Upstate New York

It’s been a quieter week this week as we further explored Rhode Island and then moved through Connecticut to Central Massachusetts.

On our last day in RI we went on a Lighthouse Cruise around Narragansett Bay which is the huge bay that Rhode Island surrounds. We went past 10 lighthouses such as the one by the Newport Bridge called Plum Point Lighthouse.

We also sailed into Newport Harbour past all the mega yachts and also the site where the Newport Jazz festival is held every September.

There were boats everywhere and huge super yachts tied up in the lovely dockside area.

Then it was time to leave RI and we drove through Connecticut State and up into Central Massachusetts, which was good as we have learnt how to spell it now. We encountered near our campground scenes of utter devastation and then remembered the terrible tornado that had cut a swathe through the area on June 1st.

 

Over a 40 mile by 200 yard wide strip, every tree had been pulled out of the ground  or stripped of its branches, houses demolished, vehicles destroyed and people killed. It was horrific to see what damage had been caused. Luckily our campground was a mile or two off its track and spared. It was a lovely quiet place and we stopped for four days and didn’t do very much in the sultry heat. We did drive around one day and admired the lovely countryside and villages with their English names like Northampton, Worcester, Sturbridge and more American sounding ones like Belchertown. We visited the world’s largest candle store – Yankee Candles and made our own layered scented candle before having a picnic lunch at the top of a nearby hill called Mt Sugarloaf, where we looked down over the wide Connecticut River with the Berkshire Mountains in the distance.

The river along with the Hudson river which we crossed twice today are the two main rivers in the North East of the US and along which the first settlers travelled.

Everywhere we see rolling hills covered with green woods stretching into the way beyond. It is very pretty.

Today we drove 250 miles to Upstate New York as the Americans called the area of New York close to the Canadian border. We are in the Adirondack Mountains, part of the great Appalachian Range that stretches from Canada to Georgia and are here for a week on the banks of the Ausable River. Other than a few late afternoon thunderstorms the forecast is good.

104°F in the Shade

This week we have been sweltering in record temperatures on Cape Cod, just south of Boston in Massachusetts. The highest ever recorded temp at Brewster in the middle of the Cape where we were staying at 104°F or 40°C.  But it was the humidity that was the killer and the combined index that they use in the US called the heat Index had the real feel temp as 115°F. We ventured outside on the first day for a walk at the Cape Cod Natural History Museum that has a large reserve in one of the wilder and marshier parts of the Cape.

In the afternoon we went for a drive to the South Coast of the Cape (we were on the North side) but the traffic was a nightmare, the parking all full, so we drove around for a while and then headed back to the cool of the air conditioning at the campground.

Cape Cod is a pretty peninsular jutting in a curve some 90 miles out to sea. It is the holiday playground for Bostonians and hence gets very very crowded in season. Our campground was full and the traffic non stop all day long.

On one of our days there we drove to the end of the Cape to the town of Provincetown, the site of the first landing on the Mayflower Pilgrims. They stayed here for 5 weeks in 1620 before moving over the bay to Plymouth. It is an eclectic town with a lot of character but again ever so crowded in season to the point of bursting. It was very hot so we didn't wander as much as we would have liked.

Some of the houses were very old, and many of them were very pretty in the understated Cape Cod style.

But soon it was time to move on and in the bumper to bumper traffic we turned South off the Cape and headed to Rhode Island State, the smallest in the US. It is dominated by its huge Narragansett Bay, home to the Americas Cup for 50 years, with the capitol Providence at the top of the bay and at the mouth of the bay on an island connected by bridges to the mainland lies Newport, a jewel of a city.

We spend a day in Newport wandering around the town admiring the old houses and the vibrant docks.

We had Clam Chowder at The Black Pearl and then went around the coast a bit to view the great mansions built in the late 1800s by wealthy mining and railroad magnates like the Vanderbilts as described and filmed on site in The Great Gatsby.  Cornelius Vanderbilt built The Breakers mansion and it is a stunning masterpiece of this gilded age. Gold leaf everywhere, old masters and priceless antiques. The phrase ‘conspicuous consumption’ was coined to describe these great mansions. But alas for Cornelius, great wealth does not buy you health and a year after The Breakers was finished he suffered a severe stroke and died shortly afterwards.

All along the cliff top between the gardens of the mansions and the sea runs a cliff walk. From here you can see for free into the fabulous gardens and view the facades of the mansions.

We have a couple more days in Rhode Island before we turn North for a while to explore Central Massachusetts and the States of Vermont and Upper New York. You can view our trip on the map on our web site as usual.

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Red and White and Blue all Over

This has been a week of contrasts. From eating RED lobster in Maine to hiking in the WHITE Mountains of New Hampshire, all under a sunny warm BLUE sky.

Our last two days in Maine were spent shopping and touring. On Tuesday we visited the world famous LL Bean Outdoors store in Freeport, Maine. If you are into hunting or fishing or boating or camping or hiking then this is the store for you. Crammed full of everything you could ever possible need and more. Wendy found some nice comfortable shoes there and I enjoyed crowd watching.

Our last day we visited Boothbay harbour, one of the famous tourist traps along the coast. A pretty setting and a great base for cruises, but spoilt by tourism. We also visited some old towns that were not spoilt by tourism. some dating back over 300 years.

Afterwards we boarded a cruise ourselves as we were going to see Puffins.  There is a small colony 5 miles off the coast and we motored over to them and watched them fishing and careening themselves. We were not close enough to take any good pictures, but they were lovely through the binoculars. Afterwards we had a lobster dinner at the wharf with lobsters straight out of the boats and into the pots of boiling water.

Next day we waved goodbye to Maine and crossed the border into New Hampshire and headed inland to the White Mountains. They are part of the Appalachian Range that stretches from Quebec in the North to Georgia in the South. We stayed in Ossipee in the Lakes district of New Hampshire and 30 miles from the White Mountains.

Our first day was spent on Lake Winnipesaukee, a lake that was the setting for many of the scenes from the movie ‘On Golden Pond’. It is a beautiful lake with over 240 islands and holiday homes dotted all around the 175 miles of lake edge. we took a cruise on the lake to admire the lovely homes from the water.

Every home has its own jetty and most are more mansion than shack. The weather has been glorious all week. Temps in the low nineties (low thirties Celsius) and blue skies all day.

Yesterday we drove to Mt Washington the highest peak of the White Mountains and drove up to the summit. On a clear day you can see the the Atlantic Ocean over 120 miles away.

It was a cool 52F at the  top which was not too bad considering it was 92F at the bottom. It is hard to comprehend that in the last ice age that this peak and all the land in Canada and down to Kentucky was covered in ice sheets. The summit of Mt Washington alone was buried under 2000ft of ice making a total ice depth of 8000 ft. The lakes in Canada and Northern USA including the Great Lakes were all created as the ice melted and water formed in the depressions created by the immense weight of the ice sheets. And there are lakes everywhere in New England.

There is a steam powered rack and pinion railway that climbs up the mountain as an alternative to driving up.

Today we went for a long hike in the Franconia Notch area of the mountains. Notches are what New Englanders call Mountain Passes. We explored a valley called the Flume Gorge and walked up a boardwalk in a narrow gorge. There were lovely covered bridges over the river and the light and the sounds were magical.

The walk was about 2 miles but it passed quickly as one lovely vista after another hove into sight.

It was a Sunday and the crowds were everywhere. Luckily we had got there early and avoided the main rush.

 

Scattered all around the forest and indeed on the top of Mt Washington are huge boulders called Glacial Erratics that were carried there from along way away by the glaciers that covered the land 50,000 years ago. Then as the ice melted they were dumped where ever they lay.

Lying contently on the ground and slowly, very slowly disintegrating as the acid leaching out from the lichen ravages them.

Tomorrow we head south to Cape Cod and then to Rhode Island where no doubt the temperatures will be hot, and the crowds will be swarming as it is close to Boston.

Mainely Lobster

 

It had been a while since our last update. I returned to New Zealand to assist my father who was ill and Wendy stayed behind. This is her story of that time.

While David was away in New Zealand, we found a lovely secluded campsite right on the coast, 30 miles from Halifax, the capital city of Nova Scotia. This area is characterised by granite rocks dotting the coast, little coves with fishing boats at anchor, lobster pot buoys bobbing in the  calm waters, and fishing villages with their brightly coloured houses that have hardly changed in 300 years.

My friend Sharon came to spend a week me, arriving after a long flight at midnight from California. She enjoyed home cooked meals on her first holiday in a 5th wheel.

We explored the area together, going on walks through the nearby forests and along the coast past typical Nova Scotian houses.

We took a drive over to the other side of Nova Scotia to show Sharon one of the tidal bores that occur in the Bay of Fundy. Unfortunately that day it was a mere ripple, but the waters rose very fast after the ripple and the immense power of the tide was very obvious as high tide followed low tide in a matter of minutes.

On another day we took a drive along the pretty Aspotogan  Peninsula, which had fishing villages in coves with jetties with attractively coloured Adirondack chairs and black and white churches dotting the coast interspersed with lighthouses.

We went into Halifax city on a glorious Canada Day to take part in the festivities. We visited  the Immigration Museum at Pier 21 where over 1 million people entered Canada and we walked along the busy dockside boardwalk where buskers and performers entertained the crowd. Then it was on to watch the Nova Scotia International Tattoo which is, with over 2,000 performers, the largest indoor show. For 2 and a half hours we were mesmerized by the drum majorettes, Scottish pipe bands,Scottish dancers, Canadian Mounties display and international teams of gymnasts, skaters and other world class performers.

I returned to Nova Scotia after a gruelling trip and the next day we upped anchor and began the long drive from Nova Scotia into the US. We were searched at the border and lemon and limes confiscated and we were grilled about the pickup truck and fifth wheel but they must have believed our story and were let back in and we continued south to Arcadia National Park in Maine where we stopped for three days.  The Arcadia National Park is mainly based on a large island connected by a bridge called Mont Desert Island. It is very pretty and its rugged coast and superb views made it a delight to explore.

We visited a lovely fishing harbour called Bar Harbor and wandered around the port admiring the boats and summer sunshine, for by now the weather had changed and the cooler, wetter weather of Nova Scotia was a thing of the past.

Afterwards we drove up Cadillac Mountain (linked to the car through the French explorer of the same name). It is the highest coastal point North of Rio de Janeiro at 500m. The view of the estuaries and island was magnificent.

The Central and Northern part of Maine is a wonderful place. Sheltered estuaries everywhere, islands dotting the coast, lobster pots everywhere, and sailing boats tacking in and out around the rocks and buoys. An indolent summer air covered everything and we felt very relaxed after the stressful few weeks I had had.

On Sunday it was Wendy’s birthday and we went or a drive around the Southern part of Mont Desert Island and had lunch at Bass Harbour overlooking the moored boats and lobster pots stacked high on the jetties.

In the evening we we went to the Union River Lobster Pot where we ate – well you can guess. Maine Lobster is very cheap and is everywhere. Lobster Pounds dot the harbours where live lobsters are kept in a tank (pound) and cooked freshly to order for about $10 a lobster and trimmings. You sit outside on trestle tables and crack the shell and dip the flesh in drawn butter. Delicious.

But all good things must come to an end, and in a day or to we move into New Hampshire the State next door where we explore the White Mountains.