Sept 29 - Rangeley, ME

Starting Mileage 53065

Our host, Alex, prepared our breakfast this morning. Blueberry pancakes, again! Better though than our Aunt Jemima mix plus juice, grapefruit and bacon. We had friendly conversation with our fellow guests then headed west on route 16 toward New Hampshire.

More color. The fog did not lift today. We decided that maybe it was clouds, so tuned in the local weather station to verify our thoughts. Yes, a front is coming through.

We headed down the Androscoggin Valley along yet another scenic road. If any bicyclists crave a great journey, add this part of the country to your route. Most of these roads have little traffic. They are not particularly curvy, so even the few trucks can pass easily. We drove because of the impending storm and we wanted to see as much of the White Mountains today as we could. Unfortunately, we cannot see the tops of the mountains since they are cloud enshrouded.

We stopped at Flume Cascade and Silver Cascade and walked to Ripley Falls within Crawford's Notch State park. The Saco River starts here. Another scenic streambed. We followed its valley to our home of tonight in Glen.

Has anyone else tried Phish Food Bars by Ben and Jerry? Ice cream bars shaped like chocolate fish. Yumm.

That's about it. Not an exciting day, but the scenery is still nice. We did stop at another maple sugar exhibit. Always a thrill. I told Deb that if we had enough maple trees on our farm that we could probably make our own syrup. It would be quite something to pour your own maple syrple over pancakes made with flour from your own mill with grain and blueberries you had grown yourself. Since I plan on having a small river on the farm she should probably start planning the mill before too long. I already have several good ideas for the chicken coop. Gotta have fresh eggs with the pancakes, right?

At the Back-To-Nature fair we attended last weekend she had already begun picking out her tractor and some of the attachments we'll need. What a woman!

Sept 30 - Glen, NH

Starting Mileage 53231

Poo-poo day! Kind of a drizzly rain last night and cloudy this AM. We may just spend today here since it's supposed to clear tomorrow.

We got about 15 miles and gave up. The storm came in, and there was no sense in going any further so we bought some comfort food, got some books and magazines, found a campground, and holed up for the day. It's only 1:00PM. I also got another gallon of maple syrple. Can't have too much of that.

I should also note that many of the mountains around here have large granite outcroppings. New Hampshire is even known as "The Granite State". They contribute greatly to the beauty of the mountains in this area, known as the White Mountains. The White Mountains is a great recreational area and the slopes of the mountains are covered with ski resorts. We were riding down the road today and Deb, looking at some markings at a mountain far in the distance said, "There's a ski resort. Or maybe it's just some granite." I could not quite resist saying, "Be careful. You can't take those ski resorts for granite." I laughed for about two miles. Deb didn't laugh. All I heard was a heavy sigh. Sometimes that woman has no sense of humor.

The weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow, so we decided not to miss any of this scenery. We are parked now along the banks of the rising Saco River, but they promised if evacuation were necessary they would give us warning. Apparently this campground flooded two weeks ago when Floyd whipped through.

It rained most of the day. About 4 PM it cleared up and a little sun peaked through. Bob and I walked alongside the clear, green river and scuffed our toes in the beach just south of the campground. After our stroll we settled back in the van and only about 30 minutes later looked out and noticed that the river has come up at least 3 feet and is no longer clear or green. It is muddy and swirling and moving very fast. All the water out of the White Mountains must have just hit us. This is no skinny little California river. There is a lot of water.

We read, munched, played with the computer, read, had dinner, and went to bed Slow day.

October 1 - Conroy, NH

Starting Mileage 53260

It's clear, crisp, and calm this morning. I think I'll whip up some pancakes, flood them with maple syrple, and head on up the Kancamagus Highway. It's supposed to be "the" spot for leaf viewing in New England.

The river has only dropped a foot and a half since its peak last night. It is still runny muddy. Must have rained more up top than we thought.

We ate breakfast at a café again. We put everything away in Vinnie and realized we had not eaten. Laziness strikes!

But the Kancamagus Highway wasn't what it was supposed to be. The leaves here won't be at their peak for another week or two yet. It's pretty, and there are some small pockets of color, but mostly it's still green. The highlight of the day was a stroll through the Franconia Notch State Park. It's a two-mile walk through some very pretty geological formations and rocky glacier droppings.

First we stopped at the appointed scenic spots on the Kancamagus Highway. I'm glad we waited till today because at least it is clear and sunny again and we can view the mountaintops. It all smells fresh and clean.

We walked the Franconia Flume trail. A narrow boardwalk has been built into the side of a narrow cascading ravine. At one point sprays of water from the left misted together with last night's rain oozing out of the mountain on the right to make it feel like a cool tropical forest. Too many tourists though and we are them! There are waterfalls and pools and streams all along this trail.

Saw the Old Man in the Mountain and drove on. Once we left the White Mountains, we were on quiet country roads threading our way through well-kept farms and homesites. We headed west to end up next to the Connecticut River again.

I wanted to go for an evening ride, but laundry called. By the time we finished it was too late.

Deb was quite shocked when I mentioned that eight pairs of socks would last the rest of the trip and we wouldn't have to do laundry again. She refused to believe that we were that close to the end of our trip until she counted out the days on her cute little fingers. We will be in Erie on or before October 10^th.

October 2 - Orland, NH

Starting Mileage 53382

A brisk, foggy Saturday morning. Which quickly cleared to a glorious New England Fall day. We took showers and a short walk along the Connecticut River that flows along the campsite and separates New Hampshire and Vermont. After breakfast we drove into Vermont to begin the day's drive.

When I was a young lad, my uncle and his brother had a monument shop (gravestones) as a side business. I remember his going to Barre, VT every year or so to visit the place they bought their granite. My memory is very clear on this because I always got some maple sugar candy when he got back. Perhaps this is where I got my taste for maple. As we were driving near Barre we noticed signs to a visitor center at the Rock of Ages quarry. Kind of on a whim and because of my memories, we went. Are we glad we did! It was quite fascinating. They had a quarry tour, and the pit from which they extracted the granite was quite awesome. It's the biggest granite quarry in the world, and it shows. They can lift 200 ton pieces of granite, and only 20% of the pieces are usable for monuments and architectural items. The rest is discarded, and there are huge, and I mean HUGE piles of waste granite lying around the quarry. It's a place worth visiting.

Kind of surprising that there were not more granite foundations or rock walls. It was a company town. If your grandfather worked in the quarry and your father worked in the quarry, then you worked in the quarry. But can you imagine being suspended on a rock wall in early March here in Vermont with a blasting freezing wind and ice? Not me!

The color in Vermont is the best we've seen. It's not quite peak yet, but it's still impressive. We stopped at a roadside stop along a small stream for lunch. Beautiful! The stream was clear and the foliage around it was very pretty. The woods here are different, too. I like them.

A bit further down the road we found a local Fall Crafts Fair. And would you believe it?!! They were selling maple syrple! Our stash is now up to two gallons. We found the prime stuff for only $18.50/half gallon. Naturally, I couldn't let a deal like that slip through my fingers. It's good to have a choice when you're having pancakes on those brisk winter mornings.

There are four grades of maple syrup:

Grade A Fancy - which is light in color and has a delicate maple flavor

Grade A Light Amber - which is a bit darker and a slightly more intense flavor

Grade A Dark Amber - which is the "normal" stuff for maple flavor lovers and is most likely the grade purchased from supermarket shelves.

Grade B - which is used mostly for cooking, not eating.

Our route took us along the Green Mountains of Vermont. As we got further south the color of the foliage decreased noticeably. We passed many of Vermont's ski areas and finally stopped for the night in Ludlow where we realized that it was Saturday, and we had missed our usual "Friday Night Dinner" at a restaurant. All during our trip we have displayed a knack for picking good restaurants by sight. We did it again. We found a funky old place on the outskirts of town and had ourselves a fine dinner. I had prime rib (again) only because the horseradish clears up my sinuses, and Deb struck it rich with a pork loin in nuts with a pineapple-soy sauce on mashed potatoes and asparagus. She hasn't stopped talking about it since. Of course, a crispy and whimsical Pinot Grigio complimented our dinner. That's the wine, not the Italian tenor.

October 3 - Ludlow, VT

Starting Mileage 53515

We drove again today. Continued on down Vermont Highway 100 and then onto Highway 8 into Massachusetts. We stopped at another flea market and wandered through the stalls. A big black cloud stationed itself over us, but we never did get rain.

They were selling maple syrple at the flea market, but Debbie wouldn't let me buy any more. I guess she thinks two gallons is enough. Plus we are running out of room in the long-term storage area.

My "Debbie" mug broke today. I have had it since I worked the night shift 14 years ago. Every morning at work I had coffee from this mug and every day this summer and now it is no more. Oh, woe is me.

Even though the sun came out later, it is cool. Summer is definitely over. We wore jackets all day and I now have all my sweats out of long-term storage. Plus it is totally dark by 6:30.

Today was kind of generic. Nothing remarkable about it. We just drove. We did have a nice dinner. Local squash, homegrown tomato salad, and prawns. We also picked up some French Farmhouse bread at the local bakery. Heavy and TOUGH! If you could break off a chunk, it was very hard to chew. But it was very tasty. Sure makes me glad my dear old mom made me go to the dentist all those years.

October 4 - East Otis, Mass.

Starting Mileage 53670

Woke to rain this morning. And the angels were bowling. Nature's alarm clock.

Have you ever heard "angels bowling" before? Not me, but then we don't have a lot of thunder in Santa Cruz.

It was cold this morning. We were not happy packing it all up in such cold rain. Then we listen to the news later and heard it snowed just a hundred miles north of us. What day is this? December 4? And he wants to move to Portland? It didn't get out of the 30s today there. What was the temperature in California?

Today we drove. It rained most of the day. Now that the end is in sight, I'm ready to quit. It's time. The only thing I want to see between here and Erie is the Corning Glass Works. I remember their visitor center from my childhood, and it is an amazing place. If we went there tomorrow, and then Erie on Wednesday night, it would be OK with me. Deb wants to ride another day. I don't. I'm done.

We drove up the Taconic Valley in eastern New York then across to the west below the Adirondacks. Rolling hills. More area is cleared. Some buggies plopping along the road. And the color was stupendous. Different than Vermont or Maine, but brilliant reds in the sumac and vines crawling up the trees.

The drive today was pretty in spite of the rain, and I even got us a free breakfast. We stopped at a small place in Mass., and the waitress/owner was having trouble with her computer, no display. She asked us if either of us was computer literate. I admitted I was and asked her if she wanted me to look at it. I did, hit the reset button, and it restarted. I explained the reset button to her, reset her desktop, and she gave us breakfast for free.

Tonight we sit in a motel room in New York. It is warmer in here than out in Vinnie.

October 5 - Richfield Springs, NY

Starting Mileage 53907

Today we drove.

What a surprise!

It was still raining this morning, and it rained most of the day. We stopped at Corning to see the glass museum. It is quite impressive. They have many displays, a history section, an art section, and a live glass blowing demonstration. It's well worth anyone's time if they are in the area.

Like anyone we know is going to HAPPEN to be in the area of Corning, New York.

Once again I was more than happily surprised at the scenery in New York. I always thought of New York as the city and never realized they had so many dairy cows. More buggies plopping down the road. The fall color here is as good as we saw anywhere in New England. The roads are wide and well paved and lightly traveled.

If it weren't for Bob hurrying back to the barn we could have stopped to enjoy it a bit. But really it has started to feel like fall…cool all day and cold at night.

Tonight is our last night in Vinnie. We decided to forgo a motel room and restaurant in favor of one last night cooking and cuddling in Vinnie. Vinnie was really the star of this show. He was everything we expected him to be and then some. True, he blew up his AC, but that was in Florida during a terrible heat wave. We didn't fault him for that. He held together remarkable well. He has a few more scrapes and dings than he had at the start of the trip, but he is so much more experienced than he was. He has carried us through many adventures.

Was the trip what we expected it to be? No.

We envisioned many slow evenings reading along the banks of rivers. Many more nights talking with our fellow campers. Many more days on our bicycles. We thought we'd see much more of the country. In truth, we barely scratched the surface although we traveled 19,000 miles. This country is too vast for any one person to see in any one lifetime. We are not allotted enough time to see all of this country in all of her seasons. We could perhaps see it, but we could never experience all of it. There is too much. We went south in the summer. It was hot and humid, and we ran into a nation-wide heatwave. Was that a mistake? We thought it might be. But perhaps not. It was another experience. Good or bad, right or wrong, it was part of what we left home to see. We won't forget it.

I think to experience an area we would have seen maybe one or two states, but we wanted to see a lot. I guess we don't have enough time left to work anymore. We have more explorations to do. I look at my map of what we did drive through and there is much more that we did not see.

But I was happy to shed a preconceived notion of the white-gloved easterners. They may be here, but if you don't go into the city you don't see them. Out in the country all of the people are in coveralls and trying to make a buck. Many have two or three jobs to get by. One woman told me it was all worth it though because she thought her quality of life was much better than when she lived in LA. Well, if that is your example, I agree. It is all too complex to generalize. This is a grand country.

October 6 - Wellsfield, NY

Starting Mileage 54149

Didn't get as cold as we had anticipated last night. Vinnie's heater would have kept us warm anyway. It was only into the low 40s. Bob was spooned up so tight that I actually threw off blankets in the night and then he would snuggle them back around me again. No, it is not hot flashes…not yet at least.

Once up we were on the road very quickly. Bob would not even take a shower since he was going to be at Mom's very soon. We have this "packing up thing" to a science now.

Over the summer we did quite a survey of bathhouses across America. This morning's rated a 2 or 3 out of 10, so it was lucky we did not feel inclined to us it.

My last and final emptying of the black water tank. Yeah!! I noticed though as I was dumping that the top of the holding tank in the ground had some significant corrosion spots (holes in the lid I had been standing on). A horrible thought…my last day doing this and I fall into the tank. When I was done dumping, I made Bob pull up the van, so I could close the valves without standing on it again.

The sky did not clear all morning. The hillsides continue to flame with color. We stopped at another friendly café for breakfast. Once again they all knew each other and meet every morning for coffee before starting their day. The waitress joked that not only did she know what they would order, but what each group would be talking about. Yep, she was born there and stayed.

We awoke to a brisk morning. It was kind of sad knowing it was our last day in Vinnie, but I am looking forward to our trip to California to get Deb's Buick. We got to my mother's house at almost exactly noon and began to empty our personal stuff and food out of Vinnie. Tomorrow we'll wash the outside and get her setup with a mechanic for a general checkup. We want to keep Vincent Van Go in tip-top condition.

We'll publish the trip statistics in a few days. We'll include stuff like Vinnie's MPG, cost of gas and lodging, miles/day traveled, etc.

So, the trip is over.

Splashdown:

10/6/99

Mileage = 54285

12:02:12 EDT

End of Week 21

End of Trip - Phase I