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Articles Tagged ‘New Hampshire’

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Mile 2649: I ♥ VT and NH

Friday, July 27th, 2007

View from scenic overlook in White Mountain National Forest, NH

After leaving water-logged Maine I headed back towards New Hampshire and Vermont on my way to Montreal. Literally the minute I crossed back into New Hampshire the clouds broke and the day proved to be beautiful and sunny. The major mountain range in NH is the White Mountain range which is contained in the aptly named White Mountain National Forest. The White Mountain Trail is considered a U.S. scenic byway and is a 100 mile loop through the forest. Since I was short on time I decided to just do the 27 mile Kancamagus Highway on the southern part of the loop. This proved to be the scenery highlight of the trip so far as I loved, loved, loved the White Mountain NF. For one, since it’s a NF site there is a lack of commercialization and the sort of “kitsch” factor that appeared in the Adirondacks. As such it was just beautiful scenery with ample places to stop and hike, take pictures and camp if so inclined. And for another, it was almost completely empty. There were hardly any people at the trailheads and scenic overlooks which is rather refreshing when trying to enjoy the outdoors. The pictures speak for themselves, I will shut up now and let you all enjoy.

Covered Bridge in White Mountain National Forest, NH

Rocky Gorge - White Mountain National Forest, NH

Rocky Gorge in White Mountain National Forest, NH

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View from scenic overlook

After my tour of the Kancamagus highway it was off to Vermont…and what does one do when in Vermont? Why, head to the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour of course!! Near the Green Mountain range (of Green Mountain Coffee fame) is the original factory and home base of the famed Ben & Jerry’s ice cream operation. I think I must’ve been slightly deluded to think that this factory and tour would have been a small, hole-in-the wall operation. I could not have been more wrong…Ben and Jerry’s factory on a hot July day made me think for a moment that I was back in Niagara Falls with the massive throngs of people it attracts. The difference is that B&J’s does a great job of including activities (mostly kid stuff) on the premises to keep you and yours occupied as you wait for the tour to begin. The tour itself is pretty brief but informative and, of course, there is the obligatory free sample at the end of the tour. Very well worth it and a great way to wile away a beautiful afternoon.

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I had great plans to make it to Montreal on Tuesday evening but since Ben and Jerry’s took a bit longer than anticipated I ended up spending the night in Burlington, VT…a rather quaint and attractive college town on Lake Champlain. An early start the next day allowed me to spend 3 full days in the great city of Montreal. Lots of pictures and good information to follow on Montreal in the coming days…

Posted in 3 - New England/Canada | 1 Comment »

Mile 2428: The best laid plans…

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
3 Things You Did Not Know About the Adirondacks

1. The Adirondack 46ers are a group of people who have climbed all 46 of the mountain peaks over 4,000 ft. in the Adirondack mountains. Interestingly, only 42 of the peaks are actually over 4,000 feet but they stick with the original 46 for tradition.

2. The Prospect House, a large hotel built by Frederick Durant in Blue Mountain Lake in the late 19th century, was the first hotel to have electric lights. This was very amazing for a hotel which was in the complete middle of nowhere at the time of its construction.

3. The Adirondack Park is larger than any of the seven smallest states in the United States: Hawaii, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. It would take these five national parks added together to equal the size of the Adirondack Park: Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Everglades, and Great Smoky National Parks.

OK, so these facts may or may not be all that interesting…but you all know how I feel about lists. As a diversion from the NY Thruway, I opted to take the Adirondack Central Trail to get myself to Vermont on Sunday. This roughly 100 mile drive has great scenery with lots of lakes and water activities. And antique shops. One roughly every 3 feet…kind of like Starbucks. (Andrea, my apologies. The pics from the Adirondacks were not great so I’m leaving them out. My pics from NH’s White Mountains will make up for it in the next post so stay tuned for that.)

I wanted to be able to consult with the Vermont tourist information center but by the time I neared the border it would’ve been closed. I ended up spending the night in Whitehall, NY whose claim-to-fame is that it is the birthplace of the U.S. Navy. Whitehall is an interesting place on some level…a town you could imagine as a bustling, active and beautiful colonial port at some point in time. However now is not that time. They’re trying hard with a nice new waterfront park but it is difficult to ignore the decaying buildings and centuries old houses that are sagging across the street. It is for towns like these that I think road trips are the most valuable as they offer an interesting perspective into the demise of small town American life. For every Whitehall, NY there are hundreds, thousands of other little towns in the U.S. like it and while I’ll not claim to be a lover of small town life…I felt a little sad for Whitehall, NY and what it used to be. But I digress…

The next morning I headed to the VT Tourist Info. center (they are SO ORGANIZED in VT) and it became clear that for my Montana-based readers I needed to head to Woodstock, VT (nope, not the location of the famed Woodstock Festival…that was actually held in Bethel, NY). Why would the Montanans care about Woodstock, VT? As it turns out, Woodstock is the hometown of Frederick Billings who, in addition to being the President of the Northern Pacific Railway was the namesake for Billings, MT. Just a little trivia for you guys.
Woodstock, VT

Woodstock is a great example of why I love New England…cute colonial and federal style houses, trimmed lawns, pedestrian-friendly downtowns, covered bridges like this one:

Woodstock, VT

The great thing about the New England states is that everything is really close together. I consulted the map and determined that coastal Maine wasn’t too far away so I would head there for the afternoon with the intention of driving the lovely coastline from Portsmouth, NH to Portland, ME where I would dine on all sorts of sea critters…or at a very minimum get a famed lobster roll. Oh the plans I had for Maine.

It is important to note here that I’ve had incredibly good luck with weather on this trip so far…upper 70s, lower 80s and no rain. That all came to a screeching halt the minute I crossed over the New Hampshire border into Maine. The weather was a bit wretched but I guess that is to be expected in the coastal climates. No worries…there were all sorts of historical Fort McClary - Kittery, MEmarkers on my map down in the harbor area of Portsmouth that I was going to check out come hell or high water. If you haven’t guessed by now…I’m a big history freak so much of my tourist activities revolve around these types of activities. It was going to be great..except that I never actually found these historical sights. If they exist they were not marked well by the Portsmouth historical people so I finally gave up and headed into Maine. By pure accident I ran into one of the historical locations I was looking for…that of Fort McClary. As far as historical sights go, this one isn’t too interesting but I was grasping at straws since I had heretofore considered my trip to coastal Maine unsuccessful. For fun, here is a picture of the remains of the fort…and an only slightly better picture of the water from the fort.

Kittery, ME - View from Fort McClary

In times like these it is important to adjust our expectations and as it became clear that US-1 was not actually a coastal road with views of the water I was going to need to do some adjusting. I quickly decided the very “Maine-y” thing to do would be to find a cute seaside motel and hunker down in a cozy seafood restaurant while the rain continued to pound. That was such a great plan. Unfortunately, due to my rather indecisive nature I kept passing what would have been suitable lodgings and eateries in the interest of finding the “perfect” one. Wiser persons than I would’ve reasonably realized that the perfect anything doesn’t really exist and would’ve just picked one and been done with it. Nope. Not me…I pushed on until I was in Portland, nowhere near the sea and in rapid realization that all lodgings in the Portland area were filled. So where did I end up? No…not my seaside lodgings with a seafood meal…but an over-priced Holiday Inn off of the Maine Turnpike and dinner at Friendly’s. Oh the plans I had for Maine.

I’m going to try to get caught up on posts before I leave Montreal on Friday afternoon. The good news is that while Maine was not as picturesque as I had hoped, it is the only lowish point of the trip so far. Yesterday in New Hampshire and Vermont more than made up for Maine (which is still a lovely place…just not cooperative this week). Not bad for two weeks of traveling. And the Civvy is holding up nicely…we got 41 miles to the gallon today. Thank god for Honda.

Posted in 3 - New England/Canada | 3 Comments »