Sunday November 4, 2018 (full photo album here)
As suggested in the preceding post: ice cream for breakfast.
Ice cream.
I packed up, used the warmth of my breath to get the tailgate cartographic tableau for the newest entry, and then followed up with the warmth of yeti hands (warmer than the average bear’s) to ensure good sticker’ism [Editor’s note – yes, I am going to see how many compound pidgin English words I can get away with in this blog] and so Vermont was official:
I quickly packed up and vaulted myself over to Ben & Jerry’s, and this time secured a spot on a tour. After seeing a poster for their newest flavor…
… I went through the tour, ending up in the taste test room to enjoy a limited batch of S’mores ice cream from the preceding summer. While also eying a leftover poster from an April Fool’s long past when they had cooked up a genuine batch of broccoli and cheddar-flavored ice cream for that day only – but actually gave it out as the day’s tour samples to anyone brave enough. More interesting still was a vague reference to still more esoteric and questionable flavors which had been tested in the kitchen by staff only and then thrown away forever. The conspiracies involved in ice cream flavor development never fail to intrigue.
Filled with ice cream and satisfaction, I set my course through New Hampshire towards Maine.
I was saddened to learn that the extreme weather on Mount Washington was extreme enough to warrant early closure for the season. Between being legally closed and the tires on the truck being FAIRLY worn down after so many miles preventing me from even considering a trial run… I let that destination float gently onto the heap of “places encountered on the trek but saved for a future visit.”
Instead, I opted for the famous scenic byway known as the Kancamagus Highway. First step: cross over the border into New Hampshire itself:
This is the Bath Bridge, at the start of the Kancamagus Highway, a historical metal bridge and another small boost to my inner engineer scrabbling to take over and reorient my life:
Artifice on display was followed by a slew of increasingly intense curves in the road, until I had reached the umpteenth national forest encountered on my trek. The White Mountain National Forest:
I am no scientist, but if I had a picture of my grin next to each of the progressively more full “rear sticker map” photos – I am thinking that my grin would proportionally grow with the size of each sticker added.
Along this beautiful and treacherously squiggly scenic byway, I happened upon the town of Woodstock NH and saw a collectibles shop with some VERY odd cars in the lot, and it was enough to make me take a second look and see that it was a combination collectible shop/antique auto museum. Huh. Peculiar enough to stop? Yep.
The cars in the lot were approximately the right size to fit into each of my pockets (and one of them had only 3 wheels):
Of the varied interesting and unique cars inside, I think the 1927 fire truck with accompanying sign was the most compelling story-in-a-car, especially “not for sale” as a tagline:
They do not have a website, but it is the collectibles + auto museum in Woodstock NH. I do not think you’ll find a different and incorrect place like there (but if you do, it would be worth a stop, as well). Check out other cars and gadgets in today’s photo gallery. Glorious.
Next stop was for lunch at the Gypsy Cafe of Lincoln NH. There, I thoroughly enjoyed a hot cider toddy alongside a starter of grilled cheese with apricot jam fondue; and then a “Moroccan bus lunch” of lamb meatballs in a tomato sauce. My goodness gracious it was delicious. It was the late lunch/early dinner food equivalent to the golden views as I departed Lincoln into the grip of fall:
The sun began to retreat towards a horizon increasingly jagged – those White Mountains and their foothills showing off from afar. And yet – the further the sun retreated, to more I was treated to the purple mountain majesty of yore.
Even more importantly, my yeti soul was refreshed by encountering my favorite form of precipitation, albeit in stored on the ground format:
Down the other side of the mountains, I found purple mountains giving way to ************purple******* water, which I did my best to capture in this fast-flowing stream format along the side of the byway:
Nature, thou art beautiful and frightful in equal measure.
In another uncharacteristic-for-me choice, in lieu of driving all the long way to Acadia National Park (which would necessitate too many driving hours in the dark in moose-infested Maine after an already-long day)… I settled on a shorter drive to the greater Portland ME area and a hotel in the very cold weather. I was exhausted, on Day 95 of what would be 109 days of trip. Coughing was starting in small fits, and I knew it would only get colder (especially as Iqaluit, a few weeks hence, would be only slightly sub-Arctic!). Gladness, then, was my mood as I chose to pull into that south Portland Super 8. I knew I needed to aim for some relaxing.
A Jaunt Around the States 