Sept. 29 Leaf peepers in New England. Lots of rain headed our way this week-it started today

We decided all we could do was drive in it and see what we could see.  They wanted to take us on the Kancamagus Highway.  Maury is 71 and when he was young it was a 1-1/2 lane dirt road.  The leaves are just starting to turn.  They say the rain may help them because it was a very dry summer.  With his color blindness, it's obvious to the rest of us that the colors don't look as vibrant or bright to Tom.  It poured, then slowed, poured some more.  We stopped at a few places where we could see the river and trees.  Maury also said he's never seen the river as low as it is.

                                                                   Susan and Ev

                                                        I love the reflection in the river!

                              I couldn't wait any longer to snap this one, or I wouldn't have
                                            gotten the height of whatever kind this is.

Things we saw:
sign advertising a lasagna cook-off to benefit a local historical society
Lickity-split ice cream drive-up, Muddy Moose brewery

We picked up a couple of items in the L.L. Bean outlet store.  Friends said the main one, in Maine, is 3 stories and open 24 hours each day.

Tonight ate at the Turkey Farm Restaurant here in Laconia.  On busy days they serve 2000# of turkey, 4000 dinner rolls, and 1000# of potatoes.  The 3 of them had a traditional turkey dinner.  I had an appetizer only, knowing it would be rich:  butternut ravioli in a light maple cream sauce.  The rolls and maple cornbread were good, as was the carrot relish served with saltines at the beginning.

Sept 28 Mt Washington cog railway and New Hampshire woods

 

Ev took this picture of our first sunrise over Lake Winnipesaukee

this morning.  I was the only one awake to see it.

 

The train consists of an engine and a passenger car.  The engine weighs 27 tons and the car isn't coupled to it, just attached by 3 power cords.  The car can easily be stopped, so they built it so the car would never follow the engine down the mountain if there was a catastrophe.  It took 300 men 3 years to build the track, which has the trestle technique, no concrete supports.  It was completed in 1869.  There diesel and steam engines.  There is a 145 year old water tank part way up, because the steam one needs added water. 

 

 See the track headed up the 6,288' mountain-the highest point in New England.  In fact, the end of the Appalachian Trail is at the top!

                              
One of the views.  Today 4 states were visible, but not Canada.  Some of the worst weather in the world occurs here.  Maximum winds recorded are 231 mph, high temp of 72 and low of minus 45 actual temp.  The brakeman told us to watch for New Hampshire's greatest crop, granite.  Higher up lichen grew on rocks called mica.  The mountain ranges on either side of this mountain are called the Presidential ranges, with 6 mountains bearing names of our Presidents.

 Maury and Susan Bois, our friends and neighbors from home.  He grew up in this area, and after he retired from the AF, they lived here several years.  Have relatives and kids here, so they said they'd visit them and then meet us to stay in two timeshares and be our tour guides for 12 days!  He'd never ridden the train, and she only had once.  He and Tom have 50 combined years in the AF and 106 years guitar playing experience and have a great time performing at our clubhouse and for friends.

 We were going to stay at the 1903 Mt. Washington Hotel, but it didn't have any vacancies-right!
 $509 per night and up.  Golf, spa, dinner packages available.  It isn't up on the mountain.

 

We stopped at a roadside area and walked the trail, enjoying the water and forest.

 

Sept. 26-27 Albany, N.Y. to Concord and Lexington, Mass.and on to Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H.

26th:  47 degrees in Albany when we left at 6.  Got out the light jackets!  Total trip mileage:  4,700

We wanted to drive the back roads today so we could really see New England towns.  We're so glad we did!  U-pick farms, orchards, fruit stands, furniture sales in yards, other yard sales. (it's Saturday)  Neat old buildings, churches, barns, flags flying.

Ichabod Crane school district, Rip Van Winkle bridge, NY's first public school, teeny gas station with original two pumps, cemeteries, Christmas tree farms.  The sumac is red and some leaves are turning.  In one larger village, an intersection had CVS, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid pharmacies!

Then we drove a long highway over hills.  Many pine or spruce lined it, with indigenous trees alone or mixed in.  There were mountain ranges in the distance.  We later read that we were in part of the Berkshires.  Then into an area with small towns.  You barely left one sometimes, before you entered another.  One yard had a long trailer with antiques, including  pot bellied stove, that was for sale.
Near a tiny town stood a Buddhist Institute.

Massachusetts:  getting to Concord: three miles after we entered the state the radio played Back To Massachusetts by the Bee Gees.  "Moose ahead"sign.  We've seen plenty of them in Alaska and don't care to see any on a highway, so were glad that they decided to stay in the woods today.  Towns established in the 1770's, of course.  One town had several strip malls with national chain stores, but most had a general store, if that. Some of the more unusual chains we saw were Trader Joe's, Whole Foods.  And how about a pizza place named Arizona Pizza.  Have no idea if it's connected to the one where we live

Northhampton had a vocational and agricultural high school.  Old mills now house offices and shops.  This town has a great downtown area of several blocks with all the old buildings.  A college is here.

More forests.  Another "moose area" sign.  Huh?  Tall hill on one side of the highway and a big gulley on the right.  We thought maybe there is water in the gulley.  The trees appear to be so close that we wondered how they can slip though with their huge antlers, but Tom said that's how it was when he hunted them in Alaska.

Through a town where a garlic and arts festival is occurring (Saturday).  Another town had a park filled with tents.  Friends said to be sure to eat apple cider donuts while out here and we saw our first sign for them.  Other friends said we'd see hundreds of displays of mums and pumpkins, both for sale and as decorations at businesses and homes, and we have seen so many already today.  Tyco factory.
Now onto a long stretch of beautiful 4 land highway, with a speed limit of 55!  But that was only for us who didn't want to get a ticket.  Almost everyone drove at least 65.

Concord
Drove past the Concord Academy, which has converted beautiful old colonial homes into student housing, according to signs.  We drove through town to the old square, which is actually a round-about now, with a large sign telling you you are in a rotary.

Shops are nearby, but we were looking at the history right there within half a block.  The sit of the first parish in Concord (church with dome) and another church:

                                        

 

                               A monument to the men from Concord who perished in WWI.

 

 

Monuments honoring Concord men who died in WWI, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq

  

                    At the North Bridge, the site of the first shot, "the shot heard around the world"
                                                     of the Revolutionary War.

                Then we drove out to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.  We were excited to
                                      hear about this, since we didn't know it was here.

 
                       


A section of the cemetery is called author's ridge.  Here lie the families of Henry Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louise May Alcott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.



                        
                                                      Thoreau family monument:

 

                                               Notice the pencils left at Henry's grave!

 The Hawthorne family plot.  A man who was standing by us said the two larger headstones
                                         in the  front were brought over from England.

                                                           The Alcott family plot.

 

 Louisa's grave.  The medallion indicates a veteran.  She was given this honor, I read, because she served as a nurse during the Civil War.  She was also active in the Women's Suffrage movement and was the first woman to vote in Concord.

 

Notice the pencils and pens in front of her marker.

There were pennies and stones sitting on top of many graves and a man next to us said it is Jewish custom to leave those items when you visit a grave.

 

 

Emerson family plot

Tom just couldn't get the plaque to be readable

 

 

A Civil War veteran's headstone

 

 

                             Another place that was a pleasant surprise was Walden's Pond!

 

                             This is a statue of Henry and a replica of the cabin he built after
                             he quit working in his father's pencil factory in Concord.  He felt
                             he'd find solitude here for writing.  A picture on the Net showed
                             a table and chair, a bed, and wash basin.  He lived there 26 months.

 This pond is now included in a state park and is a popular swimming hole.  There were many swimmers here at 4:00 in the afternoon (after all, it was 65 degrees!).  Tom avoided getting most of them in the picture.

            At the outskirts of Concord is the Alcott home, where Louisa May wrote Little Women.
            This was taken on Sunday morning before we left town.  It didn't open until 1:00.

 The barn.  There is also a garden with a sign describing it as the Little Women garden

 

Tonight we ate dinner at a nice Italian restaurant called Papa Razzi.
At 11:30 we had a false alarm fire alarm.  They said it happened last night at 1:30.

Concord banned the sale of bottled water.

Sunday

We're driving to New Hampshire today to meet Maury and Susan, our friends and neighbors.  Maury grew up  in N.H. and they lived there several years after he retired from the Air Force.  We're very excited to have them as our tour guides for 7 days there and 5 in Vermont.

We saw a couple of tour buses with neat names:  Local Motion and Trippers

Drove out to Hanscom Air Field, where there are a small AF and Air National Guard units and a local airport.  The Security Forces squadron was voted best in the AF in 2002 and 2014.  There were G-2's on the flight line.
                                           This is a P-40 Warhawk, The Stump Jumper

                                        A nice display of flags surrounding a Korean War F-86

We stopped at the Minuteman National Historic Park, but didn't have time to walk the extensive trails.  The visitor center had nice displays.  We got a kick out of this famous quote from an Englishman about squelching the Colonists:



Drove I-93N but there were trees on both sides for miles, so couldn't see much.
In a town a sign on a business read:  My boss told me to have a good day, so I went home.

Met Maury and Susan in Hookset and went to lunch.  Then on to Manchester, where they drove us around to see his folks' last house.  Drove downtown where they showed us several blocks of huge, brick textile mills from the late 1800's which are now converted to offices, apartments, lofts, and condos.  Many French Canadians came down to work in them.  When Maury was growing up there were 15 Catholic churches in this small town.  13 were French, 1 Polish, and 1 English.  He attended a French one and still speaks it fluently.  There are so many huge homes in this town, too.

Finally on our way to Lake Winnipesaukee-we've been planning our stay in a timeshare here for months.  The lake is almost 30 miles long, with 300 islands.  Maury grew up close to it, and after he retired from the AF, they moved back here and spent lots of time boating on it.

Tonight there was a lunar eclipse and a blood moon.

Sept. 25 From Niagara Falls, Canada to Albany, N.Y. area

We left on a beautiful morning to head
 back to the States and our first stop-Ft. Niagara in New York.  It was in the low 60's and overcast, not like yesterday's sunny skies and shirt sleeve weather.  The fort was the site of many bloody battles as it went from French control to British, to American, British, and finally American.

There were so many trees for about 200 miles, that we couldn't see a whole lot, but it was interesting to see all the types and to see a little changing color of the leaves, and even some that had fallen.  Highlights of what we saw during the drive:

Erie Canal cruise boats

Some large, very pretty green valleys

Toll booths.  Today we paid $1, $3, $12.75.

Like many countries in Europe, New York has rest stops,  not areas, about every  35-40 miles, that have a gas station and two fast food restaurants

It is odd that CVS and Walgreens are all over most of America, but we've only seen Rite-Aid in
a few states, like in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, I think, but they are out here

Key Bank, too, like in the Northwest

Planet Fitness sign:  no gymidation

Today was just a travel day and tonight was eat, get cash and some items at Wal-Mart, sleep.  However, a couple about our age were entering the room next door as we entered ours.  They both took showers at 3 a.m., right through the wall from our bed.  I didn't fall back asleep.

Sept 24 Fantastic second day at Niagara Falls. AWESOME 4-D IMAX, Boat trip to the falls, and more

What a day!!!!  The locals say it has been an unusually nice September and these two days have been perfect-80 or so and blue skies.  Guide said it was as nice a day today as they ever see!  By the way, we were told there are so many more activities here on the Canadian than on the American side.  If you're going to come, stay on the Canadian side!!!

When the air is cool, the mist from Horseshoe Falls looks like a geyser.  This was at 7 this morning.   The American Falls are downriver on the left.

We took a 6 hour bus tour of several attractions.  Our guide said if we weren't nice to him today, he'd have his relatives in Ft. Erie shut the falls off.  He also said he hoped we had all read the fine print on our tickets, which said BYOB:  bring your own barrel.

We took the outside elevator - the yellow bug - to the observation deck, which is the top layer of windows in the round tower, the Skylon Tower.  The deck s 775' high and you can see 80 miles around.

 This was outside the windows,  I don't know what they do on it, but I'm not signing up, even though it was tethered to the wall.  There was a spider suspended from the top of the windows.

 

          This reminded me of 1987 when Tom had the lead in a fundraising musical for our son's
           high school.  He played a Canadian Mountie and sang Nelson Eddy's song.

                         Here are our barrels and our frightened looks as we went over the Falls.

 This is the Aero car, which was invented in 1916 by the same man who invented derigibles, the first computer, and several other things.  It is 220' above the swirling vortex of Whirlpool Basin.  We didn't ride it

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the animated 4-D theatre called The Fury, which taught about the formation of the falls.  We were given ponchos.  First, it snowed on us.  Then the rain came.  Thunder and lightning.  More rain.  The floors shook.  It was just awesome!!!

 The floral clock was built in 1950 by the Ontario power companies.  In the Spring it is planted with over 15,000 pansies.  They're removed before the hot summer and replaced with grasses and herbs.


We went behind the falls in tunnels which were 125' down and totaled 650' in length.

This is a boat like what we rode.  All the red is passengers in ponchos.  We were soaked!  No way were we going to sit inside the bottom deck!

This is how close we were to the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, above, and the American Falls below.  The falls on the right are called the Bridal Veil Falls.  They aren't the tallest falls in the world, by far.  A glacier formed in Wisconsin during the last Ice Age, which formed the lakes.  Scientists figure that in 55,000 years the falls will have eroded away.  During the winter, an ice boom 1.7 miles long is placed in Lake Erie to hold the ice as long as necessary before letting it go.

Approved and non-approved daredevils have attempted to run the falls and others have crossed them on tightropes.  A man named Blondin carried a 56# stove, lit a fire in it, cracked 2 eggs, and cooked them on it.  Nick Wolenta had permission to cross it.  60 attempts by14 people.  The first to succeed was a 63 year old woman teacher and her kitten in 1901.  Today Canada charges $10,000 and America $20,000 for a rescue.

Fishing is good in August.  20-30# salmon come from Lake Ontario to spawn at the base of the falls.

Niagara Falls City, Canada
Tourists used to come in nice weather and stay in small motels.  Once casinos were allowed, tourism increased dramatically to between 13-15 million annually and during all 12 months. Several corporate skyscraper hotels now are here.

The border between Canada and America is in the center of the river.

There is a Stanley Thompson golf course that was built in the 1950's.  It is one of the top 25 courses in North America.

Hydro plants are in the deepest part of the gorge and fuel power for areas 8 hours away, like Ottawa, Canada and NYC.

We drove past very nice old homes that look onto the river.  The guide said they are some of the original homes in town.  Many are now B & B's.

Wine country is just downriver from the town

There are some fine wines because the soil has only been farmed about 150 years, not hundreds of years such as land in France or other areas.  It is the same latitude as Burgundy, France.

Ice wines are developed here.  The grapes are left to freeze a number of times.  It becomes pure nectar and a wonderful dessert wine.  On a scale of sugar, some sugars may be 3 or 4, but this nectar is 18, 24, 30 "count".  Good with chocolate or a sticky cheese.