Manchester to Burlington

Our accommodation in Manchester was at Palmer House, an all-season resort motel in the Green Mountains of Vermont. When you consider that some stays are $69 a night, the ones that are $169 balance out, right? 

It was probably the best night's sleep we've had, a very nice spot.

King size bed. Below our own private patio with marble stones. Marble sidewalks and chunks of building foundations made from the same creamy stone are common in the area, from the days when there was an active quarry up the road at Dorset.

The view Norm has from there.

We did a walkabout in Manchester looking at where the old mill used to be, circa 1830s.

As we drove these wonderful twisty, hilly slow moving side roads one thing I would watch for are dry stone walls. There are lots of stones here to build these walls and some are more structured than others.

 

This wall surrounded a grave yard. Tombstones, numerous ones for women with the name Lucy, dated back to the 1840s.

Across the road corn fields, as high as an elephant's eye. And of course granite fence posts, everywhere. They never rot off in the ground, like the cedar and fir fence posts used on the west coast.

Mary, waiting for W.P. Kinsella to come.

Covered bridges make the side roads fun. The insides are even more interesting. 

We headed back to Dartmouth/Hanover to connect with Tom Blinkhorn who had visited us a couple of years ago in Metchosin. There is a lake and mountain in Metchosin called Blinkhorn. Tom has been searching to see if he might be related to Metchosin's Thomas Blinkhorn, the British-born first manager of Bilston Farm, now the Metchosin Golf Course. He had descovered a newspaper article Norm had written about the area. With the amazing world of the Internet, Tom and Norm connected. So it only seemed fitting since Tom lives in Hanover that we should get together. We met for a drink in town and then Tom gave us a tour of  Dartmouth College, where he teaches part-time, and the area, a nice treat. And this treat was the tea and creme brûlée I had when we met. 

  Driving around Dartmouth, it is obvious that there is a lot of money here. Houses in the millions. The place below houses the president of Dartmouth. For tuition of $65,000 a year, your sons and daughters can attend too.

Tonight we are Burlington at the Bel Aire Motel, not in the millions. It doesn't look like this house.

Road trip

One of the nicest things about travelling by car is that you can drive on the slower side roads, not the interstate highways. And in compact New England, where towns and tourist hotspots are so close together, slower is better. You get to stop at beautiful small towns, interesting general stores and hidden away sites. I especially like the houses we see. There are some amazing mansions that Norm often wonders how they can they heat them in the cold winters here?? (On the radio several days running, we heard the announcer give the latest price of heating oil, just like British Columbians hear the loonie-greenback exchange rate. How much it will cost to keep your house cozy is critical information for residents of wintery Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where some two-thirds of homes have oil heat.)

Today we left Greenfield and headed south to Northampton for breakfast. When asking the locals on the street what they would suggest, the Green Bean was highly recommended. I think you can see we agree!

Not only did Norm get fruit but real maple syrup, no extra charge.

Here are some of the houses in Williamsburg. And the picture doesn't show how the house is as long as it is wide. They go way to the back. 

Even the churches have the classic Colonial and Georgian style. 

In Pittsfield we saw an old convent being demolished. Sad to see the old building disappear. 

In Bennington, home to five colleges, you can buy a house for a reasonable price.

 Maybe this one is a good deal?

We walked along the Bennington Pathway to find Bennington Pottery. 

Bennington was chartered in 1749 and it is here that the Battle of Bennington took place during the Revolutionary War. In 1891 a stone obelisk 306 feet high was built, the tallest human-made structure in Vermont to commemorate the battle. Pottery has been made here for hundreds of years. The store was quite amazing. Just couldn't resist buying myself a gift.

That moose is half in/half out of the window.

Yellow Bunny checking the Bennington mug.

As we headed to Manchester, Vermont as apposed Manchester, New Hampshire, we passed Robert Frost's Stone House, where he lived in the 1920s. A quick u-turn to see it. We got up close but not inside, only open Wed-Sat.

Norm did try to ring the door bell.

A lovely country home (now with a busy highway in front)

Back view.

Now in Manchester we headed to the North Shire Bookstore, a busy and successful family-owned, independent bookstore started in 1976. Hard to pass by this store without buying a few books and we didn't disappoint. 

Pictures tomorrow of where we are spending the night..... But for dinner I suggested a burger at Ye Old Tavern. Oops, not a pub. Once in the door we saw the linen tablecloths with candles and felt under-dressed. I did suggest sneaking out but hey, we're on a holiday, so says Norman. Well it was delicious. Lobster bisque, cranberry fritters with maple butter, blue cheese green salad, fish stew, homemade venison and port wine sausage, mixed fruit sorbet. So good I forgot to take lots of photos but you get the idea.

Came free to the table with homemade bread later.

That's real lobster in the centre.

Ate almost all before I thought about the blog. Oh well, goodnight. 

First Harvard now Dartmouth

This morning we headed to Bea's Cafe near the Scenic Inn in Conway, NH. Norm decided to have pancakes and asked for a side of fruit. When the waiter said they had no fruit, Norm said he would have granola and yogurt instead and could they add a side of toast. Guess what? His breakfast included three large pancakes, two pieces of toast and a bowl of yogurt and granola. I guess the waiter thought Norm really needed the full breakfast. He ate almost all of it too. No pictures, it was too much on one table. 

Before leaving Convoy we found the nearby covered bridge from 1890. 

And a lovely river running underneath, a little lower than normal. There is a drought on the east coast.

We headed over the White Mountains through the national forest. This mountain range covers about a quarter of the state of New Hampshire and Appalachian Trail crosses the area from southwest to northeast. We saw a number of hikers making their way with heavy packs. There is even a mountain called Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern U.S. at 6,288 feet. The Old Man of the Mountain is a rock formation on Cannon Mountain that resembled the craggy profile of a man's face and was a famous landmark until it fell in May 2003. But the profile still is seen on all the highway road signs today. The Democratic candidate for governor in New Hampshire uses the same image on his lawn signs.

We stopped to look out over the hills to appreciate the view. Unfortunately the colours have not changed yet and although beautiful, it is very green. You can see glimpses of red if you look closely. 

 

As we motored along we stopped here and there to eat junk food or stretch our legs. US stores are so interesting especially the country ones. I found this in a town called Lyme.

Play the piano and get your worms too. The same store had camo-coloured bags of corn to feed deer and other four-legged critters in the winter. Guess the colours reassure wild animals.

We headed to Hanover, NH, on the Connecticut River (although like our Columbia River, it's more a series of still ponds and reservoirs behind power dams). Hanover is pretty much a one industry-town --   Dartmouth College, consisting of student residences, classroom buildings and gathering places everywhere and very classy. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is a private Ivy League university. And one of the nine colonial colleges charted before the American Revolution. There are only about 6,350 students.  

Motto - A voice crying out in the wilderness. 

Nice wide open spaces between building, the commons. This building is from 1784.

We did a walkabout and found a close relative of Yellow Bunny's there, an artistic cousin.

Norman had a Malabar Monsoon coffee, in the Dirt Cowboy Cafe, which featured 31 kinds of beans-- they were happy to do a pour-over of any of them. Around the corner, the banner outside an Episcopal church promised a "blessing of back packs and laptops" next weekend. You gotta love college towns. 

Tonight Greenfield, Massachusetts tomorrow the Berkshires. 

East Coast

Once we picked up our car, Ford Fusion 2016 with less than 6,000 miles, we immediately left Manchester, NH. We drove to the coast past Hampton and Rye Beach. We were amazed at how many people could live so close together along the shore line. Rv's so close together that they look like row houses. I think this is where the rich folks come to get away form the humid cities of New York and Boston. And we kept going to get away from them. We did stop along the beach to find wonderful rock sculptures. Gravel and really big rocks have been added to the beach to prevent erosion. Climate change, with rising sea levels and big storm surges -- plus the geological fact of life that the east coast of the U.S. Is very gradually sinking lower -- mean a different seaside experience in this bottom corner of the granite state. Winter storms can be brutal here.

Quite fun but windy!

And I couldn't resist taking a photo of Norm picking up someone else's garbage, what a guy!

Next stop Portsmouth. Here the rich white folks go to shop and boat. A very ritzy town.

We decided to spend the night in Portsmouth after chatting with a very friendly tourist info woman who kept the doors open after closing time just for us. She gave us the scoop on cheaper motels, best  for tbreakfast and dinner spots. It's a old port city with a big navy shipyard just across the river in Maine. This is where freighters bring shiploads of road salt for use on the state's roads in winter. But the town has also turned into a trendy tourist spot.

Full moon over the Piscataqua River from the Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth.

Headingh home.....

Seafood dinner anyone? 

The next morning we had breakfast at Colby's with only a 15 minute wait. I think every tourist in town has to go out for breakfast. Good thing we got here just after 8 am. Lots of food and reasonable prices.

As we headed up the coast passing York, Norm saw a sign of a farmers market. Quick turn and into York we go. The only market we saw was half a dozen stalls in a parking lot. Discouraged, we kept going on our way out only to see a large number of tents set up in a park. Off to get fresh produce to munch, we were surprised to find we now had to pay to the art show. Attend we did and found a couple of things to buy but no fresh produce or cinnamon buns. 

Onwards to the highlight of the day. Norm wanted to see the last remaining Shaker colony still in existence today, at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. What a pleasant surprise. Probably one of the best and most informative tours I have been on. Maybe because I knew nothing about Shakers before and I know much more now. 

 

No photos allowed inside but you can see the simplicity of their buildings. The Sabbathday Lake Shaker colony was established in 1783. It is situated on 1,800 acres of farm and forest. Of the 170 members at their peak only three elderly Shakers remain today, Arnold, June and Frances. They were creative and entrepreneurial, hardworking people who reminded us of the Doukhobors in the Kootenays. One big reason only three active Shakers remain is that Shakers were celibate: they had to recruit new members from outside the colony. In earlier times, children were often "given" to Shaker communities, orphans or youngsters whose families couldn't afford to raise them. 

Shakers were know for a number of inventions. Did you know that they invented the flat corn broom?

After the tour we continued east and are now back in New Hampshire in Conway at the Scenic Inn. Along the way, we passed through Denmark and Poland (could have toured Paris and Berlin too but they were farther north). This town is the gateway to the White Mountains, where Mt. Washington is located, at 6,288 feet, the highest peak in New England. The Appalachian Trail comes through here too.

Norm resting while we wait for the Inn owner to show up.

Dinner of seafood at Johnson's where I finally got to have a lobster roll I had wanted to try, (it's a soft hot dog bun but packed with lots of lobster and mayo) while Norm ate baked scallops.