THERE'S TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Tuesday, September 24

Today was a travel day to Twin Mountains, New Hampshire.  Since it was only 58 miles we decided to wait unti 10:00 to leave.  Jenna and I went first and got out to the road where we waited for Earl and Eunice and Ron and Sherry.  They didn't come for about 10 minutes so I called George, the tailgunner, and asked about them.  He said that Earl and Eunice were having trouble getting up the hill and would be up in about 10 minutes.  After an hour I called George on the truck phone and he told me that they were still stuck on the hill and that no one else could get out.  They had to call a tow truck to get them up the hill, however there had been an accident on the interstate and all wreckers in the area were busy.  Earnie, another caravaner, has a semi tractor truck so he tied on their truck and pulled it up the hill and then tied onto their trailer and pulled it up.  They were 1 1/2 hours late getting started.  Everyone made it in here by 3:00.

On top of that, Barry and Terri, our wagonmaters, had trouble with their motorhome.  They didn't have enough power to drive anywhere.  They had to get a tow truck to take them 200 miles to Portland, Maine to a Freightliner repair center to have their motorhome worked on.  Barry went with the motorhome and Terri brought their car to Twin Mountains and will assume all the duties of the wagonmaster - which includes cooking dinner for all of us tonight.  She doesn't seem to think this is a problem at all and insists on carrying on with all activities.

Our drive today was an easy one.  

We stayed on the same highway all the way and it was indeed scenic.  The sun finally came out for a little while as we were coming down, but it has since clouded over again.  

The weatherman says the low pressure system up north is not moving out as they had expected.  He does promise that things will get better as the week goes on.  The trees were even more beautiful today with the sunlight.  

It looked as if the mountains were ablaze with color - it was truly beautiful.

I'll post more pictures from today's drive.  Tomorrow is a busy day.  We start out with a group breakfast and the we have a slew of places to visit.  I'll report on those things tomorrow.  Until then, Happy Trails!

WE FOUND IT

Sunday, September 22

We found it!  We finally found the fall colors that we came to New England to see.  As we left Quebec this morning we started seeing lots of reds, golds, and yellows mixed in with the evergreens.  It was truly beautiful.  Our drive today was just under 200 miles.  There are shorter ways to get from Quebec to Colebrook, New Hampshire, but we took the long scenic way.  The roads were generally good, but we had one stretch of dirt road that lasted for 6 miles.  It was full of pot holes and was rough and muddy.  Other sections of road were quite rough and forced us to drive at 25 - 30 mph.  We left at 9:30 and got here about 4:00. We left in a pretty heavy rain and it continued to mist and rain all day.  But, all of those negatives were offset by the terrific fall colors.  The park owner here told us that the leaves will peak tomorrow or the next day and will all be gone in a week so I guess we got here at just the right time.

Today was a first for me.  For the first time in the 10 years we have been traveling and camping, I had to hookup and loadup in the rain.  It rained pretty hard all night but stopped about 6:00 this morning.  When I went out at 8:30 it started misting and then came a downpour.  I got pretty wet before things were loaded and ready to go.  We did leave behind a 2x6 that we use to level the trailer, but George, the tailgunner, picked it up and brought it to me.

Tomorrow we go to Dicksville Notch for a tour and then we have a free day to sightsee in the area.

The rest of this post will be pictures.  Enjoy!  Happy Trails!

      Leaving our campground in Quebec

   

  Ron & Sherry led the way today.  They were preparing to go down an 8% and then 12% grade

         Earl and Eunice also traveled with us today.  Here they are preparing to

          go up a 12% grade to the Canada/USA border.

   The Connecticut River in northern New Hampshire

       A sign we don't see in Texas.  It designates a snow-mobile crossing

         The mountains around Colebrook, New Hampshire

      Looking toward Dicksville Notch from our campground.

      Another view from our campground.  Clouds and rain in the distance.

DRIVING TO DICKSVILLE NOTCH

Monday, September 23

Brrrr!  It was 42 degrees and cloudy this morning.   The weatherman promised partly cloudy skies today, but it doesn't look like he's going to be right.  We borrowed another electric heater from George and Carol last night and it helped keep us warm, but it was still cool in the trailer when I got up this morning.

Our RV park is called Notch View RV Park, and it is aptly named.  We are on the upper edge of a huge valley that leads to Dicksville Notch.  You can see for miles from our campsite and it would be much prettier if the sun would only come out.  Low lying clouds and drizzle sure doesn't help the view.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.   Terri and Carol prepared sack lunches for all of our group for today since we were doing a ride share to visit the sites.  Earl and Eunice asked us to ride with them today.  We left the campground and headed for the notch - Dicksville Notch that is.

Our drive was along a winding and sometimes steep road that paralleled a river.  Beautiful golds, reds, and yellows were everywhere with tall deep green pine trees mixed in.  

What a beautiful sight.   We drove about 10 miles to a pullout by a large lake.  On the other side of the lake was a big hotel - The Balsams Hotel

.  This is the spot where the 25 residents of Dicksville Notch vote right after midnight on days of presidential elections, thereby becoming the first to vote in the nation.  

They have done so since 1920.  The hotel is now closed and when we drove over to it we noticed that it was in pretty bad shape.  Apparently the new owner wants to modernize the appearance of the hotel, and the local preservationists want it to stay the way it was.  Now there's a stalemate as to what will become of the hotel.

We drove another 10 miles to the little town of Errol and visited the L L Cote Sporting Goods store. They are famous is this part of the country.  We were told in our travel briefing that our trainride on Friday to Mt. Washington would be cold, and on the weather this morning they said it was 0 degrees with 70 mph winds today on Mt. Washington.  The heaviest thing I brought on this trip was a sweatshirt and my Adventure Caravan jacket, so we decided to make a purchase.  I found a heavy jacket with a hood for $20 and a hooded sweatshirt for $30.  Jenna got a sweatshirt too.  We still need to find long underwear and gloves.

It was 44 degrees when we left Errol so we decided that a picnic was out of the questions.  We returned to the park and had lunch in the trailer.  Now we are at the laundry in Town washing clothes.  Tonight we are going out to dinner with a bunch from the caravan.  We haven't cooked more that 2 or 3 times since this adventure began.  Either the caravan feeds us or we go out to eat!

The rest of this post will be more pictures of the beautiful foliage from this morning.  Until next time, Happy Trails. 

A FREE DAY

Saturday, September 21

Today was a free day.  No activities were schedued other than a staff prepared breakfast and a trave briefing for our trip to Colebrook, NH tomorrow.  Barrey, Terri, George and Carol prepared breakfast in a bag.

      George warming the tortillas.

 This is something Adventure Caravans does on most of its trips.  We did it on our trip to Alaska.  You put a couple of eggs in a Zip Lock Freezer bag, add sausage, onions, peppers, ham, etc.  Then you squeeze the concoction in the bag to scramble the eggs.

    Terri helps Eunice scramble her eggs.

Get all the air out of the bag and drop it into a pot of boiling water for 5-8 minutes. When you pull it out you have an omelet that tastes great.

    Barry pulls the omelets from the boiling water.

         Terri gets Jenna's omelet out of the bag.

They also had fruit, toast, muffins, tortillas, juice, coffee, and all the extras for breakfast. It was a real treat. Adv. Caravans does a good job of providing lots of opportunities for fellowship with our traveling companions.

Following breakfast we had travel briefings for tomorrow and Tuesday. The next week is going to be packed with activities, so hang on and be ready for lots more.

       Barry and Terri hold a travel briefing

After the travel briefings everyone went their separate ways. Some stayed in the campground to do laundry or clean their rigs, some went to the Aquarium or other point of interest in Quebec. Jenna, Earl, Eunice and I went back down to Old Quebec City to shop and enjoy the atmosphere.

 Beautiful flowers were everywhere.

This guy played music on glasses.  Jenna bought his 

                                                                   CD

Singing from a 3rd floor window.

Street musicians were everywhere.

         

Another street entertainer

We really just spent the day walking and looking - not much buying.

      We had lunch at this outdoor cafe.

Things are more expensive here now than they were the last time we were here. The American $ is valued the same as the Canadian $ so we didn't have to pay more that the price tag like we did last time, but stuff is just more expensive.

       Earl visited with a donkey by the Anglican Church.

    A huge wall mural in Old Quebec. 

At 6:00 our entire group met at La Cremaillere, a very nice French restaurant, for dinner.

Like Jeff once said when we took him to a nice restaurant, "White tablecloths, napkins, and no country music - this must be a fancy place, " this restaurant was very nice, the food was good, but the service was so-so. We had a choice of appetizers from salad to escargot. Next was a leek soup that was pretty good. For the entree we had a choice of Seafood stew, Veal trip loin with baby carrots and shallot with potatoes, or Filet of beef with a red wine sauce acompanied by Yukon Goldpotato gratin. For dessert were could have Iced nougat with honey and nuts or Chocolate and Morello cherries cake with vanila an caramel sauce. Overall the food was good, but the veal was a little tough. We had to wait 30 minutes between the soup and the entree, and some were finished with their dessert before other received theirs, but we really had a good time visiting with everyone while we enjoyed the meal.

Tomorrow we head out for the good old USA. Until then, Happy Trails!