New England in September

For my first solo vacation, I elected to go to New England, where I could pick up three different states in three days! So I flew into Manchester, New Hampshire, picked up a rental car, and drove to Concord to find my hotel. The Yahoo directions were precise, but the streets were not marked well, so I had a long tour of the city of Concord before I finally found it. After settling in, I got out again, and had even more trouble finding the restaurant I had selected. But it was a good beginning once I got there.


The Red Blazer is apparently a term for a red fox, since that is the icon of the restaurant and pub. I ordered a seafood chowder and an order of stuffed mushroom caps and knew I was in New England when the waitress asked if I wanted the "chawder" first, or both together. It was exquisite, so I didn't really even want the mushrooms. Took those "home". The hotel room is very comfortable with a microwave and mini-fridge along with the standard coffeemaker, so I picked up some Diet Coke and breakfast bars on the way back after dinner.


Monday morning, after an indifferent breakfast at the hotel - coffee and English muffin were ok, but both the scrambled eggs and the sausage tasted a bit off - I hit the road for Vermont. Wish I had better maps or a GPS. I spent a lot of time on back roads - some I meant to but some I definitely did not. So it took me almost two hours to get to Vermont.


I really love driving in mountain country, where the highways have been carved out of the mountain leaving huge walls of granite along one side, stone in multicolored layers with trees or grass growing on the top sides. Sometimes, there will be a tumble of stone left in the median as well. It's impressive, but with no place to stop and photograph it, it remains something I just have to remember.


Equally amusing are the various road signs that are different from those seen in Michigan. "Falling Rock" probably isn't funny, but rather a bit alarming. "Moose Crossing" was promising, but so far I have not seen one. I wouldn't want to meet one too early. But the one that I thought was most interesting is the New Hampshire state law that said "Buckle up Under 18". That means, apparently, that the law doesn't require people over 18 to wear seat belts. I also noticed motorcyclists without helmets, so that recalled me to the "Live Free or Die" concept. It seems a bit odd to me, but so be it. I still wear my seat belt.


Just over the Vermont state line, in White River Junction, I paused for lunch at a Chinese buffet. Not the greatest food, however. Can't win them all.


I ventured down Rt 4 to find a state park which was labeled on the map, and even before I got there I found a reason to stop. At Quenchee Gorge State Park, there is a trail up and down the gorge. You can follow it upstream to see a dam, or go over the highway to view down the gorge. I took some pictures and had a nice walk up and down the trail.


Then I headed back to Concord and the hotel for a nap. Sticking to the highway system made a difference as I got back within an hour.


Day two, I slept a bit later and got on the road at around 9. I drove south to Manchester then east to the NH coast (before getting here, I didn't know they had any coastline), then north along the coast into Maine. It was great going over the state line - the border is Portsmouth Bay, and the bridge that goes over the bay on Route 1 is a drawbridge, but not a type I had ever seen before. There was a line of cars waiting while a ship went through, and I saw the bridge was actually an elevator - it lifts a section of highway straight up until there is clearance for the ship, then the counterweights go up as the highway goes back down. Then the gates go up (like railroad crossing grates) and the lights turn green and everyone goes.


From the bridge on Highway 1, looking west, I could see the bridge from Interstate 95 which is a much higher expansion bridge and doesn't need to open. I took this route on the way back.


But I continued to follow Highway 1 into Maine, where I stopped at a Visitor Center and got directions to the nearest lighthouse. On the way I passed a beach with space to park. The tide was out, and I walked along the tidal flat for a bit. Some people were flying kites in the breeze, and the gulls (they are big as cats!) were walking about eyeing people.


Then I went on to the "Nubble" lighthouse at Cape Neddick. I was really lucky - when I arrived, it was overcast but dry. I got out and looked over the ocean to the Boon Island Light (on a small island 6 miles offshore), and then photographed the Nubble lighthouse that is on a small island just off the point. After enjoying the sea air for a short while, I went across the street to Fox's Lobster House restaurant and ordered a lobster roll for lunch. My friend M had insisted I had to try one - and did mention they were pricey - but although it was good, I am not sure it was worth $16. Although I did have company as a gull sat by my picnic table and watched me eat every bite. I might have shared if it hadn't cost so darn much.


I took the scenic route back - or at least part of it. I went back south on 95, west on 101, then north and west on two lane roads until I got back to Concord. I found it was almost impossible for me to stay at or below the 65mph speed limit on the interstates. The two-lanes, on the other hand, make cruise control futile. The top speed is rarely as high as 55, but there are so many blind curves, hills and valleys, and no-passing areas that you really have to nurse the speed. And the roads were clogged with sightseers and trucks, neither of which helps if you are trying to get anywhere on a timetable. Fortunately, I wasn't really in a hurry.


Once back in Concord, I found my way to the Christa McAuliffe Discovery Center. I had looked forward to seeing this - I remember her dying on Challenger - and on the internet it said the exhibits were free, although there was a charge for the planetarium show. But when I walked in, I found that it wasn't so any longer. If I had walked in knowing there was a $12 charge, I might have felt differently - but I would expect to pay something like that for something like the British Museum - not a science center on a college campus.


Then for dinner, I actually had a serindipitious encounter. I went for dinner to a place called Beefside - famous for roast beef sandwiches, so I figured it would be a family style place where I would be okay in jeans. I had a cup of seafood chowdah - gosh I love that stuff - and a rare roast beef sandwich with horseradish sauce. At the end, the waitress asked if I wanted dessert. The lady across the aisle started talking to me after that - did I usually get dessert there. I told her I wasn't from here, that I was from Michigan, and she started asking me how long I had been here, had I ever been here before, where I had been, where I was going - we had a nice conversation although her husband never said a word. I am guessing they were in their 60s. At the end she asked for my address and said she would write to me and see how my trip (tomorrow) to Mt. Washington went.


I have to admit that while I was driving back to the hotel, I was tickled. It was as if I opened myself to whatever happens by making this trip, and I was rewarded. It will be interesting to see if she follows up.

Day three, it was pretty and sunny in Concord as I headed north, hoping to see Mt. Washington. It is a challenge for me to drive in the mountains - I have a touch of vertigo and it makes me nervous to drive on the mountain roads. But the view was spectacular until I got into the White Mountains and it started to cloud up and rain. I drove the Franconia Notch going north - a two-lane road carved into the side of the mountain. But when I got to the base of Mt. Washington, it was raining and I couldn't even see the top. So I drove on, hoping to get out of the rainstorm so I could take some photos. I had some luck, but I wish I could have photographed both the Franconia Notch going north and the Crawford Notch going south. Wow. I can't imagine driving those in the winter.

I did get a few nice photos at a scenic turnout just south of Glen, NH, looking over several nice mountains, though, before heading south again.

Tomorrow, I head home, pretty satisfied with the trip.

The Concert Band Trip

It was the earliest of my travels - back in college when I was 20 years old, my college concert band did a band trip from Michigan to New York city, with stops along the way. We stayed with families from town to town until we got to NYC, where we stayed in a hotel and played our final concert in Town Hall.


This was the first time I had ever been in Pennsylvania and heard Pennsylvania Dutch accents. It was the first time I had seen an urban, mostly black high school (in New Jersey). And of course it was the first time I had been in New York, seen a porn movie house, or dealt with panhandlers on the street as I and another 20 year old wandered around Times Square.


This was probably my first taste of travel, and even though the majority of it was hard work (rehearsing and performing, sitting on a bus for hours every day), it was enlightening. I wish I remembered more about the trip, but it was quite a while ago.

South Carolina - the Low Country

Adding another state to my list with a visit to my nephew who currently lives and teaches in a small town in South Carolina.

I took a flight down on Friday from home to Savannah, Georgia, which was the closest airport to my nephew's home town of Hampton, SC. From the Savannah airport, I took a rental car (silver Mazda 6 - nice car!) to Hampton - partly highway and partly a 2-lane road through rural country, with an interesting juxtaposition of palm trees and more conventional-looking trees (they aren't maples, I knew that, but they look bushy rather than tall and thin). Many have long ropes of Spanish Moss on them.

After arrival, I called my nephew, C, and we had dinner at a local pizzaria and planned our activities for Saturday. One of the first things we had done was visit a local man-made lake to see if we could spot any alligators. C had rented a boat the week before and gone out to see if he could spot and photograph one. He saw three, but the single photo he got wasn't very good - three bumps protruding from the lake surface was all he got. I took a couple of shots of the lake, which had some nice lily pads on it, but we didn't see any sign of a gator.

On Saturday we went to Charleston. Our plan was to take the ferry to Fort Sumter and perhaps visit the Aquarium nearby. But on the ferry back from the Fort, we instead got to watch the Blue Angels perform their airshow over the harbor. This was an unplanned benefit and one we took full advantage of. But no photos - they were just too fast to capture in a still shot.

We had lunch after the performance and then headed home for the day.

On Sunday, we drove to Hilton Head Island to see the lighthouse and the beach, play some mini golf, and do a little shopping. The weather continued to be gorgeous - sunny and in the 80s - and it was a pleasant drive, until we got to Hilton Head and realized that there was a major golf tournament taking place there and found we could not get to the lighthouse after paying to get access to the area. Everyone was being herded into parking for the golf tournament, and it was with some difficulty that we finally got out of the stampede.

So we gave up on the lighthouse and went to play mini-golf instead. That was fun, although of course I lost again - 57 to 55. Tough course! I was wearing a Michigan State t-shirt and the guy who took our fee asked me if I knew our basketball coach, Tom Izzo. Then we discussed the team's chances to return to the Final Four in the NCAA tournament next year. Spartans rock!

All in all, a great vacation weekend in SC, and I added another state to my list.

Iowa City

A trip to University of Iowa for a Big Ten conference was a long road trip for me in 2003. Since there were four of us, driving a university van was cheaper than flying everyone to Iowa City, but it did take about eight hours.

We stayed on campus at the university hotel. Contrary to my expectations, Iowa was not flat. Along the Iowa river, the university campus was hilly and green (of course there have been major floods of the river, including one a couple years ago that severely impacted the university). Other than that, it was a typical college campus.

The best thing about visiting Iowa was that I got a chance to see a friend. T had been a graduate student in political science at Michigan State and a co-worker of mine when I worked in a bookstore in East Lansing. All these years later, he'd completed not only the Ph.D in political science but a J.D. as well, and now was a professor at U Iowa. He'd asked me to bring him some Spartan gear but told me when I got there that he wished he'd asked me to bring him some Vernors as well. (Vernors is made and sold in Michigan but apparently not in Iowa.)

I met T for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near campus and then T showed me his office. We had a great conversation. That was probably the best part of the trip.

On the way back, somehow I ended up being the driver through the Chicago-Gary stretch of Interstate 80 - not recommended. I've driven that stretch several times and I always hate it. It isn't only that the traffic is heavy, always - though it is. The worst thing is that there are so many semi tractor-trailers that I always feel claustrophobic. It's very stressful.

But all in all, a good trip. Road trips with work colleagues are always fun.

Tempe, Phoenix, Sedona

I had the opportunity to visit Arizona when I was asked to consult with Arizona State University on their computer systems. Even though it was business, I did get a chance to play tourist a bit as well. I flew into Tempe, which is right next to Phoenix, and spent a few days on the Arizona State U campus. It was interesting to be somewhere that it never snows - people park on the perimeter of campus and move about by golf cart.

Although I had expected sun, I managed to catch a rare pair of wet days - I would have called them showers but the folks there were amazed with the amount of rain they got. Because the ground is sun-baked, it even caused some local flooding. Yet in Michigan it would have been nothing to speak of.

As I recall, I arrived late Saturday and on Sunday, my host took us on a road trip to Sedona, a tourist town further north. It was quaint, a series of little shops that reminded me of those on Mackinac Island here in Michigan. They were filled with arts and crafts objects, souvenirs, snacks, ice cream, tapestries - etc. A lot of stuff that I didn't need and didn't want, but it was fun to shop around.

I liked the desert but it was too different for me. Not pretty but exotic, interesting to see but not somewhere I would want to live.

New York

I've been to NY several times - once to Niagra Falls via Buffalo, which I'll talk about in a later post, and my first time on a band tour when I was in college - also will describe later. But probably the best trip I had where I was able to be a tourist was in 2005, when I went for a conference and stayed a couple of extra days so I was able to see some of the sights in New York City.

The sister of a close friend of mine lives in Manhattan, so my friend M and I overlapped some of the trip so we were able to spend some time together with her sister MT. I was there over the 4th of July so we viewed the fireworks over the East River as a part of the trip. But the first couple of days, I was there alone. I had dinner with some professional colleagues the first night, then during the free time I had the next day, I visited Julliard to see where one of my characters went to school. I wanted to see it, and the area around it where he would live.

On the 4th, besides the evening fireworks, M and MT and I walked through Rockefeller Center, where the Today show films. We visited the NBC store nearby, then saw St. Patrick's Cathedral. That was very interesting - large and beautiful. We also saw the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations.

Next day, I was at the conference but in the evening, there was a perk for some of us - a trip to a Broadway show. We saw "The Producers" - that was fun. Although I had no idea that Broadway theatres are so small. Compared to Midwestern venues, it was tiny.

The conference wrapped up the next morning, so in the afternoon after lunch, the three of us went to Coney Island in Brooklyn. It took almost an hour on the subway. We wandered the boardwalk, had dinner, then went to a minor league baseball game - the Brooklyn Cyclones. I bought two T-shirts there that are still among my favorites.

The following day, MT had to work, so M & I visited the Museum of Modern Art. The three of us had dinner at a cozy neighborhood Italian restaurant near MT's apartment called Nochellos. The food was good and M & MT had a lot of wine.

My final day in New York, the three of us braved a cold and rainy day to take the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We didn't disembark on Liberty but spent quite a bit of time on Ellis Island. I knew my grandparents or great grandparents had immigrated in through Ellis Island but wasn't sure exactly when. I found a couple of men named Meyer, which I knew had been our family surname before we came to America. I wish I had known more about my ancestry before I went.

Great trip, all in all.

Denver, Breckinridge

Colorado is one of my favorite states. I like mountains. I have been lucky enough to visit Denver several times and once had a conference in the ski resort town of Breckinridge, albeit in the summer season. It was still wonderful.

My memories of Breckinridge are of taking a ski lift up to the top of the mountain - great view. I stayed in a privately-owned condo at the resort. This was the first time that I had known that this is a common practice in resorts and I was a bit stunned by the decor of the condo I got, including the massage chair, the huge bedroom, and the fully stocked kitchen. It had two full baths - which seemed excessive for one person. And two balconies.

My other memory of Breckinridge was finding an extraordinary sushi restaurant and having the sushi chef, surprise to find a somewhat knowledgable Caucasian at his sushi bar, try me out with a seaweed salad that I absolutely loved. Unfortunately, I never found it served anywhere else.

Several conferences in Denver have made me reasonably familiar with the downtown area - Larimer Square. One visit involved a dinner and wine with some colleagues, an after-dinner visit to a Russian tea room for samplings of flavored vodka, and then a beer in the hotel bar on the way to turning in. I don't think I have had that much alcohol in one session since, but it was memorable.

I also found a downtown mall where I discovered a beverage that I believe was called a Polar Bear - coffee, chocolate and milk on ice, with whipped cream and garnish of finely-ground chocolate-covered coffee beans. It was quite good.

Every time I visited Denver, I would buy and bring back a different kachina doll. I tried always to buy a new one by the same artist so they matched in size and style. The photo I'm attaching here isn't one of mine but is a typical sample of a Navajo kachina. Mine are tourist versions - not unique or valuable, but they are fun to have. After I had collected about six of them, I decided I really had enough. I am not a serious collector of stuff, and by that time a trip to Colorado wasn't all that exciting.

The final thing I will mention about Denver, though, is that I really like their airport. I have been in a lot of them but the open feeling of the main terminal in Denver is unique and I really enjoy it every time I am there.