The Dragon is nearby if you know where to look.
105 miles of ridge-top driving. Views in every direction. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge on the way out.
Based here for a few days. Independence Hall. The Liberty Bell. And a stop at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville — a quiet field in Somerset County that stops you cold. Train into New York rather than driving in.
A full day. You do not rush this one. The reflecting pools. The names. The museum. Everyone has been to New York. Not everyone has been here. The 4.8is drove Manhattan streets — the exhaust note on Broadway is something else entirely.
Skip I-95 — no trucks allowed on the Merritt, and Car and Driver has tested cars here. One of the most scenic parkways in America. Mystic Seaport. Frank Pepe's pizza in New Haven. Worth the wait for a table.
The Breakers. The Marble House. The Vanderbilt estates on the cliffs above the Atlantic. Natural cross-ventilation in the summer heat. The marina for seafood.
The Freedom Trail. The harbor. Fenway if the timing worked out.
The one that stayed with us. Cadillac Mountain. Thunder Hole. The carriage roads. The kind of landscape that makes everything else feel like a warm-up. And later — the day on Mt. Washington when the world changed a little.
The smallest state capital in the country. Ben and Jerry's HQ in Waterbury. Some things you just do.
Canadian side is more scenic — no argument. The 4.8is crossed the border and drove Niagara Parkway on the Ontario side. Toronto for a day or two. Then back across the border.
The longest known cave system in the world. Woodford Reserve has the best distillery tour. Makers Mark is a close second. The drive home from here is easy.
Nearly 4,000 miles on a July road trip with a daughter who came home from the hospital at 4lbs 9oz and now had opinions about which National Parks had the best gift shops. The 4.8is did every mile. Loud exhaust. AA tune. The kind of car that makes a highway on-ramp feel like a decision. We did at least a dozen of these trips. This was one of the bigger ones.
