Vermont, Maine, Boston

Reminder...if you want to see an image enlarged for more detail just click on it.

I have to admit, I was really sad to be leaving the Adirondack's. I love being in the mountains and all the quaint towns and the amazing colors of the trees were such a joy for me to see. But we must move on. Our campground for the night was just outside the town of Westport, NY. A lovely little village town along the shores of Lake Champlain. We arrived a little late to do much more than get parked and plugged in, so we didn't see too much of the town when we arrived, but what we did see was beautiful.

In the morning we drove in to Westport and past an amazing building that I wanted some pictures of. So...Patti turned up a street to turn around. Bad move! LOL We ended up on a teeny tiny winding residential road in a 33' motorhome. I imagine the residents were considering us all levels of foolish, We did, however, find these really cool old milk jugs with a “FREE” sign on them. So we picked up two of them. Every night since then we've needed to move them outside and bring them back in every morning. What were we thinking? There isn't enough room in here for the three of us to move about easily let alone adding two milk jugs. But, stubbornness and an odd affection for the dumb things has kept us from leaving them behind anywhere. I continue to move them outside each night.

Patti found this really cool bush in the yard of one of the homes that we passed (read "passed" as pulled into their driveway while trying to back up on the street...repeatedly). They remind me of Kiffa beads.  Mainly that deep orangish-reddish shade of glass, but also the drop shape.

After about 30 minutes or so we managed to get back out to the street. Here are images of the building we worked so hard to get back to.  Check out the ornate scrolling along the top of the tower.

And here is a shot of the town library.

And the great sign out in front of the fire house.

Driving towards the ferry that would take us across Lake Champlain into Vermont we drove through several lakeside towns. One of them was named Moriah. Kathy spotted the top of this building hidden down a road. Since we were still a bit shell shocked from our last innocent “turn down this road” adventure, I made Patti pull into a parking lot and I walked down the road. This building now houses the town offices of Moriah, but I imagine in its day it must have been a hotel of some sort. All I know is that I absolutely love it!  It is for SURE one of my houses!

On to Vermont.   As we were taking the ferry across Lake Champlain you could just barely see this old lighthouse peeking out thru the trees.

We meandered along a two lane road past dairies and farms and huge grassy fields. Thru little towns with general stores and folks hanging around chatting with each other next to a piece of farm equipment. My imagination hopes the folks who live in this area are as peaceful and calm as their farms look.

I didn't realize I was taking a photo of some folks taking a photo of this beatiful setting until I opened the image here to resize it. 

We were headed for the Ben & Jerry factory tour! It was a lot of fun. And we left with way more ice cream than a motorhome freezer knows what to do with! Ice cream for dessert as often as you like? Sure, sounds good to me! =o)

After we left this area we begin driving through more beautiful trees and mountain roads.  It seemed like every corner we turned was another postcard worthy view.  I just cannot seem to get enough of them!

As opposed to the 1st abnormal school?  ;o)

We stayed that night in Eastern Vermont. The next morning would be a short drive through New Hampshire and then on to Maine headed for the coast.

The terrain slowly changed from that riot of fall foliage colors to more green the closer we got to the shore.

Patti was totally focused on getting her lobster dinner that she had been waiting for. Our campground directed us to a restaurant called Bufflehead (this is a type of duck, apparently) but sadly, they didn't have steamed lobster, just lobster pie. So we had a seafood pasta instead with the intent of heading to a different location for lunch the next day for lobster.  This is an image of the Atlantic from the backyard of a house across the street from the restaurant.  I'm sure they didn't mind.  ;o)

I did a little research online and learned that a place called Nunan's had great deals on lobster and came highly recommended by folks from all over the world. We headed that way...only to discover they didn't open until 5pm. Poor Patti. She pouted for a bit and we decided to just go have a light lunch and then head back to Nunan's for dinner. We soon discovered that many of the restaurants in the area close “for the season”...or in other words, around the beginning of October. =o/ Finding lunch was not easy but we eventually found a hot dog stand....along with the other 50 travelers needing lunch. This would be the 1^st time in my life I've waited close to an hour for a hot dog. Will probably be the last time, too.

After lunch we drove around thru the small coastal towns in Southern Maine. There are certainly some beautiful homes on these roads. We also drove out to the York lighthouse.

Look!  My house!!

Some cool yard art at a shop in one of the little towns.

I just keep thinking of Shawn saying "Does anybody know where the hell we are?" every time we drove by one of these signs. 

Mine....just in case you were thinking of calling it!

Stunning white on white.  The architecture is just amazing me every moment!

Finally time to head back to Nunan's for dinner. It certainly lived up to all the good reviews. This was only the second time in my life I had ordered a lobster. And since their special was for 3 lobsters that's what I got! Patti ended up taking my leftovers home for dinner the next night.

Lobster, lobster, lobster!

And homemade blueberry pie!  Yum!

The next day we headed towards Cape Cod. We drove around the small towns along the shore and I found my house!

Then we headed towards Salem. There wasn't anywhere for us to park the motorhome so we just drove through town and then headed towards Boston. We stopped to see the John F. Kennedy memorial library and museum. The architecture of the building was amazing.

 No photos allowed inside, but I was able to get this great shot of Boston from the pavilion.

Next stops...Hoboken (I'm not kidding!) And Washington, DC!  See you there!

Hershey, Amish, Niagara Falls, Adirondacks

Sadly, Patti came down with a stomach flu so Kathy and I spent a few days just bumming around Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. We didn't want Patti to miss anything so we just scoped out the area. Drove by Hershey's Chocolate World just to see how to get there, had a long lunch at a Panera Bread (great soup!), went to the grocery store and hung out around our campground.

When Patti was feeling better we got right back into our great trip.  We had breakfast at Miller's Smorgasbord, an Amish area restaurant that has been around since 1929 and was pretty highly rated online. It was just OK for us. The ham was really good, and I had a mushroom omelet that was tasty, but a lot of the pre-cooked foods were kinda sub par. I had read up about another restaurant in the area called Dienner's. We had planned to go there for dinner, but sadly, they close at 6pm. On a Saturday night! LOL Oh well. We ended up down the road a bit at a place called Jennie's Diner. Really good, portions way too large, our waitress Sarah was great! If you're ever in this area I highly recommend you check out this diner.

Anywho...after breakfast we went to Hershey's Chocolate World. Sadly, my battery had died on my camera and I discovered this as I was walking in the door. =o(

But check out their website if you're curious. It was fun. We did a chocolate tasting adventure and learned a little about why various types of chocolates taste different. It was fun.

Then we headed back over towards Amish country. We went to Lititz and had the best soft pretzel I've ever had in my life at the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery! Beautiful town. If we had more time we could have easily spent the entire day here. Then on to Intercourse, another quaint town, Blue Ball and then back to Ronks where our campground was. After dinner we hit the sack and slept like babies.  Might have had something to do with all that chocolate! 

The next morning we headed towards Buffalo, NY. We went to the Anchor Bar & Grill for wings, and they were just as good as we expected. Off to our campground which was in the town of Niagara Falls. And yes, every time I say Niagara Falls I following in my head with the words, “Slowly I turn, step-by-step” from the Three Stooges skit.

It has been overcast and rainy for several days now, which hasn't bothered me too much, but I had hoped it would clear up a bit for my first view of the falls. Sadly, it didn't but as you can see from all the pictures I took (and this is only about ¼ of them) it didn't take away too much from this amazing sight.

We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride which brings you right into the center of where the two falls come crashing down. The power generated by the amount of water crashing down is just amazing. There really is no explaining it...you just need to find a way to experience it for yourself. I was in total amazement.

Here are some of the images. A few from the boat, a few from the shore and the observation deck - which I thought I would be too chicken to walk out on, but after I survived the boat ride I felt a little fearless....for a few minutes anyway! I have to say I am really proud of myself that I didn't let my anxiety get the best of me and either keep me from going on the boat, or needing to take a pill which would have altered my experience. I enjoyed the exhilaration of it. But I won't lie, I also got really scared for a bit. =o)

Some beautiful flowers I spotted on the walk down to the boat.

The following are several shots I took of the falls from the boat.

You can see the air getting mistier the closer the boat gets to the falls.  The intense power of the water actually pulls the boat about a little, and of course the wind generated by the falling water can be felt as you try to stand up straight on the boat. 

This is a view of the observation deck as seen from the boat.  Looks small from this angle. 

Areas of the rock on the ramp back up to the observation deck have water seeping through.  This beautiful moss and ivy could be seen in several places.

This is a view of the American Falls in the foreground and the Horseshoe Falls in the background (they're on the Canadian side of this area) from the observation deck. 

These plants line the walkway towards the gift shop (aka the exit).

We saw several squirrels, including several black ones (my first time seeing one in person) all over the park.  This little guy barely held still long enough for this quick shot.

We drove to Syracuse, NY after Niagara Falls but had a really hard time finding a campground. We considered staying in a hotel but for some reason decided to camp out in the Walmart parking lot. BAD idea. BIG mistake in judgment on our part. First of all it wasn't in the best neighborhood, so we were a little on edge about that. Then the noise. I guess some people find it amusing to stop their cars next to RV's in the parking lot that have all their curtains drawn and just sit there...for 5 minutes or more....directly next to the window. Or the folks who rev the engines of their diesel Hummers while they drive circles around the RV's. Add to this the numerous apparent drug deals that took place until well after 2am in this same parking lot. Oh...and the trains! Let's not forget the trains. I think there were at least 3 of them. Yes, you are right...I didn't sleep that night! LOL

We needed to get the oil changed in the RV. Another difficult task in this area for several reasons, but we finally found a place that would do it at 1. So we found a laundromat, grabbed a sandwich, got the oil changed and finally headed on our way towards the Adirondacks. We stayed just outside Watertown at Bud's Campground. Great place! Super nice guy. Here is the view from our campsite.

Today we drove across the Adirondacks mostly on Highway 3. An easy and stunningly beautiful drive which took us through several small mountain towns and villages, past sparkling lakes, rivers and streams and happily also past some amazing Autumn colors. I have at least 3 seed bead mixes I'd love to make using some of these colors now.  Such stunning inspiration! 

In between these amazing colors were glorious and majestic pine trees with their deep forest green hues and well as twinkling Aspens, some that had changed to golds, oranges and reds and others that were a bright lime green. All those colors! I was on overload. It made me feel very comfortable and very happy. Since I spend the majority of my life surrounded by beads in every color imaginable, I hadn't realized how much I was missing that. This drive filled that need very well.

BTW...I have not altered these images except to resize and in a few of them I cropped them a bit.  These colors are exactly what my camera picked up.  Amazing, huh?  I know for folks who live in areas where the leaves change colors it might not seem so awe inspiring.  To me it was like magic.

Tomorrow we start making our way towards Kennebunkport, ME and a lobster roll with my name on it! I'm really looking forward to the drive through Vermont as I heard the colors are crazy amazing there right now.

See you again in a few days!