Late Fall in the Northeast
Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forum!
I can't argue with your friend's suggestion to see the northeast. It's one of the areas that comes up most frequently on this forum. For starters, let me direct you to some past threads that have dealt with New England, New England in the fall, and NY and PA (as well as Canada). Those should give you some general ideas of what's available. As far as the timing of your trip, it's a bit late to see much fall color in New England, but there's still good color in PA and NY. My rules of thumb when I lived on the coast of Maine were: first snow fall in mid-November, first snow that stayed around for the winter in mid-December. I certainly would not expect things to be warm, but with the proper clothing and mind set, this could be good time to see this area, and 11 days will allow you the time to do it justice.
AZBuck