New England - Fall 2018

Today's activities and visits were very much time fillers prior to catching our flight home out of Boston but were, nonetheless, fascinating from a historical perspective regarding the sparks that lit the fire that led ultimately to separation from the UK and the USA declaring independence. However we started the day with a fabulous breakfast at the Splash beach side cafe overlooking the beach at Ogunquit - idyllic. We left Maine behind, passed briefly through the little slice of New Hampshire that reaches the Atlantic coastline and arrived back in Massachusetts and the outskirts of Boston. Our first stop was at Concord and the infamous North Bridge where British soldiers faced British colonists on effectively the first day of the War of Independence, April 19th 1775 (a struggle that actually dragged on for the next 14 years). As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "The thunderbolt falls on an inch of ground; but the light of it fills the horizon". The consequences of that smal...

Another crisp, bright and somewhat chilly day as we left New Hampshire for our sixth and final state, Maine. Today proved to be very much a "winding down" day with not a huge amount on the agenda. After a leisurely pootle south through the New Hampshire countryside we had a mid-morning stop at the New Hampshire town of Wolfeboro, a picturesque little resort on the side of Lake Winnipesaukee. This mug for sale in a local store perhaps summed up our "last full day of the holiday/not a lot going on" blues! We crossed the border in to Maine for an extended stop for lunch in Kennebunkport - as Hyannis is the holiday destination for the Kennedy family so is Kennebunkport for the Bush family. It is easy to see why that is so as it is a delightful coastal town with lots of quirky little properties: Tracey and I had been saving ourselves to sample lobster in Maine so we chowed down on Maine Lobster Bisque for lunch - it was lip smackingly good, definitely worth ...

Last night the temperature here dropped to nearly freezing under clear skies - that will help the foliage colour change more rapidly - and today we have a glorious crystal clear blue sky for our anti-clockwise drive around the scenic route known as the White Mountains Trail that is bordered by Highway 302 to the north and east, Interstate 93 to the west and the Kancamagus Highway to the south. It is no exaggeration to say that around every curve and along every straight the views are simply spectacular and we are so lucky to have a perfect day in which to enjoy them. Our first stopping point was at the Mount Washington Cog Railway  base station. As was the case yesterday, the top of Mount Washington is completely clear and visible and a ride up to the top would have been most worthwhile, if rather wallet sapping ($72 each for a return ticket!). Regrettably, time pressures did not allow so we had to make do with watching the little trains wheeze up the lower slopes towards the sum...

As forecast, today is, once again, dry and sunny if slightly on the chilly side (this is how things should stay, all being well, for the remainder of our trip) as we left Vermont behind and headed in to the fifth and penultimate state of this trip, New Hampshire. However, before we left Vermont we had a couple of stops. As we travelled slightly south and east we dropped in to Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks, an 8th generation farm that has over 5000 maples tapped. One of the family, Burr, gave us an illustrated talk on how they do what they do and dished up some amazing facts including that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. A tasting session followed and a lesson in how to make Maple Snow (maple syrup drizzled on crushed ice). Inevitably the farm store and gift shop awaited to round off the visit. Another vehicle that looked like a refugee from the Cars movie sat outside (a Nuffield tractor, made by Morris, as was, in the UK): Our final stop in Vermont was ...

Unfortunately, today was something of a washout as we woke to pounding rain - not great as in the morning we were scheduled to have a walking tour of the city of Burlington, that sits on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, the largest lake in the USA outside of the five Great Lakes. Thankfully, given the conditions, the walking tour was transformed in to a coach tour which was interesting enough but Burlington, like most places, was not at its best viewed under cover of glowering grey skies and pouring rain! On a sunny and warm day the compact city centre and the waterfront area in particular would have been most enjoyable ....... we could only imagine. Back on scenic - though rather less so today - Highway 100 we headed towards Stowe, Vermont, passing as we did so the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory ( definitely a tour stop that we would have made had we been travelling independently). As it was we stopped off for a pre-booked visit to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill  and enjoyed...

So, today we headed north out of Massachusetts and in to the "Green Mountain State", Vermont. There was a lot of driving as we powered up to Burlington, that is only about 40 miles from the Canadian border, for a two night stay at (another) Hampton Inn We largely followed the scenic drive route Highway 100 (and very scenic it is, too) and we made three stops. First stop was Bennington, where we visited an ancient wooden church, "one of the most beautiful examples of early colonial architecture" and notable for containing the final resting place of the American poet Robert Frost of The Road Not Taken fame: I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Bennington is also the site of a famous British defeat in the Revolution that is commemorated by the tallest monument in New England, the Bennington Battle Monument  It wo...