On The Road Around North Conway, New Hampsire

On the Road Again

in the Yellow Banana 

It's Sunday the 29th of Sept and we have been on the road all day on route from Stowe to North Conway, and what an amazing drive.

We have had incredible weather for the whole period that we have been away, and the last few days have been no exception. The autumn foliage has just been incredible, the green, red, orange and brown, colours so vibrant, 'with a new vista at every turn, that went on and on, for mile after mile, amazing!!

Amazing Scenery

Our first stop today was at Cabot Creamery, where we watched some cheese being made and sampled a number of their products.

Cabot's Creamery

We then headed for the "White Mountain's" in New Hampshire where we took a ride to the top of Mt Cannon, on the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway. The weather was perfect and you can see across to four different states and also into Canada. Great views and a fun trip.

Roof of a covered Bridge

Martin Bridge

Lunch stop at old town of Bath

We then went onto a small town called Bath, where there is only a hand full of shops. One is a lunch bar that was full of 1960 memorabilia, Beatles, Buddy Holly, Andy Griffith, Opie, Barney etc etc. That was fun to look around.

Then, for the next couple of hours the bus journeyed along the "Kancamagus Highway", which has to be one of the most scenic rides in America, on route to North Conway. We made three "photo stops" along the way and I hope the photos below give some indication of what we experienced. It is a little hard however, to capture the grandeur of what we were viewing, so here is an attempt only :-)

One the way up to the top of Mt Cannon

Rob, what a great tour guide :-)

We made it!!

One Stop on the Kancamagus Highway

Some of the colours "up Close"

John and Ann, Tom and Donna, fun companions

Natures frame

Another stop on the Kancamagus Highway

Some more colour :-)

One of the stops - reflecting lake

Ducks on lake :-)

Monday the 30th of September and we spent the morning on the bus driving through this incredible countryside, from North Conway to Bretton Woods, via a couple of stops for photo opportunities. Again, and I am starting to sound like a "broken record", but it is to hard to communicate the extent and vastness of the of the autumn colours and, I am afraid that the photo's are a poor substitute, but hopefully you catch a little of what it looks like.

Mile after mile of this foliage 

Reflecting lake 2

The afternoon was spent at an outlet store for a little retail therapy, shoes mainly (half the NZ price :-) ). We then went for a walk into the local forest and got to see the trees and land from another perspective, great day. Tomorrow head into Maine, down the coast to the city of Portsmouth, for that final evening of what has been a great trip.

From "inside" the forest

Waterfall just up the road

On forest walk 1

Reflecting lake 3

On the Forest walk 2

Bretton Woods and Mt Washington

Stowe and the Sound of Music Connection

A photo from the bus

Arrived in Stowe, Vermont late this afternoon, having driven from Williamstown via a stop at the "Vermont Country Store" in Weston, then onto the beautiful town Woodstock and finally a visit to a working diary farm, just outside of the town, on the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.

At the Vermont Country Store

We are now at our hotel, "The Trapp Family Lodge" in Stowe, yes of the Sound of Music Fame. The hotel is located on the property that the Capt and his wife Maria, purchased after they arrived in the States just before the start of the second world war. The Lodge is now run by one of their grandsons. It is a pretty spectacular location in the Vermont's, Green Mountains. Tomorrow we will get out and have a good look around.

No we didn't buy these

Today we have had a great trip, visiting the places that I mentioned above and driving through some amazing country covered in autumn colours.

Here is today's photo offering.....

Great Shopping

View from Covered bridge Woodstock

The town of Woodstock

   

19th Century Farmstead

With inquisitive native

Nearby gorge

Some of todays colours

View from our room

The real Baron and Maria Von Trapp

The Trapp Family Lodge

Second day in Stowe today the land of the Von Trapps. Spent the morning visiting a couple of sites. The first was an apple cider plant, then onto Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory (they are two good old Vermont boys) and finally to the "Morse Sugar Shack" where they have been cultivating a maple tree plantation for eight generations, and we where shown how they harvest and make the maple syrup, by "Burr" an old member of the current generation. I think that he has inhaled too many sugar fumes over the years :-) , but he was very entertaining. He had a great sense of humour. You can see more of the place by clicking on this link, watch the video at the bottom of this page to see how they get the maple sap. They then connect all the trees together with a vacuum suction system to collect the sap, it was fascinating to see how it is done, also see photo below.

Pressing Apple pulp for cider

The ice cream factory visit was OK, but I have seen all of that many times. The Apple cider process was also very interesting, see photo on left, pressing the apple plup.

We then visited Stowe for a few hours and had a look around the town. I didn't get a very good selection of "Autumn" photos today but Ruth did, so I have included hers below.

Burr Morse entertaining us, funny man 

Got back to the hotel and watched a video on Maria Von Trapp, telling her story, which was fascinating and very close to the movie, which only had a few changes. The family settled in Stowe Vermont, because it reminded them of Austria. Had dinner in the Lodge restaurant tonight and that was nice. On the move again tomorrow, to New Conway, in New Hampsire.

Connecting the Maple trees to extract Syrup

The Maple tree

The Final product

The Morse Sugar Shack

Some pretty colours

Some more pretty colours

Stowe trees

Vermont's State Capital 

And a few more