Holy Cannoli

Massachusetts. The Spirit of America. So much of our country's beginnings took place here and it has been preserved so we can still experience it years later. 

We started at Plymouth. 1620. A trip to the "rock" and the Mayflower II, a reproduction of the original ship the Pilgrims sailed on to come here to step across that rock and begin a new life. I can't even imagine sailing on that ship for that long. It's no Carnival fun ship! 

We then headed down the Cape. Cape Cod that is. Where The Kennedys and The Mindiys vacation. It was great. Crowded on a summer weekend for good reason. We boarded a ferry to Martha's Vineyard for some exploring there. We found the cutest 'gingerbread cottages' and the oldest carousel.  A huge thanks to Brian and Cathi (and Donnie) for giving us a bed and feeding us. The sticky buns were fantastic! Your Cape home is perfect. The porch and the view draw you in and make you want to stay forever. Thanks, Levi, for giving us a kayak tour of the harbor! We want to come back when we have more time to simply enjoy the rocking chairs on the porch. 

Boston brought our first Air B&B experience. For those of you that don't know...Air B&B is a website where you can rent apartments, rooms, etc. We rented a room in Cambridge in Mary's house. Mary is a Thai Massage Therapist and seems to be artsy and eccentric. Unfortunately she had a last minute trip so we didn't get to meet her. We did meet all the other people who were renting out the other rooms. It was just like staying in a hostel. You hope the guy coming in the front door at midnight is supposed to be coming through the front door! We met some people traveling for business and a teacher at a conference. It was a good first experience and we got to wake up to this squirrel looking at us every morning. 

I loved teaching social studies. It's fascinating. It's a great story filled with battles and suffrage and hope and passion. Boston has so many chapters of this story. It was like being on the best field trip ever! Boston has old and new arcitechiture intertwined to create a beautiful city. It's amazing to me that all of this is still around. Things we read about in books. Our country's beginnings. We walked the Freedom Trail. Every inch was fascinating. To stand next to Paul Revere's grave or walk through Fanueil Hall where countless speeches have been given that have shaped our country or stand on the site of the Boston Massacre....it's incredible to me. I can see the story come to life in my head. We stumbled across a printing shop. The nicest man works there. Watching him set the type and then print was so neat. We climbed the 294 stairs to the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial. Felt the burn in the legs on that one! We did all of this in the pouring rain. Like any good tourist, we put on our rain jacket and continued on. A little rain won't stop the visit to Paul Revere's home. 

A venture into the north end brings you Italian food everywhere. And this isn't your friendly neighboorhood Olive Garden. This is Italian food. Mike's Pastry is the place to be. Holy Cannoli. Delicious. Unless you go when it's pouring rain, you will wait in a very long line. Wait in it. They are good. 

We found the original Cheers. They may not have known our name but they were glad we came. :)

The Boston Public Gardens brought us to the Make Way for Ducklings statue. If you haven't read that classic, now would be a good time to do so. 

A trip to Harvard left us feeling slightly more intelligent than when we started this trip. We did some shopping at the Harvard Book Store and sat around in 'the yard'. It was all very Elle Woods. 

We planned our arrival in Boston so we could see the Red Sox play. As with the NFL and the Packers, we aren't really fans but we are now! Watching a game in Fenway Park felt like an all-American experience. We cheered, we wore our new shirts, we ate Fenway Franks, we sang Sweet Caroline. They lost. Bad. Big Papi struck out more than once. But since we are such big fans, we stayed until the very end. 

If you hear us speak with a new accent, it's because we are now dropping our r's. We can tell you all about lobstah fresh from the watah in the hahbah when we get back. 

Many of you know I have this silly fear of walking over open grates. The Freedom Trail took us over this bridge. 

Overcoming fears one at a time on this journey. 

A New Leader

When you think of New England a lot of things come to mind. History. Lighthouses. Beautiful homes. Rocky coastline. Quaint towns. Maine has all of this. Maine is classic New England. Maine quickly made it's way to the leader position of favorite places. 

We crossed the state line and stopped to take our picture with the sign. It smelled like a pine scented Yankee Candle outside. Like a scratch and sniff Christmas tree farm. We started falling in love here. 

We treked across the state to begin our journey of Maine in Bar Harbor. Acadia National Park. Enter rocky cliffs along the shore. We did some hiking and exploring throughout the park. We put our toes in the chilly Atlantic. We learned about peregrine falcons. They are being reintroduced to the area and the babies were playing along the cliffs. They are the fastest animal and reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour during their dive. (We've banked a wealth of random information on this trip). We meandered the streets of Bar Harbor. We continued falling in love. 

We then journeyed down the coast. Highway 1. A very different Highway 1 than that of the west. This one is great town after great town. Old New England homes. Towns established in the 1700s. History, character, and charm. Lighthouses. Sailboats (some that look like Jack Black could be aboard!). Still falling in love. 

Maine also brings blueberries and lobster. They have blueberry everything in Maine, including soda and beer. Naturally we tried both. We could really be official taste testers! 

Mindi doesn't really care for seafood. She tried my lobster in Alaska and it ended up in her napkin instead of her stomach.  But she's a good sport and we went to a lobster pound for dinner. She wanted to give fresh Maine lobster a try. She thought it might be different. She went for it and ordered a lobster roll. The first bite look on her face told me it wasn't different. She ate more roll than lobster. I gave her my coleslaw, corn on the cob, and some blueberry cake so she wouldn't be hungry! All of this came with the little guy I had for dinner. The little guy was top notch. Fresh and fiesty going into his boiling bag.  I've had lobster tail many times. This was my first whole lobster experience. I wasn't entirely sure where to start and what to do with his body. A kind middle school aged boy at the table next to us provided assistance. He told me to eat the green stuff inside. His mom was eating the green stuff inside. It's great they said. I'll eat almost anything. I will never again eat the green stuff inside. 

We are cheating on Tahoe. We now have a love affair with Maine. 

Sticky Sweetness

Upstate New York is home to Adirondack State Park. It's the largest park preserve in the United States. 6 million acres. Larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, the Everglades, and Great Smokey Mountains combined. With that being said, we only had time to explore a very small segment! We chose Lake George and spent our time relaxing on the shore. The town was quaint meets Gatlinburg. After a dinner out we walked around and looked at the quaint shops, not the 'beach souvenir' shops. You know the ones. Lake George is home to many mini golf joints. We just happened to park next to "Around the USA in 18 Holes". What a very fitting place for us to play!! We retraced our journey so far in a close game of putt putt! After Mindi pulling out the win, we had ice cream cones by the lake. Essentially, we spent a day at Myrtle Beach :)

The fastest way for us to get to where we wanted to go in Vermont was to take the ferry across Lake Champlain. So we put Pauley on her second car ferry of the trip and took off. Tom, our trusty guide, was very helpful in getting us there. "Turn right and then take the ferry." Thanks for the clarification, we wouldn't have been able to figure that one out! :)

Our plan for Vermont was to visit Ben & Jerry's and then move along. Vermont had other ideas. We got completely sucked into this lovely state! It was beautiful in the summer. I can imagine it looks just like the pictures we see of it in the fall. Trees ablaze with color. A visit in the fall is on the list. And spring? That's when they make the syrup. So that's another needed visit. We will return. 

The three busiest places in America are Yellowstone National Park, Niagara Falls, and Ben & Jerry's. The place was packed! After taking the tour, we are experts and will buy the product more often...because who doesn't need more Chunky Monkey in their life?! There are lots of activities to participate in as well. Make spin art? Sure!! Become Ben & Jerry? Of course!! Visit the flavor graveyard? So fun!! Eat ice cream? Obviously!! In the words of Jerry, "If it's not fun, why do it?" 

We ate a lot of cheese in Wisconsin. We were not going to eat anymore cheese for a long time. Then we came to Vermont. "Come to Vermont without trying our cheddar?!," they said. "It's the best," they said. So off to the cheese we went. This is what we found. Try a free sample? Don't mind if we do.

We are not ashamed to admit that we worked the whole table. A sample of each. I look over and Mindi has found another sample table. Some crackers and dips. We walked out of the place with cheese and dip mix. 

We hit up a cider mill next. Guess what? They had free samples. We worked our way through jams and jellies and washed it all down with cider. We walked out with some cider donuts. 

One can not visit Vermont without locating a sugar house. There is no maple syrup that comes close in comparison. We found one that still makes syrup the old fashioned way. Sadly it's not syrup making season so we couldn't see it happening. We got a tour, watched a video, and had free samples though. Fascinating!  I'm sure you've already assumed this but I'll tell you we have maple syrup in the backseat. 

They had hundreds of these sap buckets. A tree isn't tapped until it's around 40 years old. It takes about 60 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. 

We also came across several covered bridges as we made our way through the state. 

New Hampshire was a fly over state. We came in on the skinny end and were back out in a blink. We did see the White Mountains as we drove along. We also stopped for dinner and had a maple and bacon pizza. Pretty much a giant pancake with bacon on it. Pretty tasty! 

We are now on the east coast...where summer days leave you feeling sticky.