August 10 – August 27
We got back from Iceland excited to start our Northeast US adventure. When we got to Lee’s cousin’s to pick up the van we noticed there was still oil on the tires (we had the rear brakes done in Philly when we were there and noticed the oil before we left but had hoped it was just residual from the job). We decided to head towards Connecticut hoping to find a Ford dealer that could fix our problem the next day. We stayed at a campground about an hour from NYC and the next morning called some Ford dealers in Connecticut. No one would look at the van for at least a couple of weeks except one dealership, so we headed that way. Once we got there and he saw the van he said he wouldn’t be able to help us for about a week (UGH!!) so we called the Ford dealer in Philly that did the work and told them they needed to fix it ASAP. They of course did not have anyone who could look at it until Monday (it was Thursday) but we decided to head back to Philly since Monday was much sooner than anyone else could help us (plus they needed to fix their mistake).
Driving back to Philly was pretty stressful when we got to the NYC area, especially the area of the George Washington Bridge, but we got through it and made it to Philly. We ended up staying in Philly for almost a week which really threw us off schedule (we have seaplane reservations for Isle Royale in mid-September) so we took Lake Placid off our schedule.
We did, however, see a few sites we missed on our last stay, like the Rocky Statue and steps and the Eastern State Penitentiary. That was a very interesting visit to see the first Penitentiary in the US, it was used until the early 70s. It also had a very interesting exhibit about the US prison system (we imprison the most people per capita of any country by a long shot), it was informative and a little depressing.
We also got to see Leon Bridges in concert, it was a fun concert at a venue that looked over the city.
We finally got our van back and due to the time lost we flew through Connecticut and Rhode Island, only staying a night in each state. We stayed close to the shore which was nice. We then headed to Salem, MA for a night, as I wanted to see some of the Salem witch trial sites. When we got there we went for a walk and saw that there was a 1 mile race happening that evening so we hurried back to our B&B, got on our running gear and headed out to sign up. We had been talking about doing some races so it sure seemed fortuitous that there was one we could easily run in.
Lee took off fast and finished his mile in 6:13, I was a little slower at 8:28 but I was pretty happy with my time. Neither one of us placed in any category but we were both glad to have raced.
The next day we decided to head into Boston to have lunch at the North End and to see some of the old Fidelity places both Lee and I had worked at when we were Fidelity employees. It was fun to see the city again and we had a nice lunch in the North End.
The next day we headed to Ellacoya State park that was on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and had a nice time paddling, it was a beautiful lake. That night we were invited to our neighbors campfire and had a pleasant night visiting with them and their friends. They were from Massachusetts and they also gave us some good suggestions for our upcoming trip to Nova Scotia.
We then made our way to Vermont which was very beautiful, we happened to stop in Montclair for gas and saw the capital (we did not realize it was the capital) and stopped to take a tour. It’s small but a really nice building and we were glad we stopped. We then made our way to Stowe to check out the ski resort, did a little biking, saw the Trapp Family Lodge (The Sound of Music is my favorite movie) before heading to our campsite on Lake Champlain. We had wanted to paddle while we were there but unfortunately it rained while we were there so instead we went to the climbing gym in Burlington and caught up on a few errands.
Our next stop was New Hampshire again and I had found a hike up Mount Washington in the White Mountains. The best part was they had a Cog wheel train that could take us back down. The hike up was not easy, it was pretty rugged and slippery on some of the granite rock you had to climb up, but it was beautiful and part way up the trail we stopped at one of the Appalachian Trail huts, Lake of the Clouds. It was aptly named as it was getting quite cloudy as we got closer to the hut. It was fun to go in and take a break and see some of the hikers come and go.
We had a brief look at the top before the train was heading down. The train is the second steepest cog wheel in the world (steepest is in Switzerland). We were a little hesitant in the morning to do the hike (are we getting lazy??) but we were so glad we did, as it was a beautiful and fun to see the hut and railway.
Our last stop before hitting Canada was Acadia National Park. We spent a full day there and rented some scooters to check out the park. They were a lot of fun and definitely an easier way to get around then the van. We rode the park loop and around Bar Harbor. I had been to Acadia with my boys a few years ago but we hiked in a different section of the park so it was fun to see a new part. We ended our day with a meal at Thurston’s Lobster Pound, on the bay in Bernard, Maine.
Even though the car troubles made us fly through some of the Northeastern states and give up going to Lake Placid we still had a great couple of weeks. Even our time in Philly was nice to decompress after our busy Iceland adventure. We realize how lucky we are to be doing what we are doing so try to take our setbacks in stride.
