Category: 2018 East Coast Trip

Saturday-Oct 20, 2018

Robilee enjoys cooking. She prepared delicious meals for us and gave us a care package which lasted us a couple more days. Her meals were colorful, tasty and plentiful!

 As we drove from Vermont, through New Hampshire and into Maine, we enjoyed more fall colors. Our route choice was Hwy 89 to Montpelier and then Hwy 2 which took us along the north edge of the White Mountain National Forest.  Stopped at Cold Mountain Café in Bethlehem, NH for lunch.

As we continued into Maine, I was excited to recognize the Penobscot Narrows Bridge as I had ridden across it two years ago and stopped to take the elevator to the top of the Penobscot Narrows Observatory in one of the towers of the bridge. To get to the bridge one must go through Fort Knox State Park and so we did. It was fun to take Dan up to see the views from the observatory. We didn’t wander through the Fort area but I had seen it before so was ok with that.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Knox_(Maine)  and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobscot_Narrows_Bridge_and_Observatory#Observation_tower

 We took several other roads which, since the plan was to go to Acadia Nat’l Park the next day, took us to Hancock. We stayed at White Birches Motel there. It was time to do laundry but no machines at the motel. The proprietress told us of two places, one near a restaurant. So while the machines were running, we went to Governor’s. Apparently its a local chain. Worked out well.

Sunday-Oct 21, 2018

Made it to Acadia National Park!  When I came for the bike ride two years ago, I arrived a couple days early. I used one of those days to ride through the Park. There is a two-lane, one-way loop which made it nice as I had my own lane and the motorized vehicles could easily pass me. The plan was to ride up Cadillac Mountain inside the park the next day but it was cold and wet so I chose not to ride.

Colors inside Acadia National Park

I wanted to share what I had seen with Dan and get to the top of Cadillac Mountain.  We were able to do both. However, May and October are very different times of year. We only got out of our car to quickly jump out, take a photo and get back in where it was warm. Even though it was rainy and cold when I had been here in May, it wasn’t nearly as cold and windy as October.

There were more reds in the trees in this area than we’d seen in Vermont and New Hampshire.

 Since we were so close, we drove through Bar Harbor. I enjoyed revisiting the town where my aborted cross country bike trip began.

Thursday-Oct 18, 2018

Two years ago, I started a bicycle ride in Bar Harbor, Maine with the intent to ride across the country. On day six, another rider slammed on her brakes without calling out. I hit her and went down. Ended up with a broken collar bone. Kevin, who was on that ride for just the first week and lived nearby, offered me a place to stay while I made arrangements to get me and my stuff back to California. He and his wife, Robilee, were very gracious. So, today we met with them at their home in Shelburne, VT.

We spent time getting to know one another…Dan had never met them and they had never met him. Then they took us on a tour of the area they call home. Our first stop was at Shelburne Farms where Kevin had taken me two years ago. It is much different in the fall than it was in May. A cold, windy day but no rain.  https://shelburnefarms.org/visit/virtual-tour

They also took us to Burlington Waterfront on Lake Champlain and the downtown area. We had to stop at Kevin’s favorite bar for a pint.

Friday-Oct 19, 2018

As we left Kevin’s house to get into our rented vehicle, Dan noticed the sidewall of the back tire was damaged. We called Alamo and they offered to exchange vehicles for us. Fortunately, we were still in the area so were able to do that. We were both glad the tire hadn’t blown out with all the driving we’d done.

Dan and I went to the Shelburne Museum (not the same as the Shelburne Farm) and spent most of the day wandering through the several houses and buildings to see the various collections. 

This is a most interesting place and I recommend you go see it.  The tickets were good for two days and we could have spent two days there but had to move on.  We gave our tickets to our hosts. I hope they were able to use them.

https://shelburnemuseum.org/about/ Here are just a few photos of the thousands of items at this museum.

Tuesday-Oct 16, 2018 Flight from San Francisco was early morning so we spent Monday night at Dan’s daughters place, took BART to the airport and flew off to Charlotte, NC where we changed planes to finish up the day at Burlington, VT.  Started in the dark. Arrived in the dark.  Had rental car waiting for us at the Burlington airport so headed off to the Northstar Motel in Shelburne, VT. Seems like it was party time in the motel but it wasn’t our party so we were not happy. The owner of the motel moved us to another room for our second night. It was a nicer room and it was quieter.  Hooray. Wednesday-Oct 17, 2018  We spent the first full day in Vermont driving around looking at fall colors. I had a route from the Vermont state tourism site which we started to follow. We drove along Lake Champlain and onto some of the islands. However, as we stopped along the way, we received other suggestions and decided to follow them. One suggestion was to take Smuggler’s Cove, which was the name of a road. It came with a warning…the road is narrow, steep and there are rocks one has to go around. To me, it sounded like there would be rocks in the road. Of course, this was a challenge for Dan, the professional driver, so we went that way.

Smuggler’s Cove is narrow, steep and there are rocks. However, the rocks were not in the road but right on the side of the road so I do understand what the locals were trying to tell us.  We went slow and carefully around the rocks while crossing our fingers that no one would be coming from the other direction.  Crossed fingers worked.

We also ended up driving by Stowe. I had seen articles in skiing magazines about the resort there so it I was glad we could go by and see it in person. There was no snow but I could see where the runs were and the cuteness of the area. As we wandered, we happened upon Ben & Jerry’s factory! Of course we stopped and took the tour and test tasted the latest ice cream flavor.

We were both impressed with how much space was between homes in the country.  The towns were small and the homes close together but not many fences so it appeared more open.

Very much enjoyed the day. Did over 200 miles of driving!