New Hampshire

 It's time to drive to New Hampshire!  But first, an early morning before breakfast trip just a few miles down the road brings you to Bass Harbor Head Light Station - a lighthouse I wanted to see before we left!  There is just a small parking lot there with no where else to park so it was highly advisable to go in the early morning!  And being the earlybirds that we are, that's just what we did!

It was extremely foggy that morning - we inched our way down to the parking lot and found the lighthouse!  This lighthouse was on the America The Beautiful quarter in 2012 and also on a postage stamp in 2016.

Then we walked across the parking lot and went down a walkway and path onto the rocky beach for another picture!  It was almost eerie in the fog but I'm so glad we went to see it!

Here's part of the pathway we had to walk down to get on the rocks by the water to see the lighthouse from this angle!

Next up was breakfast!  I had found a cute place to eat and enjoyed French Toast with blueberry sauce AND a special coffee!  We struck up a conversation with the people beside us and they were from Co. Springs!!!

And then the drive to New Hampshire began!  We had fog for a long ways but finally drove out of it!  Our destination was Lincoln, NH for the next couple of nights!

The back roads we took were full of trees and streams and bridges!  You can bet I made Glenn pull over several times!

We pulled off one place to walk on this bridge which was so pretty!!  Then I walked back to the highway and went over to get the bridge from another angle!

Our final road that day was the Kancamagus Highway - now that's a mouthful!  It was one of the prettiest roads of the entire vacation!

Stopped at the Albany Covered Bridge - it was built in 1858 and restored in the 70's!  

I love the contrast of the tree colors!

Also did a hike to Sabbaday Falls - it had been a long day in the car so it felt good to get and walk some!

We arrived in Lincoln late afternoon and found our cabin - it was QUITE different from our last one - not in a bad way, just not as new and nice!  But it did have a fast running stream right out the back and if you kept the window open, you could hear the stream!  Lincoln was an interesting town!  Our cabin was off of one exit and you had to get back on the interstate to go to the other side of town!  There were a couple of places to eat on our side but we were hungry for pizza and the place just up the street was closed that day.  But we drove back into the main part and enjoyed a great pizza!

Acadia National Park

 It's sure nice to feel rested and relaxed after a great nights' sleep!  We headed up to Milagros Coffee to have breakfast and coffee before heading to Acadia National Park!

The directions were NOT that clear on where to enter the park and we ended up in Bar Harbor - tiny, narrow streets with lots and lots of traffic and people - oh my - get me out of here!!  Later we found out that a cruise ship had stopped and let off about 4000 people - yikes!

We FINALLY got into the park and went to the first place on my list - and that's when I realized we should have gotten up even EARLIER than we did and got to the park at the crack of dawn!  There is hardly any parking at some of these places - I guess when the National Parks were opened as parks, they had no idea that more parking lots should have went in because of all of the traffic!  We ended up parking along the highway and walking a LONG ways!  We had seen Sand Beach from driving around the parking lot and chose NOT to walk back there.  

But we could walk to Thunder Hole which is a small inlet where the waves roll up against the rocks, creating a thunderous sound!  The water can spray up to 40 feet in the air - wow!  It was definitely cool to see and I took a video of it but no pictures!

The crashing waves of the Atlantic!

There was always someone around to take your picture which was nice!  And yes, the weather was beautiful and warm - a jacket wasn't even needed!

Next was Jordan Pond House - I tried to get lunch reservations over a month ago and it was already booked up!!  But it has a nice trail around the pond AND the restaurant is famous for their popovers and I figured if we couldn't have lunch there, at least we could get a popover!  It wasn't to be - we drove around and around that small parking lot and there was absolutely NO place to park and no place on the road either to park.  Rather disappointing but that's life!

We then headed to the Visitor Center and there we took a carriage hike - there are lots of these "carriage bridges" throughout the park and a story to go with them which I won't get into but it was all very interesting and a nice hike!  (found out at the visitor center that you can take public buses over to whatever area you want to and be dropped off and picked up later - somehow I NEVER read about this as it would have been the perfect thing to do - but we finished up at the visitor center LAST and by that time, we were out of the mood to ride the bus and go back)

Some of the reds in the trees - just gorgeous!

We finished up Park Loop Road which is the 27 mile loop through the park and somehow missed a turn and ended up in Northwest Harbor (not to be confused with Bar Harbor or Southwest Harbor) - it's way at the bottom of Mount Desert Island and kind of a strange town!  The main street was a one way street but there was plenty of parking and we found a great place for lunch - SCORE!  

I checked on my phone to see if there was anything else to see while we were in the area and there was a garden that looked like it might be fun to see!   OH YES!!  We parked across the street from it and walked in and took the walking path - absolutely grogeous with the colors!!  A great stop!

I had one more item on my list to see that day and it was a bridge - the most photographed bridge in the area so I knew I had to find it - and sure enough it was right along the road!  We stopped and the colors were perfect!  I snapped pic after pic!  WOW!

What a great day we had, even though the park was a little disappointing with all the people!  Glenn napped when we got back to the cabin and then we walked uptown to a restaurant for dinner - I wasn't really hungry so just shared with Glenn but DID indulge in blueberry crisp with ice cream - oh so yummy!  Those Maine blueberries are the best!

Pemaquid Point

 On my list of things to do - see a couple of lighthouses!  Our neighbors next door who had went to the East Coast last year, said that most lighthouses were closed to walking up to the top so to do some research before going!  And I did - and THIS lighthouse was one you could walk up!

The Lighthouse Tower was originally built in 1827 and is owned by the Coast Guard, but leased to the American Lighthouse Foundation.  The light inside was originally lit by oil, then kerosene, then electrified, becoming automatic in 1934 - it can be seen for 14 miles in clear weather!

And an added note - it's the lighthouse featured on the Maine quarter!

Only 4 or 5 people are allowed to go up at one time - yes, it's SMALL up there!  This is a view from the top!

And here's a picture of the actual light!

Next we went to the Fishermen's Museum which collects and preserves historical data and artifacts related to the fishing industry - Glenn enjoyed this!  I did like this huge lobster which was somewhere between 35 and 40 pounds!  Now that's a lot of meat on one lobster!

We walked around the beautiful grounds and picnic area before we left!

Heading to Southwest Harbor we crossed this huge bridge and it was sure cool looking, although hard to get a picture of it!

What did we do before cell phones to give us directions?   I had actually purchased road maps for all 3 states to plan out our trip and had one of those opened on my lap ALL the time!  But the phone did the directions pretty darn good so most of the time we found where we were going although there were a lot of turn arounds from missing our turns!

When I planned the trip, I would just use "directions" on google to find out how many miles between 2 places - and that was my mistake!  If the distance between 2 places was 60 miles, I automatically assumed it would take a little over an hour to get there - NOT!  Double or triple that time and it's much more accurate!  That's because there are not a lot of interstates in these small states (not that we wanted to be on them anyway!!) so most of the 2 lane highways are curvy with solid trees on each side and take you through little towns and villages - which we both loved!  It just took SO much longer than I had planned to get where we were going every day so I had way too much planned!

We FINALLY got to Southwest Harbor where we checked into the CUTEST and NICEST cabin ever!  All the cabins were set in the trees (no surprise because there are millions of trees around!) and were perfect in every regard!  The hosts were nice as can be and we visited a lot with them and got some ideas for the next day!

Dinner that evening was a walkable couple of blocks at the marina - this was our view although darkness came soon after!  We once again ordered a lobster roll and clam chowder - it was good but not as much as the night before!

Next up - Acadia National Park!

East Coast Trip - Maine

 After many, many hours of planning, it was FINALLY time to take our East Coast Trip to see the leaves!  Would they be turned?  We had no idea but everything was booked and we were hoping there would be reds and golds and oranges and yellows - and there WAS!  It wasn't peak by any means and some of the people we talked to said the colors weren't as vibrant this year because of all the rain but to me, they were just perfect!

We drove to Denver the night before and stayed at the Keppys' house for a 5:30am drive the next morning to the airport - a big thank you to Jessi for taking us so we didn't have to pay for car parking!  And before we knew it, we were off!

Layover was in Chicago  - a couple of hours so plenty of time to eat some lunch and get ready for the next flight into Portland, Maine!  I was surprised how small the airport was - only 17 gates I believe - I LOVE the smaller airports!

Just had to have a picture of me by the moose at the airport!

After getting our luggage, we made our way to the car rental counter where there was quite the line - wow - they sure needed more help!  We finally got to the counter and since I had booked online, it was a breeze to do the paperwork and head out to our Chevy Malibu which would be our car for the duration of our trip!

I had booked a hotel about 20 minutes away south as there was a walk along the ocean that I wanted to do the next day so wanted to be 1/2 way close to that!  We stayed in the town of Saco in a nice place and the guy who checked us in gave us recommendations for dinner and breakfast the next morning!

Dinner was at Sea Salt Lobster - you can usually tell if a restaurant is going to be good by how busy it is!  And this place was busy!  There was no discussion on what we were having - being in Maine, I KNEW we were going to have lobster!

In lieu of getting a whole lobster and trying to figure out how to eat it (I haven't eaten but a couple in my entire life!) I had read a lot about lobster rolls and that's exactly what we ordered!  It's basically a large sub roll filled to overflowing with lobster bites and a sauce - and oh my gosh, it was fantastic!  Add to that a cup of clam chowder (the BEST we had on the trip!) and sweet potato fries and we were BOTH smiling!  It sure was an excellent meal!  And just in case you're wondering, whole lobsters served at a restaurant were going anywhere between $30 and $40 for a meal.  Lobster rolls were about the same everywhere - $32.   We stopped at a Walgreen's after we ate to pick up water bottles and some chocolate!  

Breakfast was more in the downtown area, at a locals spot - they even had crepes!!  And then we were back on the road for another 30 minutes or so till we arrived at a place called Marginal Way, located in Ogunquit (they have quite the names of some of their towns!).

The walk along a paved path up above the ocean was 1.25 miles long - the sun was shining and it was a gorgeous day to walk!    On one side was the ocean and the other side was expensive inns and huge beautiful homes - WOW!

I was surprised to see surfers out there, knowing the Atlantic is a whole lot colder than the Pacific!

The Maine Coast is rugged - lots of rocky ledges!

Between the sun and something on my camera lens which I wasn't aware of till later, some of the pictures didn't come out great - oh well!

There are 39 benches along this walkway - and beautiful places to sit and just reflect!

The walkway sure had a lot of walkers on it - and almost every one of the people we saw while walking spoke hello or Good Morning!    I had hopes of carrying a coffee with me while we walked but we sure didn't see any coffee places!  

The walk was amazing and a great start to our trip!  Next up - Pemaquid Point!

Cinnamon Pass/Engineer Pass

 It was COLD as we set out that morning!  But one of the best things about the razor is that it has a heater and we used it for a long time!

Not too many people were out at the time we left but of course it got much busier as the day went on!  We would rather get up early and start our day when there's not a lot of traffic on the passes!

There's snow up there!!  Not sure if it's old snow or new snow!

Cinnamon Pass - made it up there!  It was chilly!

Lots of color on the hillsides!

It is crazy rough country up there - Cinnamon Pass and Engineer Pass are all connected so you can make a complete loop!

Glenn looks like he's dressed for winter!!

This is where we stopped and had our lunch!  A beautiful spot by a stream!

And then we FINALLY made it to Nellie Creek Rd - the BEST place to take pictures on this horribly rough road!!  But it's worth it!

Every time we go to Lake City, I take this picture!!  It looks similar every year but this year the colors were more vibrant than ever!  WOW - such majesty!!  And that little bit of snow on top of the mountain sure makes those colors pop!

We were pretty darn tired by the time we got back to the condo - Glenn took a little nap and I did some reading until we went into town to eat at Southern Vittles!  Another good meal!

Once again, a great fall trip to Lake City!  But it's time to get home and get re-packed for our trip to the East Coast!  Now those colors will probably be a lot different than our aspens and I can hardly wait!

Fall Trip - Marshall Pass & Powderhorn

 September came and now it's almost gone and that makes me sad because it went WAY TOO FAST!!!!  But it was time for our fall trip so we packed up the truck and brought the razor on a trailer - destination is Lake City!

We stopped for breakfast and coffee in Johnson Village - cute place - great coffee - but spicy breakfast burritos!!  I opted for the vegetarian one, knowing that sometimes spicy sausage is used on the meat one but I totally forgot about the heat of the green chiles!!  WOW!  A couple of bites was all I could manage so Glenn gave me part of his breakfast sandwich - WHEW!

Marshall Pass was gorgeous, although the road was pretty darn rough - especially when you're in the truck with no weight in the back and pulling a noisy trailer behind!  But the beautiful leaves (and yes, they were AMAZING) made up for the bumpiness! I LOVE the tree lined road!

Seeing wildlife is always a bonus!

Gosh - it just doesn't get much prettier than this with all the gold!

Glenn wanted to take Powderhorn Road to get into Lake City - it's a gorgeous drive BUT again extremely bumpy and rough!  Took a long time to get to Lake City but I sure enjoyed the scenary!

The Powderhorn Road came out at the top of Slumgullion Pass - the views there are spectactular!

This is Lake San Cristobal - taken from the top of the pass!   And this is the lake that we stayed at!

We stayed in a different place this year - kind of a rustic cabin type condo with a nice deck out front with benches to sit on!  Took the razor into Lake City for dinner at Packer Saloon and Cannibal Grill!  We had eaten here the last time and it was good!  You can sit outside which we did!

After a great nights' sleep we woke up to this!!  The ducks were fun to watch in the water and I didn't realize I was getting a reflection of the trees in the water until I looked at the photo!

Time to head up to Cinnamon and Engineer Pass!