Canada… So. Close. Air Canada first class? It sucks: comfy seats, but bad service. Montreal airport? It sucks: quaint but crowded! Canadian roads? They suck: smooth, but busy, and full of road-rage drivers. Perhaps it is the bike race during which we accidentally arrive, but still. And to top it off, Canada eats one of Dan’s AirPods. We are grumpy. At least the border crossing is adorable. So cute that we are not sure we are at the right place! We are, albeit at the pedestrian/local crossing, where the border dude waves us through after barely looking at our passports.
Leaves Three years ago we attempted to catch the fall, but we missed the color changes. The second time, well, timing was bad for personal reasons. Third time’s a charm. We hit the area in peak color, and as locals tell us, one of the best peaks since 2012! All by accident since there is no way to predict the color changes.
Snuggler’s Crotch Vermont is everything it promises to be: beautiful, quaint, dotted with adorable little towns, and fantastic asphalt. Yes, coming from California, we get excited about the elusive smooth asphalt. The forests are dense and tree-diverse, the fall colors vibrant enough to seem fake. There are gorges, notches, and coves all over the place. And New Hampshire is not far behind in beauty: Franconia State Park and Flume Gorge are every bit as pretty, not to mention Kancamagus Highway.
Stick & Mud Our accidental good luck continues. Driving The Kancamagus Highway, a 34.5-mile scenic drive along New Hampshire Route 112 between Lincoln and Conway through the White Mountain National Forest, and arguably the most famous and popular stretch of road for leaf watching is a must. During our drive we barely see any other cars on the road! Enough that we stop in the middle of the highway for some obligatory drive-by photography. Then the very next day, all of New England descends on this one highway! The traffic crawls at 20 mph, on both directions. And few days after that, stick season arrives and it snows!
New England has 6 seasons: the typical 4, plus stick and mud. Stick season is when the leaves drop and leave the trees naked; mud season when the snow melts and all the roads turn into deep mud. They need to add traffic to their seasons. By the time traffic season hits we are long gone to Acadia National Park.
Woodstock Stowe, one of the most famous and popular towns in Vermont, is beautiful and quaint. But of all the adorable New England towns we drive through, Woodstock, VT — not to be mistaken with Woodstock NH, Woodstock NY, or even Woodstock GA — is our favorite. The locals’ active effort in preservation has paid off: the town is clean, houses are well maintained, and but for the constant stream of big rigs, concrete trucks, and massive trailers shuffling through the narrow 2 lane Main St, is quiet. It would be a perfect little town if it had more than just the few restaurants! Perhaps the preservation went too far? Ultimately we do squeeze out a reservations. Crisis averted!
Stay at Jimmy’s. Or Not We arrive in Woodstock 30 minutes early for check-in so we decide to see if can unload the car, and then go to do more site seeing. We happen to accidentally pull over 300’ from the B&B we are staying at. Lucky us! We are greeted by the most adorable kitty — Mabel, every inn needs a kitty — and one of the inn keepers — John, such a nice dude! His partner, Jimmy, well, no so much! We get spanked for being early, then have our room’s backdoor slammed in our face because “Jimmy is cleaning!” Oh Seinfeld Jimmy episode!
Perhaps Jimmy needs to take a chill pill, and/or one of his own Yoga classes… and perhaps the inn needs to be called “Beware of Jimmy!” Or “Stay at John’s?”, “Stay at Mable’s?”
Baaa Haaa Baaa Acadia National Park, Maine’s one and only National Park, is our 48th park. It occupies the balk of Mount Desert Island. The park’s high point, Cadillac Summit Loop, has beautiful 270 degree views of the Atlantic. Like many NPS attractions these days, it requires a reservations and pre-selected time-of-entry. Thank goodness for Assana’s nerdiness of knowing that and the impressive efficiency of the park rangers and ticket checkers.
Harbors. So. Many Once we head into the bulk of the park we are shocked at the sheer number of cars on a weekday while schools are in session, no less! Can’t imagine how bad it is during the summer! We skip our planned hike after circling the parking lot for much of time! Next is the lighthouse, through Seal Harbor, Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor, Ship Harbor to Bass Harbor, only to find out that it, too, has its own crazy parking lot wait. We tough it out since the lighthouse is a must... and perhaps Acadia's most recognized landmark.
Just One We stay at a spa resort in Cape Elizabeth, a small town just outside Portland, to recover from all the driving. The resort is just a few miles from Two Lights State Park. We are excited to see the two lights. Except that there’s only one, and you can’t drive or walk to it. Doesn’t stop us from brailing our way close enough to take photos. Thank goodness there are many more lighthouses around, including the beautiful and super popular Portland Head Lighthouse, and the adorbale Nubble Lighthouse.
What is supposed to be an uneventful and relaxing stay ends up with some drama. We discover that the resort’s idea of “ocean front corner suite” is that you are in the corner but your views are the roof of a different building and the parking lot. Yes, the resort is in front of an ocean, but not our suite. The restaurant is pretty good except for weirdo dishes that include everything Assana hates, all in one dish, such as pumpkin tofu curry, etc. To add to the excitement of the stay, Dan loses his wedding ring! Doh! (After returning home Assana forces the resort to go through the spa laundry and find it. Whew! Crisis averted).
So Many Dead People We end our trip with a couple of days in Boston. It is not much time, but we walk the Freedom Trail, which for nerds like us, is fun. Not to mention allowing us to burn a teeny bit of all the lobster rolls we have eaten so far. And gets us ready for our Italian dinner at one of hundreds of teeny Italian restaurants in the North End. Seriously, there are literally hundreds of them, back to back. Crazy.
East Coast Things we note about New England: there is a cemetery every 200 feet, the coast is dotted with lighthouses, the lobster rolls (we vote for Connecticut style: warm with butter) are to die for, Maine has a lot of fun showcasing their specialties on their license plates (pine tree, lobster, moose, duck, lighthouse, etc.), and they have really nice asphalt!
1309 miles, many many lobster rolls, and fabulous color changes… what a great first trip for the East Coast! We look forward to returning soon.
