Back to school with Sam

On her way back to school after summer vacation, cousin Samantha consented to a road trip from D.C. to her campus in western Massachusetts. First stop, convenient for lunch: Columbia, Pa., a time-worn little port on the mighty Susquehanna.

Columbia is notable for the longest multi-arch concrete bridge in the country e(above) and for nearly being selected capital of the nation in the 18th century. There were other near-misses before D.C. was sited on the Potomac.

Later we admired a fine field of corn, beyond the weeds, in bottomland near the river (above).

Our only blatant sightseeing involved walking around FDR’s house at Hyde Park, N.Y., though we stopped briefly to impersonate Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt as part of the Hyde Park’s summer mime pageant (below).

We were still bleary from the flashbulbs and audience acclaim (below) when we arrived in Northampton, Mass., for Sam’s fall semester.