The White Mountains of northen New Hampshire

We took a road tour today of the scenic route through the White Mountains. The colors were gorgeous; we stopped at scenic overlooks, saw waterfalls and covered bridges.

Mt. Washington in northern New Hampshire

Mt. Washington is the highest point in New England and is known for its violent weather. The mountain had been calling me since we were in New York and now it was only half an hour away. It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to check it out. We climbed to the 6288 foot summit via a 1866 cog rail train. Mt. Washington features a weather observatory because of its crazy weather. When we got there it was 47 degrees and the wind was blowing 74 mph. Needless to say, the windchill made us welcome a bowl of chili for lunch.

Foggy Day at Acadia

This internet service is telling me to cut to the chase--one picture per day (if I'm lucky)!

I couldn't pass this one up, though, on our last day at Acadia. The fog had rolled in and we saw a different picture of the Maine coastline.

I guess we'll just have to come back another time!

Bar Harbor, Maine and Acadia National Park

We are on Mt. Desert (pronounced de-zert) Island, the island that is home to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. What a beautiful island.

From the top of Cadillac Mountain you can see the many islands off the coast of Maine. The mountain tops are scrubbed granite with plenty of wind so very few trees grow there.









A wonderful loop road takes you to Sand Beach, really a beach of minutely ground sea shells.











The shoreline is steep and craggy and the waves hit the shore with a vengeance.












Lunchtime is a favorite on our daily outings--this one a nice lunch of cheese and bagette with a glass of wine overlooking Northeast Harbor.



The sights have been spectacular and the lobster we have been eating for dinner is delicious!




The colors are starting here on the island--the maples are turning a beautiful and vibrant red.

We are off to northern New Hampshire next to see the rest of the colors.

Gloucester, MA

Today we explored Gloucester, MA and stopped at the Visitors' Center for information. Outside was this beautiful holly bush.

The 25 mile trip to Gloucester, a fishing port north of Boston, was fascinating. We went through every little town (only a couple of miles apart) and saw beautiful old houses dating back to the 1700s.





Gloucester (pronounced Glos-ta) was a lovely old fishing town with a lot of history being the second oldest settlement (1631) in the country. I knew of it because of the book and movie "The Perfect Storm" which told of the amazing storm that took the lives of six fisherman in 1991.


We visited a museum, took a board walk, walked on the beach, and I had a grilled blueberry peach muffin at a teeny little (that's not redundant-it was small) cafe that was to die for.



Sometimes the best museum really talks to you. That's what this Diver's Museum did! This is Paul who owns this collection of diving equipment. He began diving his junior year of high school and has been doing it for sixty years. He has used almost all of the equipment in his museum. He was a great story teller (having been a sixth grade teacher in his other life)!






A walk along the boardwalk took us to the Fisherman's Statue, a tribute to the thousands of fisherman who have died from this small but old village. The records date back to the late 1600s and are as recent as the 2000s.


















We got to wait for the drawbridge to open to let the boats through--they have the right of way!











And of course, we had to do dinner! But this time we found a lobster "shop". Mark was excited because he really wanted to hold one of those things and he and Mitch cleaned them us and we had wonderful grilled corn and lobster!






After dinner we headed to Hodgie's Ice Cream. We had found this place with Jackie and Jerry many years ago and have talked about it ever since. We were surprised when we found we were only camped a couple of miles from it. The cone Mitch is holding is a "one scoop" as opposed to a small which is a $5.00 cone. The prices are up a bit from the first time we were here, but you certainly got your moneys worth.

I think we overfed Mark in the few days he was with us, but we had a great time. He's off on the rest of his adventure to visit New York City before he heads back to Minnesota. Safe travels, Mark, and have fun!

South Hampton, NH with Mark

Mark got here after four scenic days on the road from Minnesota and we started off by going to the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. This is the sand sculpture that welcomed the thousands of visitors on the first sunny day after three days of rain.








We ate our way through the festival. What else would you do? We had steamed lobster, buttered lobster on a roll, swordfish on a stick, bacon wrapped scallops, a five inch high stack of thinly sliced curly fries, lobster chowder, clam chowder, clam cakes, crab rangoons (clab with cream cheese in a fried wonton), cold lobster claw, coconut shrimp, and a fruit cup!


We were full, so Mitch punched Rye Harbor into the GPS to see where it would take us and the next thing we knew we were buying tickets for a whale watching cruise.

So about 12 miles out into the Atlantic we found this pod of dolphins playing and having fun. Not to shabby.











And then we continued out to about 20 miles and saw some "blows" out a ways and I figured that's it for whales. Our onboard whale expert said they were fin whales, the second largest whales about 70-80 feet long. Very impressive.

And then the show began. Let me introduce you to Tigris, a humpback whale that decided to check out the people on the boat and spent the next 40 minutes right next to the boat spouting, roaring, and going from one side of the boat to the other to entertain us. Our expert said in her 16 years she has seen this behavior only a couple of times before. I've got a couple of great videos I'll post when I have good internet. The whale watching trip lasted 5 1/2 hours! We ended the day eating more seafood!

Quilts

I have thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the quilts in the museum exhibitions we saw in New York, and then we went to Marie's. Her handle isn't Tiny Stitches for nothing. This is a quilt she completed in 1985 and took her about 600 hours to complete. It was absolutely gorgeous. Click on the picture to get a good look.







She also showed me this quilt top that her grandmother had done in the crazy quilt pattern with some satiny fabrics and with lace stitching. I had seen this at one of the museums and was amazed at the stitching. This quilt was beautiful.