We embark on a search for the “stern and rockbound shores”
Saturday, August 4 – We left Cincinnati on I-71 at 4:00 a.m.– our usual starting time. We bypassed Cleveland on I-271 and I-90. In Pennsylvania we took Pennsylvania 17 which turned into New York 17 at the border.
A planned quick rest stop in Sherman, New York dropped us into the middle of their “First Saturday in August” festival. We almost turned into their parade when we tried to leave. We finally got out of town on the wrong side and had to wait for the parade to finish before we could return to 17. We had a picnic lunch and continued on to Binghamton where we switched to I-88.
We stopped in Oneonta and discovered that we had cleverly managed to show up at the town on the expressway closest to Cooperstown the day before the Hall of Fame induction. After a few no vacancies we booked an overpriced room at the Town House motel in downtown Oneonta. After dinner at Friendly’s we walked around the town for a bit.
This was Michelle’s first visit to Pennsylvania and New York.
Sunday, August 5 – We followed I-88 to I-90 through Albany, then took I-787 to Troy. From there we took New York 2 which turned into Massachusetts 2 as it crossed the Taconic Range. We stopped to stretch our legs in North Adams and the kids got to play at a park by a refurbished train station. We stopped for lunch in Fitchburg and got to play dodgem on a rotary, something Lynne and Jim had been looking forward to.
We took I-495 to bypass the worst of Boston’s traffic and continued up I-90 to New Hampshire and Maine. It was a beautiful sunny day when we first saw Maine. Just past Portland we got onto U.S. 1 and drove to Rockport where we stayed at the White Gates motel. In Rockport we discovered that Maine, for all its emphasis on tourism, seems to have a law prohibiting restaurants.
Today marked Scott and Michelle’s first visit to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, and Lynne’s first visit to New Hampshire and Maine.
Monday, August 6 – The day was so foggy when we woke up that Michelle thought it was snowing. We left Rockport on U.S. 1 which was alleged to hug the coastline and provide us with scenic vistas at every turn. The only time we saw the ocean was when we stopped in Searsport and walked around the harbor. The rest of 1 was inland and gave us a stunning view of tourist traps and sporadic trees blocking any view eastward.
We drove to Ellsworth and booked a room for two nights at the Colonial Inn, then drove into Bar Harbor. It was wall-to-wall with traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian. After a forgettable lunch at a local pizza parlor and a brief stroll we fled the town and headed back from Mount Desert Island to the mainland. We stopped at the Acadia Zoo. The kids got a special kick out of Leonard, a baby beaver. There was a coyote there and Scott kept telling it, “Roadrunner! Roadrunner!” We also were taken by the baby goats in the petting zoo. A wolf was taken with Michelle and paced the fence of his cage to stick close to her when we walked by. Scott and Michelle took their first ride on a pony next door to the zoo.
We drove around Frenchman Bay to Lamoine State Park for a walk on the shore. Back at the hotel we discovered that the pool was on closed-circuit television so we could see it from our room. Michelle was especially delighted and both kids took turns running down to the camera so they could be “TV stars”.
Tuesday, August 7 – Another gray and foggy day. We drove back to Mount Desert Island and into Acadia National Park, the first National Park for either of the kids. We wound our way to the top of Cadillac Mountain for a stunning view of fog which totally obscured anything more than one-hundred feet away. Scott and Michelle fell asleep in the car but didn’t miss seeing anything. They woke up by the time we got to Sand Beach but did not brave the waters although some other children were playfully cavorting for up to several seconds at a time before the chill sent them screaming to shore.
Our arrival at Thunder Hole coincided perfectly with the slack tide that prevented it from making its famous booming sound. At Seawall we had a picnic lunch and watched the seagulls. We scampered over the rocks at theBass Harbor lighthouse to get a seaside view of it, then returned to Bar Harbor and picked up our ticket at Marine Atlantic’s terminal before heading back to the Colonial Inn.
Wednesday, August 8 – We woke up early and were at the terminal for the ferry to Nova Scotia as the dawn broke. We drove into the hold of the Motor Vessel Bluenose, parked our car, and climbed the stairs to the upper decks. There was a small theater with cartoons for the kids and they watched for a few minutes while we waited for the dining room to open up. The vibration of the ship started getting to Lynne while we were still tied up to the dock. It was another very foggy morning and we barely noticed when we finally slipped out of Bar Harbor.
We had hoped to see some whales as we sailed across the Bay of Fundy but visibility never opened up more than a couple of hundred feet. About a half hour after we left Maine the casinos opened up. The kids had a good time in the playroom on the ship’s misnamed Sun Deck. Lynne stepped out for a breath of fresh air and returned several minutes later to tell us she had hit a jackpot ($50.00) on a slot machine. Rondo the Magician put on a show on the Sun Deck. We were almost at the dock in Yarmouth before the fog parted enough for us to see anything of Nova Scotia.
We stopped in the tourist welcome center in Yarmouth and made a reservation at the Toddle Inn Tea Room Bed and Breakfast in Shelburne, then departed Yarmouth eastbound on the Lighthouse Trail. We were serenaded by a kilt-clad piper as we left. We arrived in Shelburne just a few minutes before the start of the Shelburne County Exhibition Parade which we watched from the balcony of the Toddle Inn. Shelburne was largely built by Loyalists who fled the United States after the revolution and very much reflected British culture. The weather was muggy and hot. With no air conditioning, sleep was next to impossible.
This was everyone’s first visit to Nova Scotia.
Thursday, August 9 – While we were having breakfast at the Toddle Inn some of the locals stopped in for their tea and scones. The owner of the B&B told us about the ghost in the basement of the house and how he had to fetch everything from there because the cook refused to go down the steps. Michelle was especially impressed. We headed back west on the Lighthouse Trail, detouring to the coast at Port la Tour to see a lighthouse.
Michelle became carsick and we pulled over onto the shoulder. Unfortunately there was no shoulder and we ended up in a ditch. Nova Scotians proved to be extremely friendly – every passing car stopped and Jim got a ride to a gas station. A tow truck got us out of the ditch without any problems and the car was undamaged so we continued on our way. The shoreline by the Baccaro Point Lighthouse was what we had envisioned Maine to be – waves crashing against the rocks. We also found out just how loud a foghorn is and why one should not stand in front of one.
On our way back to Yarmouth we came across some highway construction and had to wait until a car marked “Follow Me” led our lane of traffic safely through. We passed through a few of the seven Pubnico villages on our way to Yarmouth where we ate lunch and made a reservation at the Bridgetown Motor Hotel, one of the few offering a pool. The weather continued hot and muggy as we drove up the French Shore where almost all the signs were in French and through Annapolis Royal to Bridgetown. Our room proved to be poorly ventilated and the water in the pool was warm. We walked around town trying to find someplace to eat and ended up back at the Hotel’s dining room.
Friday, August 10 – After breakfast at the aptly-named “Apple Pit” in Bridgetown we drove south and toured the tidal power station at Annapolis Royal. In Digby we stocked up on some snacks for the afternoon’s voyage and walked around the waterfront where we saw ships left high and dry by the Fundy tides – up to forty feet at Digby. The kids played on a couple of cannons taking turns “shooting” the town. We drove out along Digby Neck to the ferry terminal and drove aboard the Motor Vessel Princess of Acadia for a three-hour crossing.
As we passed through the Digby Gut into the Bay of Fundy the fog closed in and visibility again dropped to next to nothing. The voyage was uneventful and spent mostly indoors wishing we could see. After disembarking in Saint John we drove to the welcome center. There were only three hotels in Saint John offering air conditioning and the hostess at the center told us about a special at the Hilton so we took a room there. We checked the schedule for the reversing falls, drove across the harbor to the Hilton and checked in, then returned to the falls to watch the river change directions.
We watched as boats gathered on either side of the falls (actually a set of rapids), then watched the rapids gradually go slack as the incoming tide came up the river. The boats sailed through and the rapids reversed as the tide piled up higher. We had dinner at the restaurant overlooking the falls before heading back to our room. The swimming pool at the Hilton was small but more than adequate for the kids and they had a good finish to their day. Naturally, since we had gone out of our way to stay in an air-conditioned hotel, the night was cool and clammy.
This was everyone’s first visit to New Brunswick.
Saturday, August 11 – It was foggy and rainy as we drove south from Saint John on Canada 1. There was not much to see because of the weather so we drove straight to Letete where we caught a small ferry to Deer Island. We ate a picnic lunch at a campground by the dock while we waited for the Campobello ferry. The ferry turned out to be a rickety-looking tub that sat so low in the water we started having second thoughts.
Regardless, we took it for a (surprise) foggy trip with the added thrill of having to come to a dead halt because of other water traffic that we couldn’t see. We thankfully made landfall on Campobello and drove to Franklin Roosevelt’s “cottage” – a cozy, 20+ room affair. After a bit of souvenir shopping we returned to Lubec, Maine via a bridge. We followed U.S. 1 and Maine 182 back to Ellsworth. From there we took U.S. 1A in the pouring rain to Bangor.
We stopped at the Riverside Inn which had been a dormitory for a nursing college before becoming a hotel. The hotel was connected to the University of Maine’s medical center but we passed on the idea of eating hospital food at their cafeteria and ate at a restaurant on the outskirts of town instead.
Sunday, August 12 – The day dawned clear and bright. After continental breakfast at the hotel we drove around Bangor to see the statue of Paul Bunyon in a city park. We headed south on I-95, exiting after a few miles at Newport where we caught 2 for a winding, scenic trip to Gorham, New Hampshire. After lunch there we drove to Mount Washington and quickly abandoned any idea of driving up ourselves.
We took a stage (actually a van) up to the top, enjoying the driver’s steady patter of information and one-liners. Once we got to the top the sun promptly disappeared and clouds moved in to wipe out the view. Our time at the “city in the clouds” was all too brief but we did get to see the cog railway pull in. After the stage ride back down we drove to Twin Mountain, a small town whose only business seems to be tourists.
The first motel we tried was full but the owner called around and found us a cabin just up the road at the Twin Mountain Motor Lodge. Our cabin had two rooms separated by the bathroom. The motel was laid out with a “U” shaped driveway on the outside. All the cabins faced a playground with swings, slides, picnic tables and a pool. The pool had a slide and Scott and Michelle were absolutely thrilled.
Monday, August 13 – We headed south from Twin Mountain looking in vain for a restaurant whose menu we had seen the day before in the motel office. After wandering around long enough for Michelle to get carsick we finally found a quaint-looking place where a couple from Indiana struck up a conversation because Lynne was wearing a Cincinnati Reds T-shirt.
We drove south on I-93 through Franconia Notch stopping to see the profile of the Old Man of the Mountain. We took a pleasant hike to the Basin, a pothole carved by a stream. Scott was disappointed because “the basin” never did appear so he figured it must be hiding under the water. He was a bit worried about the temperament of “basins” though. After lunch at the park lodge we took a bus across a covered bridge and hiked on the boardwalk in the Flume, a narrow gap cut by a stream through the granite in the side of the mountain.
In North Woodstock we turned east on the Kancamagus Highway to Loon Mountain. We rode up the mountain in a gondola. On the mountain there were several caves but recent rains had closed all but one of them – cave # 2. For days afterwards all the kids could talk about was cave # 2. Loon Mountain also featured an observation tower with a beautiful view of the White Mountains and a small lake near the summit. We took the gondola back down the mountain, then took Route 112 through the White Mountains National Forest to U.S. 302.
We crossed into Vermont under sunny skies and drove to Barre where we booked a room at the Sir Anthony motel. It began to storm not long after we checked in. While dining at the motel’s restaurant the power went out. After dinner we tried swimming in the motel’s indoor pool but the drop in temperature that accompanied the rain made it too chilly. One of the television stations we watched that night came from Quebec and the shows were all dubbed in French.
This was the first visit to Vermont for Lynne, Scott and Michelle.
Tuesday, August 14 – We toured the Rock of Ages granite quarry in Barre. The kids played in an old steam engine on display there and we picked up samples from their scrap bin. We drove to Montpelier right past the capitol building on our way to the Morse Maple Sugar Farm where we saw a demonstration on making real maple syrup and bought some souvenirs, including syrup, at the small store attached to the farm.
I-89 through the Green Mountains took us north of Burlington where we saw Ethan Allen’s house and watched an audiovisual presentation on his life at the museum. Archaeologists were digging in the yard around the house while we were there. We ate a late lunch back in Burlington, then took U.S. 7 to Charlotte where we saw the Vermont Wildflower Farm. Although the day was sunny and pleasant, half the trails at the farm were closed because they were too muddy from the previous night’s rain.
In Charlotte we went to catch a ferry across Lake Champlain but had to wait for a septic tank service truck to pump water out of its bilge. The delay gave us an excuse to eat some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream from a handcart by the ferry dock. The crossing was uneventful and we did not see Champ (Lake Champlain’s version of the Loch Ness Monster) although there were several newspaper accounts displayed in the lounge above the auto deck.
From Essex on the New York side we took I-87 through the Adirondacks to Albany. The Adirondacks were exceptionally scenic and we almost stopped hating New York. Searching for a motel around Albany took care of that. We finally found a room at the L&M Motel in Rotterdam. We ate dinner down the road in a shopping mall that featured a carousel so Michelle and Scott ended their day with a ride on a Merry-go-round.
Wednesday, August 15 – From I-90 we took Rt. 80 to Cooperstown. We quickly surmised the futility of parking anywhere near downtown and took a trolley from an outlying parking lot instead. We went to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The entire time we were there the only thing the kids wanted to do was go eat lunch. We toured everything in spite of their objections and only after we had savored every exhibit and plaque we possibly could did we give in to their tyrannical tummies.
After lunch in Cooperstown we continued on I-90, trying in vain to get money from the ATM’s at each island along the tollway. Finally in Henrietta, just south of Rochester, we found an ATM at a grocery store that accepted our card. Back in the black once again we booked a room at the Howard Johnson’s. Again dinner was in a restaurant in a mall and again it had a carousel. Michelle was convinced it was the same one we had visited the night before.
The Howard Johnson was charming, covered with signs warning us not to leave valuables in the car, not to open the door without seeing who was there, making sure we used the deadbolt and chain, etc.
Thursday, August 16 – We woke up half expecting our car to be gone but it somehow survived intact. I- 90 turned into a parking lot just outside Buffalo because of construction. We took what appeared on a map to be a straight route to the Peace Bridge and ended up winding around more of Buffalo than we would ever have wanted to.
Once in Ontario we took the Queen Elizabeth Highway to Niagara Falls for a little sightseeing and lunch. We managed to park near Table Rock and had lunch at the Table Rock House, took in the view of the falls, and spent the last of our Canadian money at the souvenir stand there. We left Ontario via the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls and headed home via I-90, I-271 and I-71. We ate dinner just south of Cleveland and made it home a little before midnight.
This was Michelle’s first visit to Ontario.
Milestones on this trip: Our first vacation traveling by ship. Michelle’s first visit to Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario, and Niagara Falls. Scott and Michelle’s first visit to Massachusetts. Lynne, Scott and Michelle’s first visit to New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. Everyone’s first visit to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Scott and Michelle’s first visit to a National Park.
States and provinces we visited: Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Vermont, Ontario.
Capital cities we saw: Columbus, Boston, Montpelier, and Albany.
