Must-do one-day fall foliage road trip: Delaware/Southeastern Pennsylvania

What time of year is it?
FOLIAGE ROAD TRIP TIME!


The foliage is incredible right now, and it'll be gone too soon. It is MANDATORY that you road trip to the best, cooliest, and wackiest tree-covered areas before the leaves fall. If you're in the Northern Delaware/Southeastern PA area--that is, near Philadelphia--this is the one-day road trip for you. It goes from South to North, but you could obviously do it in the other direction.

1. Alapocas Run State Park, Wilmington, Delaware
This state park is great, and it is across the street from the Delaware Greenway, which is a huge forest trail. There's a sunny meadow with a path through it, just off of Route 202. It always smells like flowers, and I've seen deer there multiple times. You walk along the path for a few minutes, and pretty soon you're in a huge forest, complete with chirping birds and bugs, creeks, and the smell of forest. The Greenway is very big, so you could spend a whole afternoon here and not reach the end.

2. Wegmans supermarket, Concordville, Pennsylvania
Everyone loves Wegmans! They have nice bathrooms and seasonal candy. I got a pick-your-own Halloween-themed candy bag for 12 cents. They also were giving out free samples of four kinds of fresh-squeezed fruit juice when I went! FREE JUICE!

3. Ringing Rocks Park, Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania
Bring a hammer or wrench, because the rocks in this park ring when you hit them. When we got here, we parked in a quiet-looking forested parking lot, then followed a (largely unmarked) trail down through the trees until we hit a huge sunny field of large rocks. Incredible cool, and surrounded on all sides by FOLIAGE!

4. Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
The town of Jim Thorpe is a cute, touristy little place, but it's the drive there that makes it all worth it. We went through the Lehigh Valley, and boy, if there is something more autumnal than mountains and rivers and foliage, I don't know what it is.

5. Columcille Megalith Park
We ran out of time and didn't end up getting here, but it sounds awesome. It is a park with giant stones (think Stonehenge) that supposedly have healing powers, just a bit north of Jim Thorpe.