New England...here we come!
For a number of years now my mother and I have talked about taking a New England Falls Colors tour. But then Dad got sick and she was tied down, and then we did a trip to Michigan and just hadn't gotten around to doing the New England trip. Last summer my brother gave us the nudge we needed to start planning on that trip this past fall.
Just the planning was nearly overwhelming! We had to locate and book a tour and make plane reservations. The tour was just a shot in the dark, and we just picked one that seemed to offer us the most of what we wanted out of a tour. We are so inexperienced in making travel arrangements that we had to enlist the help of Heather to make the plane reservations, but we got that handled too.
We left home in the rain on Tuesday, October 9th and drove to Sioux Falls. We had to fly out at 6:00 AM on Wednesday morning so we went a day early and spent the night in order to be fresh for our trip. While we were in Sioux Falls in the rain, back home everyone here was waking up to snow! Great timing on our part!
This was only the second time I have ever flown so I am pretty much a newbie in the air. Strangely I am not afraid of flying and actually enjoy the flight part of flying. The airport experience not quite so much! The biggest thrill of flying for me is the lift off, seeing the ground drop away below us as we become airborne. It's almost an emotional experience...I have no idea why, I'm just weird like that!
We had to change planes in Chicago and finally arrived at Logan International
Airport in Boston. Boston is a huge city! From there we caught a shuttle to Merrimack, New Hampshire where our tour headquartered out of. Those last three sentences make the trip sound so easy, but it was anything but easy. Chicago is a huge airport with kind of a funky layout. We had requested wheel chair assistance for Mom and I figured I might as well take the ride along with her since I would never be able to keep up with someone else pushing her wheel chair. Turns out it was miles (literally) between terminals so I was glad to be pushed. Then in Boston my luggage was rerouted to another terminal so we had to locate that and then stand around waiting for our shuttle. And the trip from Boston to Merrimack was a long trip, a couple hours or so! By the time we arrived at our hotel, we were shot.
This tour headquartered out of the same hotel each day so we didn't have to continually pack and unpack our suitcases, one of the biggest blessings of the trip! The tours cycle fellow tourists in and out of various tours, but our constant companions were the Gan family from Singapore. What a treat to be able to share our cultures with this enjoyable foreign family! Another gal who joined our tour for a couple of days was a young lady from London who was Venezuelan born and American educated. She, too, was a delight!
On the left is the Gan Family from Singapore
On the right from the back we have our tour driver, the one and only Johnny O, Yours Truly, Mom and Carolina from London
We gathered for supper that evening with our tour director, Mel and the Gan family. I think we ate at an Italian restaurant that evening. I was trying to stay with the gluten-free diet (see previous post), and I stayed true but almost regretted it since gluten-free Italian is not that tasty! Then we were off to bed to be ready to roll the next day.
Day 2
It seems odd to consider this day 2 since we didn't really tour on day 1, but that's what the schedule said. We gathered in the lobby of our hotel and, after picking up a few others from other hotels, we were off to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Hurricane Michael had just recently devastated Florida and the southern East Coast, and by the time we were in New England, the remnants of that hurricane were being felt there. So our first day of touring was rainy and foggy. But we were tucked snugly in our touring van being driven by Johnny O, who was anything but dull!
We headed north and ended up at Cannon Mountain where we were able to take an aerial tram ride to the top of the mountain. In the winter months it is a ski slope, but in October it simply provides a very beautiful view of the countryside. Our view was a bit limited due to the fog, but they say on a clear day you can see several states from the top. At any rate, it was beautiful even in the fog.
One interesting tidbit that drew me back in time to a story we had read in junior high was the story of the "Great Stone Face" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. There was a rock formation on the face of one of the mountains in that area that resembled a man's face and was referred to as the "man on the mountain". In 2003, the rock formation crumbled to the ground and is no longer there, but the story we had read in school was about that rock formation. I was amazed that I was able to recall the story as well as I have!
From there we visited a visitor's center at Franconia Notch, which gave us a geological history of the White Mountains and the surrounding area.
Then we caught lunch at Gordy's where we experienced some topnotch New England atmosphere. New England is famous for its fresh seafood, and neither Mom nor I are fans of seafood. But they assured us they have great beef too...no they don't! Apparently when you come from the Midwest you are used to a better quality of beef than they are on the East Coast.
The rest of the day was spent driving through the beautiful fall scenery which was just a day or two past peak, but so very
beautiful. Trying to anticipate peak colors is just an educated guess, and we did very well with the timing of our tour.
One the way back to our hotel, I was riding shotgun with Johnny O, and I noticed that the gas gauge was giving us low fuel warnings. First it said 20 miles to go, and I called it to his attention, but he assured me we were fine. I let it go until we were 6 miles until empty, and he still poo-pooed me. The last time I mentioned our fuel situation, 4 miles later apparently, he was still telling me I was over reacting. I find it strange that he was so surprised when the vehicle died and we coasted to the shoulder! That vehicle was exactly on with it's fuel estimates, and Johnny O had to walk to the next gas station. Fortunately, as I was noticing on his phone that kept displaying his text messages, he has a "girl in every port" and enlisted the help of one of his friends to bring him back. Soon we were on our way back to Merrimack where we caught supper at a Thai restaurant and headed to bed.
To be continued in the next blog post...
Just the planning was nearly overwhelming! We had to locate and book a tour and make plane reservations. The tour was just a shot in the dark, and we just picked one that seemed to offer us the most of what we wanted out of a tour. We are so inexperienced in making travel arrangements that we had to enlist the help of Heather to make the plane reservations, but we got that handled too.
We left home in the rain on Tuesday, October 9th and drove to Sioux Falls. We had to fly out at 6:00 AM on Wednesday morning so we went a day early and spent the night in order to be fresh for our trip. While we were in Sioux Falls in the rain, back home everyone here was waking up to snow! Great timing on our part!
This was only the second time I have ever flown so I am pretty much a newbie in the air. Strangely I am not afraid of flying and actually enjoy the flight part of flying. The airport experience not quite so much! The biggest thrill of flying for me is the lift off, seeing the ground drop away below us as we become airborne. It's almost an emotional experience...I have no idea why, I'm just weird like that!
We had to change planes in Chicago and finally arrived at Logan International
 |
| Logan International Airport |
This tour headquartered out of the same hotel each day so we didn't have to continually pack and unpack our suitcases, one of the biggest blessings of the trip! The tours cycle fellow tourists in and out of various tours, but our constant companions were the Gan family from Singapore. What a treat to be able to share our cultures with this enjoyable foreign family! Another gal who joined our tour for a couple of days was a young lady from London who was Venezuelan born and American educated. She, too, was a delight!
On the left is the Gan Family from Singapore
On the right from the back we have our tour driver, the one and only Johnny O, Yours Truly, Mom and Carolina from London
We gathered for supper that evening with our tour director, Mel and the Gan family. I think we ate at an Italian restaurant that evening. I was trying to stay with the gluten-free diet (see previous post), and I stayed true but almost regretted it since gluten-free Italian is not that tasty! Then we were off to bed to be ready to roll the next day.
Day 2
It seems odd to consider this day 2 since we didn't really tour on day 1, but that's what the schedule said. We gathered in the lobby of our hotel and, after picking up a few others from other hotels, we were off to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Hurricane Michael had just recently devastated Florida and the southern East Coast, and by the time we were in New England, the remnants of that hurricane were being felt there. So our first day of touring was rainy and foggy. But we were tucked snugly in our touring van being driven by Johnny O, who was anything but dull!
We headed north and ended up at Cannon Mountain where we were able to take an aerial tram ride to the top of the mountain. In the winter months it is a ski slope, but in October it simply provides a very beautiful view of the countryside. Our view was a bit limited due to the fog, but they say on a clear day you can see several states from the top. At any rate, it was beautiful even in the fog.
One interesting tidbit that drew me back in time to a story we had read in junior high was the story of the "Great Stone Face" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. There was a rock formation on the face of one of the mountains in that area that resembled a man's face and was referred to as the "man on the mountain". In 2003, the rock formation crumbled to the ground and is no longer there, but the story we had read in school was about that rock formation. I was amazed that I was able to recall the story as well as I have!
From there we visited a visitor's center at Franconia Notch, which gave us a geological history of the White Mountains and the surrounding area.
The rest of the day was spent driving through the beautiful fall scenery which was just a day or two past peak, but so very
beautiful. Trying to anticipate peak colors is just an educated guess, and we did very well with the timing of our tour.
One the way back to our hotel, I was riding shotgun with Johnny O, and I noticed that the gas gauge was giving us low fuel warnings. First it said 20 miles to go, and I called it to his attention, but he assured me we were fine. I let it go until we were 6 miles until empty, and he still poo-pooed me. The last time I mentioned our fuel situation, 4 miles later apparently, he was still telling me I was over reacting. I find it strange that he was so surprised when the vehicle died and we coasted to the shoulder! That vehicle was exactly on with it's fuel estimates, and Johnny O had to walk to the next gas station. Fortunately, as I was noticing on his phone that kept displaying his text messages, he has a "girl in every port" and enlisted the help of one of his friends to bring him back. Soon we were on our way back to Merrimack where we caught supper at a Thai restaurant and headed to bed.
To be continued in the next blog post...
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