Onwards and Upwards – 29 September 2011

Sadly for touring, the day started with rain, which was fairly constant all day long. We travelled north-west from Lake George through a winter sport mountain area, to Quechee Gorge.

On the way, Woodstock was a stunning town, even on a dreary day. But the approach to Woodstock from the south, was a very different story. The effects of Hurricane Irene were very obvious still. Cars in the river bed, houses collapsed, silt all across field and car parks. The workers were out in force with all types of earth moving equipment.

Just before our campsite we found the stunning scenic Quechee Gorge. The historic bridge from 1911 passes over a deep chasm, lined with trees. This bridge was so far above the river level, that the hurricane floods caused no problems here.

At the information centre, we saw an advertisement for Sugar Bush Farm maple and cheese centre. This tempted us down some minor back roads that took us through the town of Quechee. The effects of the devastation here were also very dramatic.

Their historic covered bridge was fairly battered and the approach road had mostly disappeared. The golf course was a disaster, large areas of deep silt had a few green mounds rising out of the grey, and the sight of a green pin-flag still on top of one was rather incongruous.

Sugar Bush Farm offered cheese and maple syrup tasting. We enjoyed both and of course they achieved their goal of luring us into their shop to make some purchases.

Back to Lake George – 28 September 2011

We had got excited about taking a side trip to the top of Whiteface Mountain, to look down on the autumn colours. Our neighbours at the campsite told us how beautiful it was. Then we discovered the snag – an 8 ft bridge, specifically to block RV's from taking the mountain road.

When we realised it was for our safety, we acknowledged the wisdom and retraced our steps to Lake George, via the forest road. The scenery was pretty good, but as the day was cloudy, it didn't look as spectacular as yesterday.

However, our lunch stop was interesting, with a board walk along the far edge of a small lake, and in easy access, three beaver houses. They were fascinating, and showed the teeth marks of the beavers, clearly on the small logs.

The only other thing of interest was a trip to Walmart, the true giant of American shopping.

On to Lake Placid – 27 September 2011

Another lovely day made the picturesque drive north up Lake George a real treat. Lunch by the lake at Hague was followed by another drive alongside Lake Champlain. The scenery stared to get really exciting, with vivid reds and oranges as we passed Hurricane Mountain and then along Hwy 73.

Lake Placid is an expensive mountain resort centre that was the home of the 1980 (and 1932) Winter Olympics. The town centre is actually on the shores of Mirror Lake rather than Lake Placid but the two lakes are only separated by a 100m or so at one place.

Only 15 minutes further on along a very attractive river gorge was our campsite for the night, at the foot of Whiteface Mountain.

Time was when the most complex technology required for a family road-trip was the iSpy (with my little eye). This trip we have an iPad, two iPhones, two HTC Android smart phones, two full-size Dell laptops, an Asus mini-netbook and a not yet publicly available Samsung tablet with Windows 8. All of which are connected via travelling Mifi connected to the world via 3G. It is a wonderful world.

On to New York – 26 September 2011

Contrary to the weather reports, the sun has continue to shine each day, and we set out for Lake George this morning. Very shortly after leaving the campsite we pulled over to visit the historic Scott covered bridge. We had seen others earlier that were still in use but this one was special in that it was the longest wooden span bridge in Vermont when it was built.

The main, 166 ft, span is quite incredible. It was subsequently strengthened with wooden arches built inside the original structure but this attempt failed and more recently a concrete pier was constructed mid stream to support it. It has been closed to traffic for some time.

The roads around Bald Mountain had been closed after Hurricane Irene, but were now open. What the website didn't say was that there was a detour partway along our route to Manchester Centre, for any vehicles shorter than 23 feet. At 32 feet we felt obliged to ask directions. Luckily the lady we asked lived along the detour and said she had seen vehicles larger than ours travel along there, and suggested we ignore the sign and take the detour.

It proved to be very interesting. The destruction left by the flooding after the hurricane was very obvious, with the river bed a disorganised chaos of rocks, a house only half there and hanging over the temporary road (along the river bed). The replacement bridge was under construction, and we saw three other bridge repairs on the road to Manchester Centre.

The area here is obviously higher, as we saw signs to a ski field. As a result, the foliage became more and more colourful. The surrounding hills had bands of colour where the trees at a certain level were turning red. It was a real treat to see briefly the type of foliage we had come to see, before arriving at Manchester. This proved to be a neat and tidy provincial town. We found a bank to use an ATM, in what appeared to once have been a gracious home.

Lunch was an interesting stop at Dorset by the first marble quarry in the US. The large hole left after the rock was extracted has filled with crystal clear water and is obviously now a popular swimming hole on a hot day.

Lake George was an hour later. The town appeared a little as though the season was over and much was closed. But the lake itself was beautiful, with lake cruise boats lined up, including a paddle-steamer.

Our campsite at Lake George RV Park, was a lovely leafy cool haven at the end of the hot day.

Pine Acres to to Bald Mountain – 25 September 2011

The web research on Fall in New England seemed to recommend the last week in September to the first week in October as optimum time to visit. But this year is still very warm, and the trees are only just beginning to turn; hopefully they get going while we are here.

We drove to Old Deerfield historic village to have a look at the village with it's original houses built in the seventeenth century. This gave Alan a chance to meet up with us. He had set out from NZ a day behind us. Alan arrived on time, as we were looking around the village with a self guide map. Many of the houses have been restored, and are able to be viewed with a guide. We however did not have enough time to do that, and set off for our next campsite in a fairly remote area called Bald Mountain.

When we arrived at the campsite, the owners had closed the reception and left a a note to camp anywhere. The campgrounds were pretty much deserted, so we had unlimited choice of where to park. We camped right by the river, near the facilities. We were fascinated by the antics of Chip (don't know where Dale was), this should have been a clue to our location, as acorns fell very loudly and heavily on the RV roof all night long. Not such a good choice after all!!

Conifer to Pine – 24 September 2011

The flight to Boston was less then seven hours, which made us wonder why we had not travelled here before. We had to pick up our RV by 3pm, which seemed pretty impossible with a flight landing at 1.15pm, and no suitable public transport. But the flight was 15 mins early, the booked taxi ready and waiting, and we made it to Rutland by 3pm.

Bradley and Susan with Linnea were waiting there for us, it was great to meet our first grand-daughter, looking so sweet and tiny at two months old.

The RV formalities over, (Alison who sorted our booking was great and even loaned baby gear) dinner next door at Ladds, and we were on our way to Pine Acres for our first night in a RV, arriving just in time for a brilliant sunset over their lake.

London Open Weekend – 17 September 2011

A quick look on the Web doesn't show any other other countries that have the same Open House weekend scheme as the UK. It is such a brilliant idea, and works very well here, with the hundreds of years of historic building styles.

We headed to the City of London, as the Square Mile has many participating buildings packed into an easy walking area. We managed to visit quite a few, ranging from Trinity House (which is in charge if the country's lighthouses), several livery companies (the best would have to be the Drapers)

and several churches, which are normally closed on the weekends. It is a curious effect of population dynamics that many city churches have no congregations as no one lives nearby, so they are locked on Sundays and open for many different functions during the week.

One of the more unusual places we visited was a hairdresser at Leadenhall Markets. In their basements is a glass door showing part of the original Roman Basilica foundations. So the modern basement is the ground level of Roman times.