Touring Montreal, Canada (September 13)
	Driving to Tony's House in Boston (September 11)
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Spending the Morning at Tony Hirsch's House

Although Tony had been up for a while, Fred and I arose about eight-thirty so we could spend some time with Tony before we had to leave. Tony had a dentist appointment just after noon, and we didn't think we could stay all day and do dinner or something like that.

We were actually kind of in a quandary. The weather was still pretty rainy, and so we didn't think it would be a good idea to go right up to Acadia from here; the weather there was likely to be just like the weather here. By this time, we were pretty sure that the bad weather was the remnants of hurricane Ike, moving quickly up from Texas and through the Northeast. We did a lot of investigation on the Internet from Tony's little office, and all the signs seemed to point to better weather in the early part of next week. But for today, Friday, as well as Saturday and Sunday, there were clouds and rain showers forecast for most of New England.

So we made the decision that we would reverse the order of the things we were planning to do here in New England (which were to visit Acadia NP and go see Quebec City and Montreal in Canada). We'd planned to spend three days in Acadia, and then drive north across the border to Quebec City, from there to Montreal and then from there through Toronto and around to Niagara Falls.

We decided that our best chance for good weather in Acadia would be to visit Montreal and Quebec City first, and then spend our time in Acadia. From there, we would still head over to Niagara Falls, but we'd do so by driving through Massachusetts and New York State, rather than go around the northern shore of Lake Ontario in Canada. We also kept planning out the days, based on how long it had taken us to drive up here, and we concluded that there just wasn't time to spend an entire day here with Tony. Given that he would be gone much of the day, and probably not feel much like doing dinner after his dental surgery, we settled on a plan that had us leaving at the same time Tony had to head out to his appointment.

But this did give us the morning with Tony, and so we did some walking around the area where he lived. When we first came outside Tony's House, I stopped to take a picture. Tony's is a very nice house- two stories with a full basement. The bedrooms, office and two bathrooms are on the second floor, and the first has the living and dining rooms, a large kitchen and small family room and a huge enclosed deck/sunroom at the back of the house. I know that Tony feels somewhat lost in the house without Roberta; all the time I knew him, up until he got married, he'd lived in apartments or condos. But the house is really nice and full of mementos from their travels (and the many cruises they took).

Tony took us out front, and we were immediately met by two cats that belonged to a neighbor but tended to roam around the neighborhood. I couldn't resist picking up one of them, and later got a picture of the other one. Both of them lived in the house across the street, and those folks also had a dog, who was out in the front yard when we came out to the street. I wondered why he didn't come over to us, but Tony pointed out that they had one of those invisible barriers that activate a sensor in the dog's collar, and so he quickly learns not to try to cross it.

Tony wanted to show us his neighborhood, and he led us off on a walk around the perimeter of the small development- down Williams Way, around on Nathaniels Way and then back towards his house on Earls Court. All the houses in the neighborhood are very much in a New England style, and all seem to sit on large, heavily wooded lots.

One of the really interesting features about where Tony lives is that there are a number of cranberry bogs just across Clapp Road from where Tony is, and he took us over there to look at them. I'd never seen a cranberry bog before- just the commercials with guys standing in hip deep water with all the berries floating around them. So I was a bit surprised by what I saw. As soon as we crossed the road to the bogs, Fred took a picture of Tony and I with the bogs behind us.

You can't really tell what the bogs are like from that picture, though. What they are are multi-acre depressions with moats around them, and the berry plants grow in the depressions, surrounded by water (and kept very wet as they grow). You can get an idea of what these depressions are like from this picture of Tony and I walking around a bog. The berry plants are about two feet below the tops of the earthen walkways that divide the bogs, and as you can see, there is a lot of water in the bog itself. This series of bogs, which seemed to cover about 15 or 20 acres, requires a lot of water, and there are two or three ponds beside the bogs that provide the water. I believe that Tony said the water is pumped up from wells at the edge of the property.

From a distance, you can't really tell what's growing here, but when you get up close, as Fred did, you can see that the plants in the depressions are thick with cranberries. You can see another view of the growing berries here. I understand from Tony that when it is time to harvest the berries, all they have to do is flood the bogs and then run through the plants with a machine that dislodges the berries from the stems, and they do float to the top of the water where they can be gathered up. I certainly eat my share of cranberry sauce, so it was interesting to me to see where the raw material comes from.

While we were walking around the bogs, I made a movie of Fred and Tony.

And just before we left the bogs to walk back to Tony's house, I took a picture of Fred and Tony at the cranberry bogs.

Back at the house, we did some more checking of weather and stuff on the Internet, and made our final decision to head first for Montreal and Quebec City, and then, at the end of the weekend, arrive at Acadia National Park. Our visit with Tony was all too brief, but our time was limited and he wasn't feeling particularly good because of his tooth problem, so we got showered and dressed and took our leave, following Tony's directions to get up to and through Boston.

Driving to Newport VT

Acadia Trip: Map 23

When we left Tony's, about noon, we followed his directions: Clapp Road to Mary's Pond Road to County Road to I-495. His directions were quite good, but then I am sure that he follows that route every time he goes up to Boston. It was interesting on the four-mile drive to look at the old New England houses, the stone walls and the countryside. We got some gas just before getting on I-495 heading north.

Acadia Trip: Map 24	Acadia Trip: Map 25

As shown on Map 24, we headed up I-495 towards Boston. Knowing that it might be difficult to get off the expressway anywhere in the city and get back on easily, we decided to stop for lunch, and after just a few miles stopped in North Carver at an Angelo's sandwich restaurant. It was something similar to a Subway, but not as good, I thought.

Anyway, heading north on I-495, Tony had intended to send us around Boston, but the signs were unclear and we found ourselves on Massachusetts Route 24 heading directly into town. Route 24 eventually merged with I-93 North into Boston itself. This was OK, because I thought Fred might enjoy seeing downtown Boston. (You can see another, closer view of downtown Boston here.)

On Map 25, you can see our route through downtown Boston. We went through some of the tunnels of "The Big Dig," the huge expressway reconstruction project that was just completed a couple of years ago. As we emerged from the last tunnel, the highway went over the new Charles River Bridge. The highway then took us through the northern suburbs of Boston, crossed over I-95 and then crossed over I-495 (the beltway that Tony had intended for us to take). This brought us to Lawrence MA.

Acadia Trip: Map 26	Acadia Trip: Map 27

A few miles north of the Boston suburbs, I-93 crossed into New Hampshire, the 15th state that we had visited on this trip. We went through Manchester, where I've done some work before, and Concord, the state capital. Fred and I have been on this highway before; about eight years ago when he flew up to spend the weekend with me while I was doing a three-week stint at Paymentech south of Manchester. We hiked the White Mountains and visited Mt. Washington. We also had a chance to see the rock formation by the highway known as "The Old Man of the Mountain" (before it collapsed and had to be reconstructed about four years ago).

Today, it was rainy with many low clouds. I made a movie as we drove along.

You can also see some of the scenery along the highway by clicking on the thumbnails below:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

We continued north on I-93 past Lake Winnipesaukee, and then through the sparsely-settled White Mountains (Map 27). We passed Franconia and Franconia Notch State Park, one of the places that Fred and I had gone hiking on that earlier visit, and then passed the town of Littleton.

Just north of the town of Littleton, we came across a fairly large lake, and there was a sign for a visitor center and the Moore Reservoir Dam, so we got of the highway to take a look. First, we stopped at the Littleton Visitor Center, which turned out not to be a Vermont visitor center (where I wanted to get a Vermont map), but rather a visitor center for the town of Littleton and the surrounding area. (We had not yet crossed the state line.) We did pick up a few brochures that were useful, but mostly we took pictures of Moore Reservoir (you can see another picture of the reservoir without me in it here) and the area around the center. Behind the visitor center, on the lawn overlooking the reservoir, I took a picture of Fred by a small commemorative placque that read:

Acadia Trip: Map 28

After entering Vermont, we drove a bit further until I-93 merged into I-91, and then we continued north towards Newport VT. We had done some calling earlier, trying to make a reservation at the Super 8 Motel in Derby Center, but they were full. The person I talked to at the Super 8 recommended another hotel- the Newport City Motel- that was in downtown Newport, and so I made a reservation there.

The Vermont map we had was not too detailed, and so as it turned out (as you can see from the map above), I went a bit out of my way getting to teh Newport City Motel; I could have gotten off the expressway an exit earlier and gone directly into the town of Newport, rather than going through Derby Center first. But it was only an extra ten minutes or so.

Staying in Newport VT

We found the hotel with no problem at all. It was a fairly large place, pretty much in the center of town, and it seemed to be fairly busy. We had an OK room, if a bit old and a bit small, but we aren't too particular. Since we'd brought the blender and some fixings, I got some ice and made frozen drinks for the two of us, and we sipped them while researching both Montreal and Quebec City on the Internet, and planning the next two days.

I went over the motel office to get some recommendations for dinner in Newport. They had a selection of menus and I wrote down some of the better choices for Fred to look at online back in the room. We settled on a restaurant called The Cow Palace back on the other side of the Interstate in Derby Center, and so after we'd finished our drinks we headed over there. It turned out to be good, informal restaurant with a big menu, and it overlooked Derby Pond (although when we got there it was dark and we couldn't see much). They served buffalo, as it happened, so Fred got a big buffalo burger and a salad and I got a regular large burger and sides.

Back at the room, I did some planning for the route to Montreal. Tony had suggested crossing the border on I-91 and then driving to Thruway 20 to Montreal (an expressway) and so I jotted down the directions. All that got changed the next morning, and we took a different route to Canada, but we'll talk about that tomorrow.

You can use the links below to go to another album page.

	Touring Montreal, Canada (September 13)
	Driving to Tony's House in Boston (September 11)
	Return to the New England Trip Master Index