A couple of weeks ago Christy and I decided to drive to Maine. I had a week of vacation left, and it was her last week before school. So we decided to make use of it. Unfortunately we planned to leave on Friday, leaving us 4 days to plan the trip, buy the food, and pack.
We left Friday afternoon and headed for Pennsylvania. Our first stop was to visit my Grandmother near Hershey. I hadn't seen her is several years, so it was one good reason to make the trip. In planning the trip one of my first tasks was to find a campground to stay at the first night. In searching the internet, I found one in nearby Intercourse, PA. I was tempted, just so that I could say that I camped in Intercourse. Plus, I'd have to pick up the T-shirt. You know, the one that says "I'd rather be in Intercourse". Or possibly the one that says "My ex-wife went to Intercourse, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." But we didn't do it. Instead I picked a campsite conveniently located near the turnpike. This worked out ok, though it was even closer to the highway than I expected. It wouldn't have been any less noisy if we had pitched the tent in the median. We were both pretty tired though, so we didn't have much trouble sleeping.
We got up Saturday to what ended up being our coldest morning. We had a nice visit and breakfast with Grandma, and then it was on to Vermont. We drove up through Scranton, Binghamton, and Albany before finally making it into Vermont. We really liked Vermont. It was nothing but cute towns, mountains, and ice cream shops. I'd guess they must have one ice cream shop for every 4 Vermont residents. Apparently ice cream is all they eat there, because we had a hell of a time finding a grocery store. After a lengthy search we finally found one in Bennington, and we were on our way to the campground.
We stayed at Hapgood Pond in the Green Mountain National Forest. It was a nice area, and a bargain at $5. Our site was actually in a cul-de-sac, which is kind of an oddity in a campground. As a result, we had a fairly quiet site despite the large group of German tourists next door who had a tough time parking their cars.
On Sunday we decided to stretch our legs a bit. We didn't have a lot of time, but I wanted to at least do a short hike in Vermont. We drove over to the White Rocks Picnic Area near Wallingford. We found an empty parking lot there, and hiked a trail steeply up to meet the AT / LT. The Appalachian Trail shares the path with the Long Trail in southern Vermont. The Long Trail runs the length of the state, and is considered an excellent backpacking trip. Today though we only followed it for about a mile, but it was up a considerable hill. We hiked up through the spruce forest and reached an impressive series of cairns. From there we followed a side trail out to White Rock Cliffs. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the views of the Green Mountains were superb.
We still had a long drive ahead of us though, so we didn't linger long. We returned to our side trail, where Christy kindly offered to return to the car and pick me up where the AT / LT meet the highway. I'm always eager to see new territory, so I continued ahead. I crossed Bully Brook and headed downstream above a series of waterfalls. I didn't have much time, but I couldn't resist trying to get a better look. It only took a few minutes of exploring to get a good view of a mossy waterfall and a deep pool. The creek was small, but the water was forced between two rocks, which made a nice flume. From there I hiked out to the highway, where Christy eventually found me.
The rest of the drive through Vermont was a pleasure. The towns were full of houses and churches made of stone. We drove through a covered bridge. We quickly reached New Hampshire though, and pretty soon we were back on the interstate. You can't see anything from the freeway, but we still had to get to Maine that evening.
We did stop at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for a late lunch. Somehow we found a metered parking spot and carried our picnic out to the beach. It was a nice break, but by mid-afternoon we had to get serious about getting to Maine. Once on the Maine turnpike we really started to make some time. I kept the car around 80, but easily could have gone faster. There was little traffic and the road was good. We did enjoy the Maine welcome sign, which featured the state slogan, "Maine - how life should be".
We reached Millinocket around sunset and the Big Moose campground at dusk. As usual we got to set up camp in the dark. The campground was decent, although our site needed a high clearance vehicle to get into it. They didn't tell us that, and we didn't have one, so it was a bit bumpy. Fortunately, our part of the campground was empty, which was a surprise. We went to bed early, which was good since we were getting up at 4 the next morning to climb Katahdin.
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