I’ve been pretty slow about getting these updates out, with the consequence that we are now less than a week from getting home! We’ll get home two days before Dave has to go back to school, which is cutting it a lot closer than we usually do (we did it that way because we had to leave later than usual thanks to inconveniently timed AP exams). We’re in the Detroit area right now; we were supposed to be in Mackinaw City, but that would have added 600 miles onto our trip, and we were all feeling a little tired of driving, so we reluctantly canceled that stop in favor of a lot of Detroit days. So many! And it’s so hot here! It’s easing us in to our return to the southeast.
I again don’t have anything particularly catastrophic to report. Our water pump doesn’t seem to be working right, so we’ll need to get that checked out. Fergus the anxious terrier has not been enjoying car rides lately. The AC in the van seems to be acting up a little and we’re keeping our fingers crossed it doesn’t get worse before we get home. But mostly things have been fine. KNOCK WOOD!
Okay, so after we left the coast of New Hampshire, we made a short trip north to the White Mountains and specifically to the Lincoln/Woodstock KOA.
It was 4th of July weekend while we were here, so a totally full campground, and we were impressed with how smoothly everything ran and how clean the bathrooms stayed! Full review coming later.
The heat broke the day after we got here, and we had exactly one day of truly lovely weather before the cold rain set in and stayed for days. But we took full advantage of our lovely day by making the drive to Santa’s Village–the most adorable theme park ever.
We took advantage of our less than lovely days, too; I’m actually pretty proud of how we kept getting out there despite the relentless rain. We went to the Castle in the Clouds, toured the house and then walked along a charming little brookside trail with many waterfalls:
We spent another rainy day at Flume Gorge in Franconia Notch State Park. I have mixed feelings about Flume Gorge; it’s very pretty and a nice little hike…but it’s also VERY expensive for our family of six. We paid over $100. This is because New Hampshire doesn’t have income or sales tax, so the parks have to get their funding somehow. I understand, but at the same time we went to the at least as impressive Watkins Glen in New York a few days later and paid $10/car. So the Flume Gorge price was a little hard to justify.
We’ve spent a lot of this trip just sort of circling around my in-laws’ house in New Hampshire, so we’ve been able to see them quite a bit. They made the drive to the White Mountains and stayed nearby one night, and we hiked the (much rockier than expected!) Artist’s Bluff trail in Franconia Notch:
And with that, it was on to Vermont, where it rained SOME and was hot SOME, but mostly was fairly pleasant.
We stayed at North Beach Campground, a city park right by Lake Champlain. This was a 5 minute walk from our site:
Abe got to be the only kid for a morning (and the big kids got a relatively quiet trailer) when we took him to the Echo Leahy Center (the campground is also right on the path to walk or bike into town. This was when we were getting the van door fixed, so we took advantage of that a good bit on our van-less days).
We rented bikes and took a ride to the causeway that goes out onto the lake:
We went to the Shelburne Museum and were so impressed with it that we went back again the next day (admission is good for two consecutive days). I wasn’t sure what to expect from it before we went, and I don’t know exactly how to describe it now that we’ve been. It’s a big, sprawling museum complex that’s part living history, part….regular old history, part art, and part…decoys. There’s a giant building with nothing but decoys, and it’s a bit surreal. My favorite part was probably the circus building, though, with this amazing model circus:
There’s also a steamship that was moved onto the site after it finished its Lake Champlain career:
Then Nana and Grandpa came to Burlington to see us, and we all went to the Ethan Allen Homestead, and to the very pretty Shelburne Farms:
And we went to see a Vermont Lake Monsters baseball game (it used to be a minor league team, but it lost its affiliation and is not a collegiate league team). The Lake Monsters won! And Abe got Champy’s autograph:
And that was it for Vermont and for New England. Next post–onward to New York!
Those are some terrific waterfalls. I must go find some of my own.