Let Them Eat Lobster

New England

July 5th through 12th

It would happen on the day we were to leave Lake Placid; the sun would come out . Instead of getting to enjoy the gorgeous day out on a trail or boating on the lake we would be cooped up in the car for 5 hours. We figured after 3 days out in the woods with only a 5 minute freezing cold shower in a filthiest excuse for a bathroom at the campground, we deserved a hotel room with modern amenities-like a bed and warm water. Our destination was Norwich Vermont. It was a medium sized name on the map so we figured it would have some cheap hotels we could stay. From Lake Placid we took the ferry to Burlington Vt. It is a 50 minute ride across and we had a front row view from the car windshield and we did not even have to use the wipers! Beautiful blue sky with lots of sail boats out on the St Lawrence Seaway. Burlington is the quintessential college town with great bike lanes, all pedestrian mall areas with every restaurant imaginable, street entertainment and the home of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream! We were so excited to walk around without rain jackets having to dodge for cover. We had a nice leisurely stroll through town soaking up the sun and grabbed a quick bit to eat. We were on our “freshman college tour” and decided since we were in the neighborhood we would venture down to Middlebury. Our friend Katie and our friend Marykay’s Dad had attended the school-granted in different eras but from the looks of the school, I am not sure much has changed. As Roby envisioned Middlebury along with the New England area in general, was lined with the big white buildings on the big green hillsides all making a statement. After a quick tour and daylight running out on us, we headed toward Norwich. As we rolled into town we were through it within a blink of an eye. The mapmaker’s definition of a medium sized town is a bit different than ours. Only one Inn existed and it looked pricey so we figured we would just hop over the border and check out Hanover NH. It was a college town. There had to be some cheap hotels. Well when the college is Dartmouth, the definition of cheap is a Hyatt. I think they outlawed the Motel 6 from their city limits. We starting getting a bit nervous because all the surrounding towns were “little” names on the map and we thought we were not going to find a place to stay. I got on my blackberry and started googling cheap hotels in Hanover. (none came up). I found a list of all the hotels and Roby began calling them. As we were sitting in the parking lot at the Marriott Suites he called them and played hardball and got us a reduced rate. So not to look obvious and walk right into the hotel from the car we went back into town and walked around looking for somewhere to eat. Again, nothing is cheap in Hanover, so we struck out with dinner and decided we would make supper in the room since we would have a small kitchenette.

We looked like vagabonds when we arrived and immediately high-tailed it to the shower and used up all the hot water. We cooked a hot meal and acted like “loads” on the couch. We could have hung out here for a few days but unfortunately we were on somewhat of a time schedule for this portion of the trip. We wanted to reach Mt. Washington in New Hampshire for a hike on a section of the Appalachian Trail.

Of course the weather was not cooperating with us since we had an outdoor activity planned. Dark grey/black clouds, rain and the temperature kept getting colder. We were determined to get in this hike regardless of the conditions. We figured the weather would only make us appreciate what the hikers experience when they do the entire 4-6 month hike.

We prepped ourselves and put on our rain gear and got out our hiking sticks because we knew the trail was going to be muddy and slippery and headed for the trailhead. Our itinerary was to take the Old Jackson Road section and then cutoff to the connector road to complete a loop. With the nasty weather and Mt. Washington’s reputation for having the worst and most unpredictable conditions, we bagged going to the summit. After reading Bill Bryson’s book “A Walk in the Woods” and his description of his experience on Mt. Washington we decided we wanted to live to finish our journey so we picked a lower trail. Little did we know!!!!

Immediately upon entering the trail the rain picked up so we decided to do the Appalachian section first in case we had to turn around due to weather and we wanted to be able to say we had done a section of the trail. I am not so sure I would call it a trail. It is basically a boulder farm through the woods with patches of dirt speckled along the way and of course these areas were now just mud puddles. Thankfully we had our hiking poles and we were able to strategically make it along the trail without getting our boots too wet. We reached the halfway mark and decided to try and find some cover from the rain because it was now pouring on us and we needed to take a break to eat. We looked at each other with that face of “why are we doing this and trying to figure out why any human being would want to walk for 4 months with the possibility of being completely soaked for days and sleeping in makeshift huts with other stinky hikers.” After lunch we pressed on because the rain was not letting up and my hiking pants were so wet they started to feel like they weighed 20 pounds and our raingear is only water resistant and they were reaching their limit. Not more than 10 minutes later as we are wiping away the rain from our eyes to make sure we were seeing what we were seeing, our biggest nightmare was staring us in the face. A 200 pound Black Bear with his nose to the ground was nonchalantly walking up the trail straight for us. We quickly turned and started heading back in the direction we came but he was not letting up and started gaining on us, so we stopped and decided we were going to implement the tactics they say you should do if you encounter a bear. We began making as much noise as we could by clanking our hiking poles and screaming at the top of our lungs. He was not buying into this. He was not reacting normally because black bears are supposed to be timid and shy away from people. Of course as we are fighting for our lives, Roby has to take a picture of the bear. After a few minutes which felt like an hour, the bear appears to be boring of us and leaves the trail and heads off into the woods. This is our signal to high tail it back the way we came. No more worrying about mud, rain or our condition, we just needed to get to the bottom to safety. We ran for at least 15 minutes and Roby realized he had dropped the camera while we were running. We had a decision to make-do we turn around and risk running into the bear again or just ditch the camera which still had quite a few of our pictures on it. No need to really make a choice because as we turned to head back to look for the camera we saw the bear now running down the trail at us. Knowing we were not going to outrun him, we tried again to scare him off. We thought we did it because he went back into the woods and as we were running he was not following us so we thought we were in the clear. For some reason, I looked out of the corner of my eye and I saw him flanking us and he was going to cut us off at the top of the hill we were running up. In fact he was within 10 yards of me. It was a much eerier feeling to have him above us looking down upon us than vice versa. He wanted our food and was not going to let up so Roby made me turn around and start running the way we initially were going and he was going to take out the sandwich we still had in our bag and leave it for the bear and hope that would appease him. We know you are not supposed to feed the bears but better our sandwich than us. If this did not work, we were screwed because we would have been trapped just running in circles. Roby was so thoughtful and even took the sandwich out of my eco-friendly wrapper and threw the sandwich on the trail and took off. He turned around and saw the bear grab it and run off into the woods. That was our clue to get the hell out of there. I felt like we were in a horror movie being chased by Jason as we were running through the mud, slipping on the boulders, tripping over fallen tree trunks, knowing at any moment we were going to be eaten by this bear. We did not know if he was going to be satisfied with just our turkey sandwich so we ran the entire 3 miles of which 2.5 of it was uphill. Our biggest concern was what if another bear was on the trail. Thankfully we did not encounter anymore but we did have another scare because we lost the trail near a waterfall and fast moving stream. Did we have to cross it or just follow it? Continually not knowing whether the bear was following us this stoppage in our movement trying to find the trail was not a very secure feeling. Finally we spotted a yellow marker on a tree and realized we had to cross the stream and because of all the rain the area had gotten in the last two weeks, it was moving rather quickly. Instead of trying to hop the rocks we just trudged through the water because at this point getting wet was not an issue. The last half of the trial was ahead of us and thankfully it was downhill because our legs were killing us from running uphill. 45 minutes later we reached the hiking lodge at the base and took a deep breathe. We were going to live.

After this little episode we figured we had experienced all there was to the Appalachian Trail-nasty weather, bears, and getting lost. No need to do anymore. As Bill Bryson said-”I did the Appalachian Trail.”

Obviously, we were not going to make it to Maine that afternoon. We were spent so we drove about an hour to find a much deserved shower and warm bed.
After a restless night with visions of bear attacks we headed to Maine. The weather was still not cooperating so we decided to forgo our plans to hit Arcadia National Park and just head toward Boston. We did take the scenic route 1 down the coast and ventured through the small towns like Kennebunk but we did not stop much other than we had to hit Portland Maine which is near the border with Massachusetts to have a lobster roll.

We reached Boston about 7:30 pm and arrived to an awesome home-cooked meal at our friend Sue’s house. She is a friend from our community Talasera in Phoenix and she moved back to Boston a few years ago. Lucky us. She lives in an awesome house which was built in the 1700’s and has the original wood floors and even the original water well which is now a cool detail in the kitchen with a glass casing over it so you are able to look down into it but not fall in. We recounted the bear story with her over dinner and a few glasses of wine. We spent the next two days in the city being tourists-hitting the North End for some excellent Italian food, having a beer at the Cheers Bar, walking through Mass Commons, and seeing all the historic buildings from the Revolutionary War time period, even the graveyards where Paul Revere, John Adams and John Hancock are buried. We even witnessed a car chase right in the middle of the city in the North End. It was right out of a movie scene-all we heard was a large crash and then saw this car immediately throw it in reverse on a one-way street and crashing into cars as he sped away backwards. He took out the side of a Porsche which was parked on the street along with several other cars. His front was completely demolished with his bumper dragging on the road. No one knew what initially triggered the incident but several theories were being thrown around that he had robbed the bank nearby and he was trying to get away. Thankfully he did not hit any of the pedestrians in the crosswalks. What a cool city!

We were fortunate to be in town the same week the Tall Ships were in Harbor so we took a cruise with Sue and her daughter to see them all. They are the old fashioned Sail Ships from all over the world. A pleasant surprise. The next day we decided to venture through a different section of the city on our bikes. We decided we needed to do a real urban ride. Roby found how to get to the Emerald Necklace area which is a section of Boston where 5 different parks are linked together and were designed by Frederick Law Olmstead-the father of landscape architecture and Roby’s idol. It was a beautiful day for a ride and after a bit of navigational problems we were able to get on track and follow the parks for about 10 miles. A portion of it went through the Arnold Arboretum, the oldest in the country (I think the oldest everything is in Mass.) and found a road which took us up to Peter’s Hill where we took a break to marvel at the wonderful view of the city.

Next on our list was the Cape so we got up early the next morning hoping we would miss traffic as we were warned by Sue that it would be a mess on the weekend. No such luck we hit it. After sitting in the traffic both directions, I am not sure why anyone goes out there. It is a mess. A ride that should only take 1 ½ hours takes at least 4 hours. The best part was our short diversion to Plymouth-aptly called “America’s hometown”. We walked along the oldest street in the US and saw the first wooden home built in this country and of course saw the Rock. It is a very cute town.

Not much to say about Cape Cod because due to the traffic jam we only got to enjoy a few hours on the beach before the sun went down. Unfortunately, we encountered another storm that night while we were camping. This time we were entertained with continuous thunder and lightning.

Time for some sunshine and humidity so we headed south to Washington DC.