New Hampshire & Vermont

The combination the weather and having done most of what we wanted to do, we decided to head back towards Rochester and get an early start. We made it to New Hampshire in about four hours. Where do you go when you go to New Hampshire? Of course you go to the White Mountains. Craig highly recommended a restaurant there. He raved about their chicken parmesan and their homemade cheesecake. There was no chicken parmesan on the menu, the cheesecake was bought from down the street, they messed up my order and their food, although tasty, made me sick. Nice. Just nothing of what I expected, nothing. Erin was a sweetie and pretty much drove the rest of the day. I could barely sit up in the passenger seat. We made our way to Mt Washington. Being extremely scared of cliffs (shall we recall the Hidden Lake hike at Glacier?), we thought it was a good idea to take the train up. It was $62. Sixty two. And THEN, the woman had to get snooty with me and say “do you know how much fuel it takes to get up there?” Well as a matter of fact, I do, and it’s not $62 per person. I quickly learned most everyone in New Hampshire was snooty, all the ones we met anyway. Anyway, it was $25 if you wanted to drive up the mountain, using your own car. It’s a private road… surprise, surprise. I knew I wouldn’t drive up there, or even be in the passenger seat. I would just have my head in my lap on the way entire way up and more so on the way down. Looking up at the sky though, it was still cloudy and foggy. So even if we did go up, we would’ve seen nothing but haze. So we chugged along. We made it to Cathedral Ledge and Diana’s Bath (waterfalls). Of course we’d see waterfalls. Erin was the one who got me hooked on them. So now it’s double trouble. Both sites were beautiful. I really wanted to see a climber coming up Cathedral Ledge. I even wanted to throw something to see if it hit someone. I know better, but it’s the devil in me, let’s call him curiosity.

We got our fill of fog in New Hampshire and decided to keep going. We took the scenic Hwy 112 drive out. It was beautiful with all the trees and changing colors. We didn’t get to see about half of it though because it got dark. The rest of the drive wasn’t very good. I started driving at this point. Both New Hampshire and Vermont are of full of little towns out in the middle of nowhere. The roads, or rather hills, wind like a path a child draws on a piece of paper when first learning to hold a pen. The rain wasn’t helping, nor were the lack of street lights. The towns were dead. Nothing was open. Not even lights were on. The houses seemed vacant and everything was just eerie. My fear was getting a flat tire, or something breaking down. God knows I’ve given my car a good beating the last couple of months. And since most of these places didn’t have reception, AAA would be of no help. We eventually made it to a major highway (phew! Or so we thought…), got off on the first exit. Hanover, where Dartmouth is. Yes, say it through your nose holding your pinky up. Daht-mouth. Any hotel within a 10-mile radius was booked. Yay for the Special Olympics. I was tired, hungry, had a rough drive and I really needed to pee. After roaming aimlessly and googling and calling hotels, we eventually found a place in the middle of nowhere that only took cash. I forgot to ask if they charge by the hour as well. It didn’t turn out to be a bad place though. I stuffed my face with leftovers, took a shower, and passed out.

Vermont wasn’t much different. We went to Ludlow to see Buttermilk Falls. We attempted to take the Skyline Drive in Manchester, but again, it was foggy, so it wouldn’t really be scenic in the least. I guess the weather didn’t work in our favor for most of this trip. But the one thing I enjoyed most about New Hampshire and Vermont is the trees. I think we drove through the perfect time of year. The red and yellow and orange and green… all over the mountains. They’re a Bob Ross painting. Happy trees. They’re not like the other trees I’ve been seeing along the trip. Evergreens are pretty and elegant, no doubt, but there’s something about the deciduous trees that are mesmerizing. It made me happy. Before, I felt like I had become… numb? Jaded? Incurious? Bored? I was never good with words. (I have the SAT score to prove it.) Anyway, seeing the trees like that made me think there’s still all kinds of beautiful out there and I haven’t seen it all. I just have to look for it.

 On to Rochester. Dropped Erin off and headed back home. I chanced Canada once again. Getting into Canada was what I was used to. I chatted with the guard for a while. He was very friendly and curious about my situation. I almost had him convinced to go to Australia with me. The drive through Canada was easy and I breezed through. Getting into the US was more of what I was used to. A power hungry a$$wipe. I think it pissed him off that I wasn’t scared of him. I knew he couldn’t touch me. He wanted specific answers, but when I started giving him specific answers, he wanted general ones. He finally asked me if I was on medication. And all I could think was “no, but you should be.” Again, I knew better, but I really really really wanted to. I think I may have said it with a smirk on my face. And I think that annoyed him even more. That was good enough for me. Welcome to America. Now I gotta get ready for my nephews birthday and then it’s off to the west coast with mom. 

09/23/11

Acadia NP & Bar Harbor, ME

The first full day bee-u-tee-ful! The sun was out, it was warm, and we were ready to start the day. We had planned to do one side of the park the first day, the other side the second, and the other side of the island the third day. Well, we did most everything the first day. We took a hike up the North Bubble. It’s just a mountain with a silly name. It was a good hike though. Once again, I cursed most of the way up. It was pretty, I guess. We continued down to Jordan’s lake, walked around for a little bit and climbed back up to the parking lot. Again, me cursing on the way up. Although it was a teeny bit like scrambling as opposed to just hiking upwards, so it was more tolerable. We drove up Cadillac Mountain and saw the water and all the islands. And a lot of old people. Old, rich people. They were everywhere. And they were doing all the hikes too! I hate to admit it, but a couple of them were quite faster than both Erin and I.

The park was beautiful. Very unorganized, and not very well labeled (sorry, a tree trunk that has a name carved on it is not a good label for direction. Especially when different maps show different things and you can’t find anything anywhere), but nonetheless, beautiful. From the waters, to the cliffs, to the rocks and the mountains. A lot of the coast line looked like it was from a commercial. Maybe something for sea salt or something. Particularly along the cliffs, when the water came crashing against it and spewed everywhere. All you need is a whale somewhere off in the distance. We did see a sailboat and Rod Stewart’s song popped in my head. “Where the ocean meets the sky, I’ll be saaaaiiiling.” And it wouldn’t leave. It left, but only to be replaced by a really annoying song. As Pepe Le Pew would say, “Le sigh.”

Day two. It was rainy and gross. I wanted to get a couple of hikes in that day, but it wasn’t going to happen, even though we tried, multiple times. Even when it wasn’t raining, granite doesn’t have the best friction coefficient. Luckily, some of the stuff we wanted to do was touristy and inside. So we pretty much spent all day drinking samples. We went to two breweries and a winery. The winery did not make the wine from grapes that were growing right outside. Those were used for… I don’t know. It seemed like a waste. Being at a winery, it was only natural that I bought some cheese and chocolate and Erin bought some jam. The air cleared a bit and the sun peaked out for the late afternoon/evening. We went to a lighthouse. There was a team of Asians there with really big, spiffy cameras. They had set up camp were taking pictures like crazy. I had no idea what was going on. And they would get so mad if you got in front of them, like they owned the rock you were standing on. But the view was stunning. I love lighthouses. But a lighthouse with a gorgeous sunset in the background? Spectacular.

Honestly, I don’t remember much else of what happened or many of my thoughts. (I should write immediately! Or put some kind of recorder in my head that I can play back later.) I do remember the smell of our towels at the hotel: non-bleachy. Like they were washed in someone’s home. I loved it. I remember asking Erin if we had met today, if we’d still be friends. Something I often think of a lot of my other friends. I decided that we would’ve been anyway. It’s Erin! And I now know that I should turn left when Erin says to turn right. Sorry Erin. It doesn’t make me love you any less. If anything, I can relate. I remember most people on the east coast (also in NH & VT) seem to not bother with the letter “R”. It’s at the cohnah, if you go outside, you’ve gone too fah.” But they know it, and you can buy t-shirts and such that say things like “lobsta” and “bah ha-bah”. I remember thinking about east coast towns. There’s something about them. They’re very… quaint. They are old. The houses are old, and a lot of them haven’t been really… kept up. But there are a lot of them these towns, everywhere. And every town has at least two or three antique shops. I guess it’s the oldest part of the country, there’s where all the antiques are. We’ll see what the rest of the rest of the eastern states have to offer.

09/21/11