48stateroadtrip.com

Just in case anyone from a big state wants an opportunity to say “well landsakes!”, I started the day in Maine, traveled through New Hampshire to get to Massachusetts, then went to Rhode Island before finishing up at my cousin’s place in Connecticut. Five states in one day — try *that* from Brownsville! Anyway:

They put their welcome sign behind a tree on the center median. Just how welcome did they want me to feel?!

Major thanks out to J-Bigs and Alexis for putting me up in New Haven. Dearly appreciated and your Indian restaurant was one of the best I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to more than one, yes.

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It took me a while to figure out where the mansions were. On my way to that discovery, I found the yacht club, yacht museum, and some fort that you had to take a tour to get into and that I therefore stayed outside of. Here’s a picture commemorating the yacht experience:

A lighthouse protects ships from hitting the right-side stanchion.

And because I don’t think either of them are that great, here’s another photo. I imagine if you take the decent aspects of both of these photos, they might add up to one all-right picture.

I like how everything other than the truck on the bridge is leading the viewer’s eye *away* from the frame.

Then I found the mansions. It was about 4:30 and they close up at 5, so I just stopped at the first one I came to on Bellevue Avenue, which turned out to be the Marble House and to look like this:

You’re not allowed to take photos inside.

It was designed and lived in by an ex-wife of some Vanderbilt. She was into women’s suffrage (that was the story they told about her inside the mansion) as well as inflicting suffering on women (she was apparently pretty awful to her daughter). She was also very, very tacky about her decorating decisions — basically like Hearst, but without *quite* the means. Versailles is so over-done. IMHO.

I imagine the other mansions are sort of similar. If they’re not, nobody tell me, otherwise I’ll feel like I have to go back some time. (Thx.)

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So, yes, the half-way state: Rhode Island.

My DSLR is not really well suited for this type of photography.

Per the requirement, I *did* stop off somewhere for clam chowder while there (New England white, not Rhode Island red) and also bought clam cakes, which were sort of gross (but I finished them). Experienced a great disappointment in Rhode Island: the #3 hamburger in the country is locked up inside a formal dining restaurant that’s closed from 2:30 to 5:30 — roughly the exact length of time I had available to be in Newport, R.I.

It’s okay — I don’t have a jacket with me on this trip anyway.

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It *is* readable, if you want it bad enough.

Almost to the half-way state. Kind of sad, actually. Then I’ll have to start planning next year’s trip. To celebrate being in Massachusetts, I went to a CVS and bough cold medicine. Probably should have stopped off in Alston to see my old apartment, but alas.

State over.

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One thing’s sort of for-sure: I don’t get very excited about shorelines. I’m glad they exist, they don’t cause much harm, but, you know: meh. Shoreline. I took a picture of this one, though, in Maine, somewhere in Acadia National Park, which is located on Mt. Desert Island about half-way up the coast. Go:

It’s not like it’s an eye-sore, just that I’m not sure what you do with it besides look.

Anyway. Lady ranger at the visitor center also suggested, when prompted, I go on this hike to Mt. Sargent, which she described as the second-best hike in the park (I didn’t ask, I figured she knew what she was doing). In my short time in the region, I’ve developed a sort of love-hate thing with New England hikes an there was a lot of both on this one — but for a hike that had me swearing at the trail engineers for the entirety of a certain 30-minute stretch, this was a lot of fun and one I’d rank toward the top of the list. And I sort-of forgive it for being a 4.5-mile, 3.25-hour hike (that’s slow).

And the photos won’t show the fun parts so much, because it’s hard to take pictures of yourself while dangling off railings, climbing up wet granite on your hands and knees, or taking the downhill granite like a park whore parkour course (who knew?). Oh well.

For the information-hungry and per the ranger’s instructions, I took the Spring Trail to the Jordan Cliff Trail (the part with the ladders and rungs) to the East Cliff Trail (the part with the hands and knees) to the Mt. Sargent Summit to the South Ridge Trail to the Penobscot Mountain Summit to the Penobscot Trail (the parkour course) back to the Spring Trail. This was probably as dangerous a hike as I’ve done (largely because of the rain the night before — I imagine the footing’s pretty sure when the rocks are dry). It also wasn’t much of a tree prison. Excelsior.

Water trickling onto the trail.

Trees, holding on tight(ly).

The view of Jordan Pond from Jordan Cliff. The rung at bottom-right helps hikers not fall.

This is a ladder you must climb.

A stream crossing! And me without my poles.

Caterpillar: go!

Looking over the side of Mt. Sargent toward a bunch of little Maine islands in the Atlantic.

And they have cairns that look like this there.

View from the top.

Signs on Mt. Sargent.

The top of Mt. Penobscot.

Me, there.

Granite wall on the way back down.

Fun trail.

Part of what I don’t like about sea coasts is that, at least the ones I’ve been to on this trip, they’re crowded. The drive around the Acadia coast is silly with tour buses (that stop in the middle of one-lane roads) and even on a weekday at the end of September, there’s nowhere on the coast you’re going to be able to stand without having company. Big Sur and Oregon coasts felt the same way to me.

Pictured Rocks Lakeshore, though, I liked a lot. Maybe it’s just the crowds.

There’s also a lighthouse near Acadia (at the tip of the Mt. Desert Island peninsula), but it’s lame.

Dunn out.

Maine, the deuce-deuce. But you’d think they’d at least wait till you’re out of sight of the “welcome” sign before telling you that you may as well expect delays given that you’re in Maine now.

What else should I expect? Lobster restaurants?

Spent the night in a hotel in Bangor, which is pronounced Bang-gore here. It’s fun to say.

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It’s silly to hold this against Vermont, but if I’d spent one day less in Vermont, I could have spent one day more in New Hampshire. Hopefully that’s my biggest regret of the trip. It might be in first place so far.

I needed to end the day in Maine, as close to Acadia National Park as possible, so decided to just run through one of the Reader’s Digest drives, end up at Mt. Washington — because I love a good drive-up mountain peak –, and then head east into the far corner. The plan was executed to precise specifications and many leaves were photographed.

I don’t know if Acadia will have leaves. I should probably read up on it. Some of the trees in Maine have already dropped their leaves and are therefore considered “No-Fo’s” — no foliage. Anyway, here’s to closing down New Hampshire and going back one day to do some hiking because it looked like it’d be a lot better than Vermont.

Not that it’s fair to blame Vermont. It’s really well manicured there.

Eh, so campground: stayed at the Hancock Campground in the White Mountains National Forest. As I’ve come to expect from all NFS campsites, I was parked right next to a river. Mostly heard rain falling, though, at least until about the time I got out of bed truck sleeping bag cot bed. Nice leaves there, too (not pictured).

“The Presidentials” are peaks in the White Mountains named after presidents. I think these might be among them.

This is about the fourth one of these I’ve uploaded now. They all remind me of sweaters Cliff Huxtable would wear. That or succotash.

One day I’m gonna take a side mirror photo that works!

Sabbaday Falls, named after the Sabbath Day. Photo taken on Monday, which is holy in no culture.

They always build foot bridges over waterfalls out here.

Leaves. Finally.

A bend in the road.

Really I just wanted to post some New Hampshire photos with blue skies in them (sorry, Chad). Then Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New Hampshire. Naturally you can take a toll road to the top: $23! Which, of course, is a full buck cheaper than the one in Vermont. BUT — it’s 3.5 miles longer, mostly paved, and ascends to a peak that’s like 2,000 feet higher. And they give you a CD to listen to on the way up that tells you how to use low gear to avoid overheating.

It got really cloudy near the top, and cold and windy.

The base of the mountain, right by the toll booth.

Observation tower on top of the mountain. Winds 20-30 mph, mostly cloudy (just not in this photo).

On top of *yet another* state.

Heading down, above the clouds.

Yeah, so I gotta go back and visit New Hampshire some time. The hike up to Mt. Washington looked worth it — it’s high enough to be above the treeline and if you have a clear day, the views would be pretty amazing. Hopefully the hike starts around 4,000 feet, of course, and hopefully you got a sweater handy. Just that it’s cold and windy on top there is all.

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Woke up in a hotel in White River Junction, Vt., rainy as promised. Got in the car, drove across the river to Hanover, N.H. and ended up in the middle of Dartmouth’s campus. It looked like an Ivy League campus — basically the same as USC, but with worse weather. IMHO.

First stop of the day came in Orford, which the Reader’s Digest book said was representative of all New England towns. But I think I missed the turn into town. Stopped at this church anyway (it was Sunday after all):

Wet road — a recurring Day 73 theme.

From there, headed up Highway 10 till I got to Haverhill Corner, at which point I got out of the car to take a photo of another church.

And only one power line in front of this one!

Yeah, and then I guess I could keep talking about how I stayed on the same highway for a while, except that would be uninteresting. And I’m all about mad hooks and, I dunno. It’s a little cold right now. I should do these exclusively at night. Meh.

The tree tunnels are different here. They all look like the opening scene of a horror movie set in 19th-century New England.

And then I — nothing. I did nothing. I think the next photo is from the town of Bath, except you only see the inside of *something*. It could also be in a horror movie if you wanted it to be. Or not. Either way’s probably fine. [BTW, it’s now evening.]

This would be the *inside* of the (covered) bridge. No cars allowed since ’99, though, which kind of kills it.

I think this is the Ammonoosuc River. I suppose I could just make up a name.

The Swiftwater Bridge. You can still drive over it.

My kingdom for a blue sky. Oh well. It’s not much of a kingdom.

Just FYI, I like(d) New Hampshire. It has two things that Vermont doesn’t:

1. Rivers!
2. Places to park so you can get out and take photos.

Huge. Anyway — Highway 112 is a fantastic drive. Blue sky, yes, would’ve ruled. As stated: oh well. Keeping on keeping on:

The, uh, highway.

The parallel lines of road and riverbed describe the dual nature of nature and non-nature.

More leaves. If you’re getting tired of them, maybe skip Day 74…

So then I ended up at this place called Flume Gorge. I don’t know who runs it — it seems to be on NFS land and the visitor’s center says something about a state park, but somehow it costs $13 to get behind their barricade and take a two-mile walk. It was about this time that it started raining kind of harder, which did not result in discounted admission to the two-mile walk.

The Pool.

Same bridge, same falls.

Different bridge, different falls.

And then the gorge.

Meh. These photos looked better last night than today. Maybe they’ll be good again in another week or two.

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This is how Vermont says good-bye:

Which, coincidentally, looks a lot like how New Hampshire says hello.

Well, except New Hampshire also tries to get all formal about it:

“Bienvenue”?! Did we lose a war or something?

And I’m pretty sure the welcome sign is actually in Vermont.

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A tree prison is a prison made out of trees, not a prison *for* trees. Although we probably need those.

Nice weather, enough time to recuperate from the Big Slide hike, so time to head for the hills. Since the hike up Mt. Mansfield would’ve taken me to a place I could *drive* to, I decided to hike up the other side of the valley to a destination called Elephant Head, which struck me as a name you could call a person who had a big nose, big ears, and hopefully tusks.

When I’d talked to the park ranger the day before about hiking, he asked me what kind of hikes I like and I told him I’m good for anything so long as it’s not a long, steep ascent through trees that keep you from seeing anything the whole time. He informed me that *that* was all they had in Vermont. He wasn’t kidding. Note to self: you don’t have to go hiking if you know you’re not going to enjoy it. Ah well. Just wondering how many more times I’m gonna have to learn that lesson.

BTW, it’s raining here this morning.

Took almost no photos on the hike, except for at the top of it (at the Elephant’s Head). The photos are all of sides of hills with mostly green, but also orange and yellow trees. Ah, leaves!

The close-up ones turned out better.

See? BTW, this is Mt. Mansfield, the highest peak in all Vermont. Granted, you can fit all Vermont into a good-sized Costco, but still, the highest.

Anyway, not pictured: the trail you had to take in order to get here. This is where the aforementioned “tree prison” comes in. 2.5 miles hiking straight uphill (close enough) and over slick granite rocks (because they were wet) while tripping through complexes of exposed tree roots (at least they provided hand-holds) to get to *this view*.

Y’know, as a westerner I always figured that east coast hiking must be lame because of how short all the peaks were and the lack of altitude sickness and all that. Turns out the east coast makes up for it by hiking straight uphill all the time. Hat’s off, east coast and whoever the masochists are who go out and do the “Long Trail” (a 272-mile trail from the top to bottom of Vermont), just wow. BTW, these trails would be *fun* (for me) if not for the tree prison aspect. Climbing up roots isn’t a bad thing, unless doing so is rewarded solely by a view of more tree trunks, at which point it just feels like the trail engineers are mocking me.

Once I got down off the Elephant’s Head, I drove down to the ski resort and shelled out $24 (!) to use their 4.5-mile “toll road” to drive up to (near) the top of Mt. Mansfield. The price is ridiculous, but it was definitely the most interesting thing I did while in Vermont. You’re driving through the ski resort up the hill and then once you get to the parking lot, it’s only a mile walk/rock scramble up to the true peak. And for some reason Mt. Mansfield has multiple peaks, all of which are named after face parts. The real peak is called The Chin. The Nose and The Adam’s Apple (for reals) are not as high.

See? Ski resort.

The high part there is The Chin. The house-like part there is the top of the Stowe gondola. I should’ve seen whether that was cheaper than the drive.

The trail. Off to the left you can see all the way across Lake Champlain to the Adirondacks in New York and to the right you can see all the way across, er, a state line and see the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

I just liked the colors here.

The trail is not unpopular — although it was fun to listen to the people who hiked all the way up here gripe about everyone who just drove up.

I am the highest point in all Vermont. And scowling because of the wind.

The hike over to The Chin was really cool, even if it *was* crowded (it was the first Saturday of fall and everyone knew that Sunday’s weather was going to be awful). $24 is a lot to pay to drive up a silly road, but I still figure it was better than a 2.5-hour walk/climb through a tree prison. Probably. It would’ve killed me to have gone through that and gotten to the top only to be stuck in a mob of tourists. Probably worth it.

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