October 2020
Melinda was doing a bicycle tour around Lake Champlain with some friends, so we decided I’d follow her up and meet her when her trip was ending, then we’d tour New England. I lived in Maine and Massachusetts and had family all over, so it seemed like a good enough reason to tour around.
She couldn’t have picked a better time- we really caught peak leaf season and if you’ve never see it you should really try to get there someday- just beautiful!
So we met in Burlington VT, and after delicious food and cold adult beverages, we headed to the first of several Harvest Host stops. Our first stop was the Bragg Farm Maple Sugar House. It’s hard to beat real maple syrup!
Ben & Jerrys, yum, yum…
Then I think was Mt Mansfield? Anyway it was a gorgeous hike!
Our next Harvest Host was Cold Hollow Cider Mill. Parking was in the back and away from the busy main parking lot. They had a very cool 1948 International K1 pickup truck, which was the same truck my father had and that I learned the fine art of “double clutching” while driving.
And then, there was Camel’s Hump.… “You’ve gotta go” they said. “Beautiful hike” they said. No one said it would be a very muddy, single lane dirt road that had a dozen dump trucks careening recklessly down hill at moonshiner speeds, and that the road would eventually turn into a “high clearance four wheel drive only” road. But it did, and at that point the only way out was to back down 100 yards and then back carefully into a local’s driveway- a driveway full of motorcycles and tractor parts!
So slowly I backed down, and into the drive without hitting anything. As I start to pull out and back down the hill a guy came flying out of the house, arms waving. Melinda says “floor it” but I decided to get out and verify I hadn’t damaged anything. Turns out he was a swell guy and very complimentary of my backing!
Now I can only assume we took a wrong turn…there might have room for improvement in our navigation skills. But I do know this, if you’re going to Camel’s Hump, and you are pulling a trailer, please proceed with caution. To say we got muddy would be an understatement!
We passed through Amherst NH, which is where my grandparents and great grandparents had a farm. The land got sold long ago, and the original house got moved down the road, so nothing looked the same as when I was a kid, but I took a picture of the old house anyway. We briefly stopped at the local cemetery to look for my great grandfather’s grave but had no luck. Anyway, a pic of the old house at it’s new location as well as where it used to be back when I was growing up. It seems odd that the back of the house is now facing front, but I guess it would be tough to turn a house around…
After a trip down memory lane we were off to Mt Washington…except we had a flat tire. Suffered some damage to the underbelly “banana wrap” but patched it up, replaced the tire and headed on- we did stop in the next town and replace the rather old tires.
Mt Washington- just a big gravel parking lot, but we were parked right beside the cog trains and cars, with a nice view of the mountain covered in clouds. We were one of a half dozen campers, which was fine, we all had space and a view.
But that night, the wind came roaring down the mountain. Sustained winds of over 40, with gusts over 65. It got so bad I got up in the middle of the night and lowered the jack to re-attach back to the truck- I’d rather be unlevel than rolled over! The next morning we saw a couple of the other RVs had wind damage and we were grateful for our low profile aerodynamic Tess! But the mountain was socked in with zero visibility so after a tour of the museum we hit the road again….
Our final destination was to one of my hometowns, Kingston, Massachusetts. We camped behind the house that I lived in back in the 1970’s, in the yard of our old neighbor, Bernie. Now Bernie is a character and he loves driving his shockingly purple Ford Model T around town, appropriately named Violet. So we drove around in Violet, even driving through the pathways of the local cranberry bogs that I skated on as kid. And since Melinda had never been there, we did all the fun touristy things to do in nearby Plymouth.
