Monday was very misty in Maine by the Bass Harbour lighthouse where we had camped Saturday and Sunday as Matt told you last time. It was so misty that as we ran along the lanes we could see every single spider web and then worryingly all the downy hair not just on Matt’s head but on my cheeks!! He called me a bearded freak… a charming start to the week! As it turns out this was not the only hair crime of the week…

The mist cleared and we reluctantly left Acadia but as we only have two weeks to get to Washington DC to be ready for Mummy and Nick’s arrival and there is as always so much to see. So that first day we had a reasonable drive inland to get to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Gerry and Donna had already been there and said it was stunning, so as usual our fear of missing out (FOMO) kicked in and we set off.

Sadly, on all our time on the roads we have never been caught in anything nasty, but last Monday was the exception. We were stopped for nearly three hours as a guy had died just in front of us by driving into a truck pulling out of the hard shoulder. It was so bad that the road was closed and we all had to do a three point turn and drive back down the carriageway the wrong way. Quite fun in Reg and I fear we that I am losing my entrepreneurial streak as a lady said she envied us having had a bathroom during the wait. Thinking about it we could have made teas and coffees for the stranded motorists and charged for the loo – instead I had a little doze and a lie down on the shelf and Matt read his book. Poor guy though.

The delay made us arrive at our site in the dark but next morning we could see that we were nestled in low mountains, covered in green, red and yellow trees. The fall in all its glory. Incredibly picturesque – we drove to the Cog Railway which was the first mountain rail road in the world when it opened in 1869.

We got our tickets and went up to the summit of Mount Washington. The train chugged – now the engines run on bio diesel but they still do one steam run early in the morning for real enthusiasts. The track is amazingly steep – you could not stand straight at the steepest part – Jacobs’s Ladder, which is on a gradient of 37 degrees.

We went through clouds and emerged into sunshine at the top. Skiers will recognize that feeling, but also a bit like in a plane when you look out and the clouds look like rolls of cotton wool. The facilities at the top were all a bit shabby and municipal. The state has built probably the ugliest building in the world so it is quite lucky that for 300 days of the year Mount Washington is normally covered in fog.

We had a picnic at the top, but there was not much to it so an hour later we got the train back down. The seats are angled differently on the way back to stop everyone feeling weird and the guide who had been effusive on the way up about the sights, was this time solely focused on the brakes – which was reassuring!

Mount Washington is the highest peak in New Hampshire, but just one of the Presidential Range. There is also a Monroe, Jefferson, Eisenhower and then some random ones that are not presidents like Clay. Bit confusing.

The landscape was very different to Maine. Very chocolate-box stuff – exactly as you imagine New England to be. We drove to Bretton Woods after the railway and that, surrounded by perfect green lawns was almost too sickly to the eye! The hotel at Bretton Woods where the economic conference was held in 1944 was huge. A bit like the lodges in the parks, this huge white monstrosity with a bright red roof dominated the valley, but we could not find anyone that wanted to serve us a cup of tea or any photos of the conference so we left.

On Wednesday, we drove a bit further into the White Mountains and went to Franconia Notch state park. Road geeks will be interested to know that the only single lane interstate in the country runs for a short way in this park – the I-93.

Just when we think we have seen it all, America throws us another weird geographical feature that is stunning. The notch is the valley and the river Pemigewasset has carved out through granite rocks smooth bowls and curves in one part of the park. Rather like Henry Moore sculptures they are gentle and smooth. The Basin is aptly named as you just wanted to jump in and bathe in it, it looked so welcoming! We then walked up the path to some water falls which in spring would be gushing as all this area is covered in deep snow, but at this time of year is glorious with red maple trees. Nearby are ski resorts to give you an idea of gradient.

The next stop in the park was The Flume. Discovered by a settler’s old granny who went out fishing one day, came back and said she had seen huge cliffs, I think the family wondered what she was on about, but sure enough she was right. The Flume is a gorge in the forest. The granite cliffs on either side must have be a hundred feet tall and we followed a path up one side as the river gushed through it – the Flume part of the name. At the top there were superb views of the valley and really good photos of what it would have looked like before glaciers rounded it all off and took height off these mountains. Now the valley is a gentle u type shape, rather than a v – if you get my drift!

Loving this part of New Hampshire, we nonetheless pressed on that night to our campsite in Vermont, just outside of Woodstock. After our lovely time with Gerry and Donna we continued having lovely slightly lazy mornings and then action-packed afternoons. I have finally finished Middlemarch which has as many of you know been a bit of a labour of love. Of course, it was totally brilliant.

Our first exploration was on the Thompson Twins. We cycled to Quechee which was a few miles from our site. Lovely river, giant pond, really warm weather and the colours of the trees still breathtaking. We climbed down to the gorge there – and ignoring the suicide notices – not a place for vertigo sufferers we got down to the beach part of the river bed. Again the water had cut such interesting patterns into the rocks and some of the river bed was on a completely tilted plateau. More glacial action too – with boulders, and trees clinging on to rocks all along the edges. Very unspoilt and humbling.

That trip turned out to be just a practice for the next day when we really went for it and did about 33 km on the bikes. We set off to Woodstock and saw another New England feature – apart from the brilliant trees, the white houses, the green lawns and the curvy roads – this time we went through a covered bridge. These are a big deal in New England. Wooden bridges over the river, that are like barns. They date anywhere from the mid 1800’s to 2003 if there has been a fire and one has been restored! Not at all suitable for Reg it was fun to go through on the bikes instead.

Woodstock was charming and as lovely as Woodstock is at home. Similar in that on the edge of town there is a large mansion (maybe not as big as Blenheim Palace) but the home of three men over the last 100 years who are so important to conservation in this part of Vermont and the US generally that the Park Service are entrusted with the property and it is now open to the public.

Very briefly the men are Marsh – who was born in this part of Vermont. He was horrified that the settlers had basically cut down nearly all the forest by the mid 1800’s. Indeed, it was weird that when we were looking at these mountains covered in trees, they are in fact not the virgin forest that you think. Far from being the untouched scene we thought, it is actually the second round after man had interfered and cleared all the original trees.

Second guy was Billings – he being the one behind the Great Northern Railroad and who the town in Montana is named after. He again was appalled at the lack of conservation and started a sustainable farm on the land surrounding the house which still operates today. This mood was further enhanced when his grand-daughter married Laurance Rockefeller – the son of John Junior who had been instrumental in so many of the national parks we have been to – like Acadia and Grand Teton.

The house and land has been gifted to the state and the town of Woodstock has similarly taken conservation – this time in structures to a high level. Famously there are no overhead power cables around the green, and houses surrounding this patch of lawn were from all decades since the 1860’s I would guess. American property porn for Homes and Gardens readers! It is also a backdrop in Forest Gump.

We could have stopped at that – it had been a good cycle along the old river road to get to Woodstock. We had enjoyed a lovely sandwich. We had found out about Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller at their museum. Normal people at this stage would cycle back and say great day. But not us; no, we decided to climb a mountain on the Thompsons to go to a cheese tasting at Sugar Hill Farm. The clue was in the name really!

Oh, my word I am not sure that they wanted the sweaty Brits in their tasting room – so we had to buy some to justify the effort. The second hair crime of the week was Matt having corn rows from his cycle helmet. You could not tell if he still had the helmet on or off it looked so odd! We will not be entering the Tour de France anytime soon I tell you after that ride. It was way too hot and steep for us!

The cheese did survive though you will be pleased to know and it was quite something. Vermont is very proud of its local produce – jams, pickles, cheeses and maple syrup of course. Fascinating to learn how they tap it from the trees, boil it down and then the varieties of taste and colour that occur. I had never appreciated maple syrup when it is served out so glibly in iHop and Dennys!

We spent this last weekend winding our way back through the south of Vermont. I have to say that the ‘Green Mountain State’ has won my heart. On Saturday, we stopped off at the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge, the 30th US President on the recommendation of our neighbours at the campsite. They were lovely and from Ohio.

Coolidge was born and raised in Plymouth Notch in Vermont. A tiny hamlet in the most glorious setting. What is unusual is that he is born and buried here, but due to the death of the 29th President, Warren Harding in San Francisco from a stroke on 2 August 1923, Coolidge was sworn in as president at his father’s house as he was visiting his Dad that summer on holiday.

We had an excellent guide who made it all come to life for us and Coolidge had a pretty hard time of it. His mother died when he was twelve, his sister died of an appendicitis when she was fifteen, his father died when he was in office and to cap it all his son died during his time in office, aged only sixteen years old. He came back to Plymouth Notch as president for about ten days to bury Calvin Junior and briefly the village was transformed into a summer White House (you can see all the cables, office paraphernalia that came along with him, as well as huts for the secret service to sleep in). It was a very worthwhile stop.

Yesterday we drove highway 7 south. A scenic drive to behold – exactly what Reg was meant for. It took ages but we went from Vermont into Massachusetts, into Connecticut, the green, hilly bits of New York and we are now in Pennsylvania at a place on the Delaware River.

As we drove yesterday we left the chocolate box New England behind. We both have really enjoyed it. After the drama of the West – huge mountains, big skies, vast lakes, redwoods and cliffs, I think we were both a bit concerned that New England would not give us that special tingly feeing when something is so beautiful you cannot articulate it (as you can tell by our attempts in this blog!) but actually Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire were just perfect and certainly exceeded our expectations. Highly recommended to you all.

Anyway, off to kayak the Delaware River…
A

*(those that know will get that reference!)

At the Lobster Shack

Dragging ourselves away from the heights of Bradbury Mountain (all 560 feet of it!) we set off the next morning, Sunday, for the drive up to Maine.  We had rented a cottage on the shore near Acadia National Park with Donna and Gerry who were coming over to see us and then take a road trip around New England.

We drove up along US highway 1, a road we have previously driven down in Florida. The road runs all the way along the eastern coastline from Key West, where we took our photo under the Mile 0 marker, up to the border with Canada in Maine.  Along the Maine coast it is much more rugged and fortunately, unlike poor Key West, not being pummelled by hurricane Irma.  We drove along through pretty towns populated with well-maintained wooden houses, we think the weather keeps people from dumping all their crap on their front lawns as in the states down the Mississippi.  i.e. it rains and snows (a lot) meaning possessions will quickly decay unlike in the sunnier states where people can use their outdoors as additional storage space.

Our rental cottage is called ‘Glory Be’ and was on a peninsula called Newbury Neck with a single road down it with sea views from the driver’s window all the way down.  The cottage was in a glorious location with a deck that overlooked part of Acadia National Park with an inlet of the Atlantic between us.  The cottage was obviously once the family vacation home and while it had all mod cons, they hadn’t whittled down their possessions a great deal since deciding to let it, e.g. there was an overabundance of old wooden spoons and an eclectic collection of books; paperback novels (think Jeffrey Archer); literary novels (Vikram Seth); plays (Harvard Complete Shakespeare); and lots of technical books on sailing and boating.  Nonetheless we couldn’t have chosen a better place for its views and comfort, we all spent a large amount of time on the deck watching the water and also went kayaking and bicycling up and down the road.

Home for the week

One additional feature of the house was a concrete tennis court which had cracks, some an inch wide, running through it so it would be hazardous to play without constantly checking you weren’t going to fall over and plant your face on the ground.  One benefit was we could park Reg on the tarmac outside the court (it would have been fun to put him on the court but I doubt the owners would appreciate it!).

The beach at Glory Be cottage

Donna and Gerry arrived a couple of hours after us and it was great to see them, plus the two litres of gin they brought with them.  Little time was wasted cracking open the bottle of Hendriks and a thorough catching up ensued, interspersed with a stir fry.

Monday was a chilled day when we went off grocery shopping, including a trip to the funky Blue Hills Wine Shop, and D&G hired a two-person kayak and bikes.  We all cycled up to the local lobster shack for dinner, where we found to great dismay they were a bring your own restaurant and we didn’t fancy the return 40-minute trip to bring back booze.  We stayed for the soft-shell lobster, which are when the lobsters have recently shed their previous shells and are still growing into their new ones.  The claw meat from one resembled a very small hand (no names but someone sprung to mind!) and we also had the Mac ‘n Lobster. This is only prepared when granny (who recently passed on the shack to her grandson) can be bothered to cook it and bring it across the road to be served.  While the food was OK, it would have been vastly improved with a nice bottle of Sancerre.  The location was beautiful however as the shack has a pier that runs out into the little harbour at the top of Newbury Neck and we could watch activity on the water as the sun dropped below the horizon.  This, of course, meant we had to cycle back in the dark with only two sets of lights and Gerry’s head torch.  We all returned safely, possibly another outcome of not having any drinks with us over dinner!

The next day dawned beautifully again and we decided to go kayaking.  Horrified to find that B1 was still suffering from the puncture picked up on a boat ramp in California so he was out of commission.  Gerry kindly abdicated his position in the rented kayak and Donna and I set off with Alex as our solo wingman out onto the ocean, which was incredibly still with barely a wave to lap over the exposed rocks at low tide.  We paddled south past beautiful houses along the shore only getting slightly wet from the water on the paddles.

After the kayaking and breakfast, we drove into Acadia National Park which is on Mount Desert Island, so called for the ‘bald’ mountains spotted by an early French explorer.  While the mountain tops are empty of trees their lower slopes and the valleys surrounding them are covered in forests as far as the eye can see.  Acadia was created from the donations of rich Americans (this time the Rockefellers) to the state of land they had bought for their summer vacation homes.  It is one of the most beautiful places we’ve been, completely different again with its rocky shoreline, barrier islands, the only fjord in the lower 48 states, and forests.  We also had marvellous weather which made the water sparkle and the time of year meant the deciduous trees, including a lot of maples, were changing their colour for autumn (fall for our American readership).  We climbed up the Gorham trail for magnificent views of the park and the Atlantic oceans inlets and the islands guarding its harbours.

Wednesday, Alex fixed B1 kayak using duck tape instead of the puncture repair kit provided with the kayaks that has proved inadequate.  The repair worked splendidly and I didn’t gently sink as we kayaked along the shoreline.  I don’t believe there is anything Alex doesn’t believe can’t be mended with superglue or duck tape, I’m worried for any future health issues that she’ll administer the same to fix me.  The rest of the day was simply relaxing and chilling with an odd G&T thrown in for the fun of it.

We got up early on Thursday to take the Sea Princess cruise to Little Cranberry Island.  Little and Great Cranberry were named for the wild cranberries that grew on them until they cleared the marshland to remove the mosquitoes.  While the mosquitoes returned quickly after the clearance, the cranberries never have but the name has remained ever since.  The cruise departs from Southeast Harbour and after passing several islands it progresses up Somes Sound, which was incredibly beautiful in the sunshine.

After the cruise, we walked up to the Asticou Inn for lunch and had the local dessert of Popovers, which are similar to individual Yorkshire puddings but sweet and served with whipped butter and jam.  You can have them with chocolate sauce, which basically makes them enormous profiteroles.

The ‘Bubbles’, no really

Friday was our last full day together and after another relaxed day on the deck we went to dinner at the Brooklin Inn, further along the coast, where Alex, Gerry and I shared two bottles of Pinot Nera (which is Italian Pinot Noir) and poor Donna had to drive us home as the nominated driver. 

Saturday was sad for us all as we had to say goodbye to our friends, who were continuing on a road trip hoping to see Stephen King in Bangor where he lives before a trip to Salem.  It was wonderful having Donna and Gerry to spend a week with us, and whisper it out of his earshot, spend a week in a full bed with a large bathroom away from Reg.  We bid fond farewells and we set off back onto Mount Desert Island to do a little more of the park, camping at the tip by Bass Harbour from where on Sunday we cycled to Mount Acadia and walked up the mountain.

The top rewards you with some of the best views we’ve seen throughout our trip, with Somes Sound below and all the way out to sea.  The day was sunny and clear up until the harbour entrance where a sea mist was just beginning to come in. 

Somes Sound

Overall a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable week with friends and a nice holiday within a holiday before we set off for the N

ew England fall.

M

Have you heard that the weather has been rather bad in the US?! I expect so as two hurricanes have battered the south east. We are far away – up in Massachusetts – but Sunday dawned for our trip into Boston and the remnants of Harvey meant it chucked it down and was incredibly miserable. It was the England part of New England!

We caught the commuter train into the city to meet with Jenny and Martin. So lovely to see them – we did not stop talking all week. It is great to catch up on family stuff but also to hear about the burning questions – like how the first episode of Bake Off has been received?

So our arrival in Boston was far from ideal. It was wet, cold and miserable. For the first time in months we had jeans and boots on – yet by the evening we all had to change shoes and socks to get dry feet. Harvey decided to give everyone a drenching, but of course this was nothing compared to what it did to Houston or what Irma has done this week to Florida.

Because it was so wet our first stop was the Isabella Stewart Museum. To give you an idea of this museum, imagine a slightly mad rich woman at the start of the last century coming on a European tour and falling in love with Venice and all the art associated with the Renaissance. With sufficient funds she managed to buy up all sorts of things – paintings, church pews, tapestries, sculptures, furniture and even plates. She then commissioned for a Venetian pastiche palace to be built in Boston and put all these treasures into it.

I found it way too much – a sort of sweet shop of art. Instead of being amazing – the items detracted from one another as everything was competing for your eye. Without any logical curation, it just seemed all too much. It was packed out due to the inclement weather outside and was very gloomy to protect the objects d’art. Jenny and Martin’s jet lag really started to kick in about 5pm, so we left there and went for a wander whereupon the heavens opened again. We sheltered in a bar and subsequently after drying out a bit went to a lovely restaurant near where they were staying in South End.

Their place was great. A third-floor apartment in an area of red brick mansion blocks – not unlike Little Venice. A very trendy, urban neighbourhood. Matt and I – in need of facilities, checked into the Sheraton, the décor there was rather different – Abu Dhabi in 1979 I believe was the look that they were going for – but of course for us being outside of Reg it was wonderful to have a huge bed, the gym and a deluxe bathroom.

Luckily the next day dawned bright and clear and we hit the streets starting off with the Freedom Trail which is a series of red bricks set into the pavement that handily loop around all the must see historical sites. We also saw a trade union march which added to the excitement.

On the route, we saw the Cheers bar but as we all know it was really filmed on a studio lot in LA so no point in going in and it was too early to have a drink.

The trail was excellent and we ended up at the large market in the centre of Boston where we had some lunch and saw the excellent Holocaust memorial as we immediately exited. The path takes you through the Italian area, Paul Revere’s house and also the North Street church which is where the lamps were shone to warn the Minutemen that the British were coming (for those that remember Matt’s blog last week!). We had a little sit down by the river as it was rather lovely.

Another neighbourhood restaurant for dinner and as it was Labor Day there were a lot of people ending their summer holidays being out and about and no doubt dreading work the next day. Poor things!

Tuesday, we walked to the ferry via the Tea Party memorial and museum. Sadly very commercial and expensive to get in – nearly thirty bucks each – so we decided against it. But we went over to Charlestown where we saw the USS Constitution instead. As it is still a current US naval ship we had to produce photo ID to go aboard. Sadly, Jenny and Martin did not have their passports with them so Matt and I went on to check it out. Very impressive as she has been restored to such a degree that she can still sail, unlike the Victory. This ship was the flagship of the US navy and fought against the British and sank one of our ships… cheeky upstarts!

Also on Charlestown side of the harbour is the Bunker Hill Memorial which was too steep to climb on such a hot day, so like the old people we are – we just had a nice sit down and looked at it!

(I should not include food in these blogs, but just so you know we also had a delicious pizza on the other side of the water!)

Wednesday was grey again and we needed to leave with Jenny and Martin to get back to Reg by noon. We checked out and boarded the commuter train. As we approached the campsite the weather got worse and worse – so that we had to shelter in Reg with a cup of tea whilst we had a thunderstorm. Luckily it cleared and we set off for Salem with our guests on board.

Weird sensation as I sat in the back with Jenny and I can report that Reg is quite noisy when in transit. I am not sure Jenny would have enjoyed the 22,000 miles we have now done sitting at the table – but after an hour we got to the site.

We stayed on Winter Island, just outside of Salem. A pretty grim day and not the best place we have visited on this trip. Jenny and Martin are just starting out on plans to get a camper of their own and I suspect that we may have put them off with this 24 hours…

The site was a harbour one, so actually quite nice for views – little yachts and a headland on both sides to look at – but we had the loudest, drunkest neighbour that we have had all trip who did not go to sleep I think until about 2am. Coupled with torrential rain again and jet lag – I am not sure any of us got any sleep that night.

Salem was disappointing. We missed the official visitor centre, which was regrettable but a lot of the witch history seemed very commercial and a bit naff. The streets were red block paving and Jenny said it was like Guildford on a rainy afternoon. Apologies for that slur Surrey readers as I think that comment is not fair to Guildford – Salem was not nearly as nice as your lovely town – at least you have a hill!

Jenny and Martin left us on Thursday morning and got the train back to Boston. We set off for Salisbury Beach which is right on the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Typically, the sun shone for the next three days and we had a great time. We also slept well without any drunken idiots beside us. How sad that they missed how great the camping can be… oh well never mind.

Salisbury Beach was rather lovely as you will see from the photos and it broke our journey nicely on the way up to Maine.

Saturday was a special treat as we went to Bradbury State Mountain Park. Who would have thought that there would be a park named after the Bradbury’s! As you got into the Isabella Stewart Museum for free if your name was Isabella we hoped that this might work for the Bradbury State Park – but the ranger was not having any of that!

Bradbury Mountain was really more of a hill than a mountain, only being 500 feet above sea level – but hey we have to start somewhere!

It was a varied and fun week. Super to see Jenny and Martin but always when people leave it makes us feel a bit sad. This did not last though as on Sunday we arrived at the house in Maine which we have rented with Gerry and Donna – but Matt will tell you all about that next week.

The Beans in Boston!

North Church

Tea Party ship

USS Constitution

Salem….why?

Salisbury Beach

Sunset at Salisbury

More sunset at Salisbury

Our very own park…

Cheers!

Aboard the ferry

A

From Providence, we drove south to Newport, I’ve never been to its Welsh counterpart and can only say if it is only half as attractive as its Rhode Island namesake it must be pretty spectacular as Newport Rhode Island has very beautiful scenery, great architecture and interesting history.  The island was developed for wealthy tourists in the late 19^th and early 20^th and when they say wealthy they mean Vanderbilt wealthy.  The ‘Commodore’ left $100 million dollars to his children on his death in 1877, by some calculations it was the equivalent of $185 billion in today’s money.  Two grandsons both built ‘cottages’ in Newport, we visited The Marble House built by William Vanderbilt for $11 million for his wife, Alva in 1892.  Amazing house with only six bedrooms for the family (they don’t count the rooms for the 23 servants), built in Italian marble and furnished with European art bought by Alva on a shopping trip to Europe that was quite something else.  This for a house they only spent around six weeks a year living in.

Alex gets ideas for our next home

We cycled along Bellevue Road where this mansion and dozens of others are located, many still privately owned but several now open to the public.  Really amazing display of wealth and power.  William Vanderbilt’s son, David, won the America’s cup three times while William’s daughter, Consuelo, married the 9^th Duke of Marlborough which her mother bullied her into.

The rest of Newport has several historic places and very pretty houses alongside the mansions on Bellevue and with a history of sailing which continues with some enormous racing yachts in the harbour.

On Tuesday we got up early and cycled all of the way around Bellevue and then Ocean Drive, a very scenic route thankfully not too hilly as it took us an hour and an half to complete.  We drove on to Cape Cod to spend the next three days in another location of rich Americans and history. 

Many of the towns on Cape Cod are named after where the early Pilgrims originated and we went to Sandwich (strangely twinned with Sandwich in Kent) for lunch.  Unfortunately, while a pretty little town it wasn’t a great lunch and not that interesting a town. 

Our night was disturbed by rain and the next day we spent much of it cooped up inside Reg and only set off to visit Provincetown around 4pm.  The journey took longer than expected and we rushed to get to the Pilgrim Monument before our guidebook said it closed at 5pm, hmmm … seems the guidebook was wrong and it was open until 6pm.  We climbed up the tower built to commemorate the first landing of the Mayflower’s pilgrims on American soil, finding no easily available fresh water they pushed off again to what would become Plymouth and the founding of modern America.  One minor point is they discovered a cache of corn seeds, most likely buried by native Americans for future planting, which they promptly stole.  Bit concerned about the moral foundations of the country already!

They like an erection in Provincetown

Original

Downtown Provincetown

After the monument, we walked down into Provincetown itself where we encountered bears of a completely different nature to those in Yellowstone and Yosemite!  Seems Provincetown is the favoured holiday destination for the New England gay community and it was teeming (if that is a good collective term for them) with gay men.  There were elegant drag queens, a jeep load of younger men promoting their review show (one of whom said to Alex they’d show her husband a good time!) and a lot of older men too.  We went to dinner but declined the later enticements of Provincetown and returned tired after a long drive to our campsite.

Thursday, we went to Martha’s Vineyard on our bikes.  We caught the ferry across from Woods Hole to Oak Bluffs.  They operate two large vehicle ferries and the Thompsons were crammed next to a number of posher (for a pair of Walmart bikes) bicycles and four by four vehicles for the 45 minute journey.  Being the US, there was a restaurant serving burgers and refreshments for the journey.

We cycled from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown along the seashore, a pretty cycle in lovely sunshine and flat.  Edgartown’s large houses were built for the captains of the large whaling fleet that used to operate out of the town, on one of which Herman Melville worked.  We went to the Sea Shanty restaurant for lunch where Alex had the New England speciality Lobster Roll, basically lobster mayonnaise in a white hot dog bun, and we both had a few beers while watching the pleasure craft in the harbour and the small car ferry shuttling backwards and forwards. 

After lunch, we walked around the town where we saw the fashion sight of the holiday and one that will give me nightmares for years to come.  There was an older lady walking down the street with a Zimmer frame who was wearing white cut-off jeans over her veined legs, I shudder at the thought even now.

Oak Bluffs was interesting for its estate of small wooden holiday cottages that were built for religious revival meeting visitors surrounding a large ‘temple’ with religious message exhorting the faithful. 

Sea Shanty anyone?

Oak Bluffs

Sunset in Woods Hole

Provincetown and Martha’s Vineyard were both great places to visit and rescued the area for us after some disappointment with the busy narrow roads that weren’t suited to Reg’s serene progression.

Friday, we drove to the Boston Minuteman Campground, while not being particularly near Boston, it was convenient for a train to Boston.  We would be leaving Reg parked up here while we went downtown.  Firstly, though we went to investigate the Minuteman part of the campgrounds name.

On Saturday, we went to the Minuteman National Historic Park in nearby Lexington.  It’s situated along what is known as Battle Road, this was the stretch of road between Boston and Concord Massachusetts where the first engagement occurred between what would become the United States forces and the British colonial forces.  It was in Concord the Minute Men, so called because they could be ready at a minute’s notice to resist British attempts to suppress the rebellion, fired upon the Welch Dragoons, this engagement led to a retreat to Boston and over 200 casualties for the British forces.  We learnt about Paul Revere’s ride from Boston to warn the local militia men of the British departure from their barracks and of the consequent skirmishing between the two sides.  At the end of the day the US would have 4,000 men against 1,700 British troops and would start the siege of Boston.  Washington would arrive to take command shortly after and the rest is history.

It was a really interesting introduction to the war and we walked along the route the soldiers took and met two park rangers dressed as early US patriot militiamen who gave us more insight into the day and its consequences.

More history to follow in the next instalment of Alex and Matts’ adventures in the United States

M