This next set of posts are from a trip we took in August and September 2022. Yes, almost a year ago.  When we got home in September 2022, I was still writing about Italy.  Then came Nashville, and Kauai and Detroit.  It was always my plan to go back and write about New England and Canada, but it just didn’t get done.

I regretted that because we really do like having this travelogue for ourselves, and especially because this trip has a unique, hopefully once in a lifetime, ending.

As we prepare to embark soon on another grand adventure, it is now or never on this trip.  I was thinking never until I went to delete all the extraneous photographs I take while preparing to write a series of blog posts. I just couldn’t do it.  The time is not never, it is now – and hopefully Randy can enjoy the end a year later. 

So, to begin….We flew from Phoenix to Bangor, Maine and went to see the city’s primary tourist activity – driving by author Stephen King’s house.

The sculpture in the yard was commissioned by Tabitha King. Artist Josh Landry used a chain saw, and worked for one month, to form a sculpture featuring books and animals out of the stump of a dead 300 year old ash tree. 

Going in the direction of Bar Harbor, we traveled along, and over, the Penobscot River.   We could see Fort Knox across the river.

To get to Fort Knox we crossed the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.  

It has the worlds tallest public bridge observatory at the top of the obelisk shaped center mast.

Fort Knox is one of the best-preserved military fortifications along the New England seacoast.

In the early years of our country, Maine was involved in border disputes with British Canada. Fort Knox was established in 1844 to protect the Penobscot River Valley against a future British naval invasion. 

It was one of 42 forts built along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific seaboards after the War of 1812 to defend critical harbors against enemy invasion.

We proceeded to Bar Harbor and found our cottage on the coast.

We enjoyed a sail among the islands of Frenchman Bay aboard a 151 foot schooner. 

We ate at Leary’s Landing, the closest Irish pub to Ireland in the United States. 

We went into Sherman’s Book Store, the oldest bookstore in Maine. It has been in business since 1866. 

We went into Acadia National Park several times but we never did have good weather.

We did what we could and enjoyed driving around.

Neither of us care to eat lobster but when in Maine, you just have too, right?!   Randy had a lobster roll.  I had a bite of Randy’s lobster roll.

After a few days, we moved into New Hampshire, specifically Franconia Notch State Park. It is the home of Flume Gorge! The flume was formed by molten lava pushing up through cracks in ancient granite.  The lava rock was worn away over the ages leaving the flume.  

The flume has widened by frost and water.  

Logging around the flume generated New Hampshire’s first conservation effort.  

The Appalachian trail’s northern most location is also nearby.

Franconia Notch is also famous for the Old Man of the Mountain.  Nathanial Hawthorne saw the profile in 1832 and wrote his short story, “The Great Stone Face” published in 1850.

The profile was present for at least two hundred years given a historical reference in 1805. 

In the 1870s, a group of hikers reported the granite ledges comprising the Old Man seemed to be slipping.  In 1916, a group of quarrymen drilled holes into the forehead stone and installed turnbuckles to anchor the profile.

In 1957 the state of New Hampshire approved sending tools and equipment to the top by helicopter.  Four additional turnbuckles were installed and water was diverted to avoid it seeping into crevices.  Additional work was done in the early 1960s. 

In 1965, the Old Man got an official caretaker, Department of Transportation bridge superintendent Niels Nielsen.  He, and his crew, worked each summer painting the turnbuckles, cleaning debris from crevices in the stone, and covering cracks to prevent damage from water seepage.   His son, David, eventually took over as caretaker.

The Old Man of the Mountain came down on May 3. 2003.  

To “see” the Old Man of the Mountain now you go to Profiler Plaza.

You find a pink granite stone engraved with your height. 

While standing on the engraved footprints, sight along the profiler with one eye closed.

It is then possible to see The Old Man of the Mountain once more.

Still in Franconia, we went 4000 feet up to the top of Cannon Mountain on the first tramway in the United States. 

Operations began in 1938.

We walked around a bit at the top.

We got engulfed in clouds at the observation deck on the summit.

While waiting for the clouds to lift, I downloaded, and read, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Great Stone Face.”  

The task of reading The Great Stone Face was accomplished, but not enjoyed. I’m just not a Hawthorne fan.

At the bottom of the mountain, we saw the original tram car outside the New England Ski Museum.  Of course we went in.

US skier Bode Miller learned to ski on Cannon Mountain and loaned his Olympic Medals to the museum.

More in Franconia, we went to The Frost Place.

Owned by the city as a nonprofit educational center for poetry and the arts, The Frost Place is in the poet’s former home.

Out back, we walked the Poetry Trail.

Along the way are opportunities to read about a dozen of Frost’s poems.

We had one more thing to do in New Hampshire before heading to Vermont.  We had a cruise upcoming and in August 2022 you still had to test negative for COVID within a specified period of time.

I had not been able to work out in-person testing anywhere in rural New Hampshire or Vermont. We had pre-purchased tests that we could administer ourselves while being medically supervised over our phones.  

Talk about stressful!  We had to worry about technology and the results while sitting at a picnic table somewhere in rural New Hampshire.

Fortunately, we both tested negative.

That meant we were on to our last New England destination before the cruise – rural Vermont.  

We were delighted to finally meet Randy’s cousin, Kevin, and Kevin’s niece Brynna.  We talked non-stop for two days.  What a joy!

Next post:  We hook up with friends and our cruise begins!