Day 7: The White Mountains

 Day 7: The White Mountains

On Friday, we woke up in Kennebunkport, Maine at the Franciscan Guest House. We got up early so that we could walk around the monastery grounds and see Kennebunkport in the daytime.


Our second grotto of the trip


They keep a variety of relics here


Kennebunkport


The Bush compound


The "wedding cake house," the most photographed house in Kennebunk

We then drove about two hours and spent the rest of the day in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It was incredible! We started by driving on the Kancamagus Highway and making a couple stops, then bought sandwiches in Lincoln, NH.


The Historic Albany Covered Bridge - the first stop on the Kancamagus Highway


Lower Falls. We spent a lot of time walking around on the rocks, and Spencer said it was the most beautiful natural area he'd ever seen!




Such a pretty drive!


The Russell-Colbath House. This is the last remaining 19th-century homestead in the White Mountains



Lunch

After lunch, we did an amazing hike called Flume Gorge. I've never seen anything like it! 


Covered bridge near the start of the hike


A house near the beginning of the hike with information about the local wildlife




The flume. It was amazing to basically be walking on top of it!




Another covered bridge near the end of the hike

We continued on to Franconia Notch, another scenic highway though the mountains, and saw The Basin, which Thoreau called "the most remarkable curiosity of its kind in New England." It's a large pothole formed by water from a melting glacier during the Ice Age. The water still swirls around in a whirlpool, making the sidewalls round and smooth.

We also saw the Mount Washington Hotel (now called the Omni Mount Washington Resort & Spa), a Gilded Age hotel. After World War II, delegates from 44 different nations met in the hotel and created the International Monetary Fund.


Continuing along Franconia Notch, we drove through Bartlett, NH (named for Josiah Bartlett of West Wing relevance), went to a gift shop in a covered bridge, and got ice cream at Lickety Splitz, an ice cream shop filled with antiques. They have a toppings and sauce bar, which lead to some very sugary concoctions. 


Franconia Notch


The Josiah Bartlett School



The ice cream shop. Notice the antique decorations!


S'mores ice cream with marshmallow sauce and many toppings

After ice cream, we got back on the Kancamagus Highway (completing our loop) and made a couple final stops. 


Sabbaday Falls. [Josh note: this is an abbreviation of Sabbath Day]. So pretty!




Pemigewasset Overlook



The suspension bridge at the Lincoln Woods Trailhead

We finished the day by driving to Vermont and stopping for dinner at a cute diner called Shiloh's Restaurant along the way. We checked into the Maplecroft Bed and Breakfast in Barre, VT.


Our large room at the Maplecroft Bed & Breakfast!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1: Northwest Connecticut

Image
Hello all!  This week Josh and I are on a road trip with our friends Spencer and Ashley. We're doing an 9-day road trip through New England! Inspired by Emmy's Baltic blogging, I'm thinking I'll try to write a blog post for each day of the trip. Here goes my account of day one: northwest Connecticut, also known as the Gilmore Girls day [Josh note: we drove 393.8 miles this day!] For those who aren't familiar, Gilmore Girls is a TV show about a mother and daughter that takes place in a fictional town called Stars Hollow, Connecticut. One of the main draws of the show is the small-town charm of picturesque Stars Hollow, so we were excited to see if we could find any towns that felt like it.  Morning Drive We got an early start on the day, leaving a little after 5am. It was about a 5-hour drive to our first stop in Connecticut, and it involved driving over the George Washington Bridge and through the Bronx!  Woodbury Our first stop of the road trip was Woodbury, Connec...
Read more

Day 2: Hartford and Coastal Connecticut

Image
Morning in Thomaston On Sunday, we woke up early again for the 7:30am Mass at St. Thomas Roman Catholic Church in Thomaston. It was about a 5 minute walk from our inn. We learned that Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, was once a priest at the church!  After Mass, we walked around town for a few minutes. Of all the Connecticut towns we saw, Thomaston was most like Stars Hollow! They have a gazebo, an old-fashioned diner with barstools, white steepled churches, a hardware store, family-owned grocery store, and big brick public school, all on Main Street and the town green! We’re lucky that we got to see Thomaston, because we wouldn’t have thought to visit if the Plume House Inn wasn’t there.  We saw this place, Crabby Al's, on our way out of town, and it reminded us of Al's Pancake World! We then walked back to the inn and had a wonderful breakfast! The innkeeper, Kay, served us pineapple yogurt parfaits, quiche, and French toast casserole, plus great...
Read more

Day 3: Rhode Island

Image
I had to write most of this blog post on my phone, so hopefully the formatting doesn’t turn out too weird… Mystic/Groton Before heading to Rhode Island on Monday, we had a few more stops to make on the Connecticut coast. The first was the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, the “submarine capital of the world.” Josh and Spencer, being mechanical engineers, were really into it! Spencer is also a big fan of the Navy. The USS George Washington, the first ballistic missiles submarine. Josh on a “ship-mounted, anti-aircraft gun” (this is what Spencer, our military expert on the trip, says it’s called) Best friends! Informative. While we were at the museum, a submarine returned to the naval base from deployment and we got to see it being pulled back to shore! The highlight of the museum was going inside the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine.  Pretty small doorways! A letter from President Eisenhower Josh joining a work call from the USS Nautilus After the submarine ...
Read more