Driving Across the Country and Back | Part 4: The East Coast

As all proper road-trippers know, a journey on I-90 into NY should involve a stop at Niagara Falls.

After our brief tour of Barcelona, we were ready to lay our eyes on this massive waterfall. While the American side is not as picturesque as the Canadian side, these falls are still magnificent to behold.

A quick clicks of our shutters and a selfie or two later, we were off to Albany!

While I had lived in Albany for almost 4 years for medical school, I had never been to the Saratoga Battlefield. On my birthday, we ventured to this historic location for a morning of exploration.

As we read about the battles of Saratoga, we even saw a bald eagle. Quite the American adventure.

Over the couple of days, Lisa and I headed down to Boston to visit our aunts and explore a couple of cute towns in Maine and New Hampshire.

We started with Portland, ME where we had delicious bagels, tasty donuts, and a lovely morning walk in the misting rain.

Then we headed to Kennebunkport, and stopped at St. Ann's Episcopal Church, which was built in 1887. The church also has a small outdoor chapel which was built on the spot where a fort once stood to protect ships in the harbor during the War of 1812.

For lunch, we headed to Portsmouth, NH for some chowder at the Portsmouth Brewery before heading to Boston for the night.

It was a whirlwind of a day, but we had a blast!

Driving Across the Country and Back | Part 3: The Middle

What lies between Devils Tower, Wyoming and the Great Lakes is mostly corn. And some cows.

While planning our trip, we learned that three-quarters of the way through South Dakota, there exists the world's only Corn Palace. You can imagine our excitement upon realizing it was only a short detour off of I-90.

Celebrating South Dakota's "healthy agricultural climate," the current building was constructed in 1921.

The website discussing its history states, "We currently use 13 different colors or shades of corn to decorate the Corn Palace: red, brown, black, blue, white, orange, calico, yellow and now we have green corn!"

I know how thrilling this sounds. And it was.

If you happen to find yourself in Mitchell South Dakota, you might as well swing by this little gem!

While in SD, we also stopped to get gas by this dinosaur. I'm not sure why more gas stations aren't strategically placed near such landmarks, but we definitely chose this particular place to fill up because of its proximity to the 80-foot Apatosaurus.

On our way out of the Midwest, entering NY, we stopped in Barcelona.

You may not know it, but Barcelona is a little town on Lake Erie in Chautauqua County, NY.

At just after 10 in the morning, we grabbed our cameras and our sour patch kids, and bought ourselves some ice cream cones.

I've yet to travel to Spain, but I'm pretty sure one could easily confuse these beaches of Barcelona with those beaches of Barcelona. No?

Driving Across the Country and Back | Part 2: Devils Tower

It turns out there isn't a whole lot to see between Seattle and Albany. I've done the drive before (here), so we tried to make things a little more interesting by stopping at a few notable landmarks - even though it took us a bit out of the way.

Before arriving at our first major landmark, we experienced fog, rainbows, sun, and snow.

Classic America in early May.

Our first major stop was Devils Tower in Wyoming. It was the first National Monument, established in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

What a random, giant piece of rock in the middle of nowhere. Seriously amazing, though.

I highly recommend taking the little detour through scenic Wyoming to check out this monument for yourself!