New England 2013

We are driving to Florida by way of Maine.  It makes perfect sense to me.

We stayed with our friends Elaine and Fred outside of Detroit the first night.  As we backed into their driveway, Don thought he had the slider hitch locked in the extended position—necessary to turn sharp with a short-box truck and a 5^th wheel.  It moved back, however, and we shattered the back window on the truck.  The good news is that safety glass works—no sharp shards of glass, just a million cubist pieces.  We have a new window ordered for installation in Bangor, Maine next week.  Meanwhile we listen to every creak of the hitch through the plastic Don and Fred taped in place. 

 

This is how we like to picnic on the road.

We camped at Lake George in the New York Adirondacks and drove up the lake to Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain.  The fort was crucial in protecting the narrow strip of land between the two lakes which together were navigable for over 150 miles.  The fort shifted in control between the French and British during the French and Indian War and between the British and Americans during the Revolutionary War.  Critical battles in both wars helped Britain gain North America from the French and then the rebels to defeat the British.

 

 

Diorama of the fort

Controlling Lake Champlain

The soldiers carved their powder horns intricately.

 

 

Those of you who have expressed amazement that I drive the big camper rig would be proud of me.  We wandered around the Vermont Green Mountains, tasting cheese that rivals Wisconsin's, gazing in awe at peak color, and driving over mountains a few times.  I have lumbered up steep grades and then coasted down many times with our great truck doing engine braking.  I have handled 6% and 7% grades often enough, despite 7000 pounds of camper pushing us down the mountains.  But here when the signs said 9% and 10% downgrades, I was a bit shaken.  Then came the 12% grade down.  Oh . . my . .gosh!  But we made it just fine.  I love that Ford F250.

Peak color in southern Vermont

 

One of the oldest and longest covered bridges in Vermont

 

We toured Plymouth Notch where Calvin Coolidge was born, raised and buried.  It is the quintessential centuries-old, tiny Vermont mountain hamlet where Vermonters learn to work hard, appreciate the land and the mountains, work hard, share community life, work hard—you get the idea.  Coolidge was home on vacation as Vice-President when word was telegraphed that President Harding had died of an illness.  Since Calvin’s father was a notary public, he administered the oath of the Presidency to his son in the parlor in the middle of the night.  What made him think he had authority to do that?  “No one told me I couldn’t” when they telegraphed Washington for guidance.

 

The Coolidge home

This whole row is all Coolidges.  They were in Plymouth Notch for a couple of centuries.

We don’t do tourist town shopping much, but we browsed a while and had a great lunch in Woodstock, Vermont.  The famous covered bridges were fascinating.

 

 

 

 

 

The highlight there was the Billings Farm Museum.  Woodstock native, George Perkins Marsh acquired the farm in the mid 1800’s to apply his concepts, convictions and writings about conserving the land.  By that time, Vermont had been logged off, its bare hills were eroded, and spring rains washed the soil into flooded stream beds, severely damaging the waterways.  The thin soil did not stay productive for more than one generation.  Marsh replanted the forest on the mountainsides and practiced sustainable farming in the valley.  Frederick Billiings, railroad magnate and conservationist, raised in Woodstock, bought the farm and continued Marsh’s practices.  Eventually his wife and daughters carried out the mission.  Daughter Mary married Laurance Rockefeller, philanthropist and conservationist.  They made sure the farm was preserved to continue as a working farm museum and donated the un-tillable hills and their mansion as the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park.  Due to the government shut-down, the national park was closed to us, but at the farm we gained a good sense of these three families’ commitment to conserving the land and restoring Vermont to what it had been—the beautiful forested Green Mountains.

 

We camped in Quechee, another quaint little town.  Their claim to fame is the Quechee Gorge, a wonderful glacial melt canyon we hiked down.