Not much boating to report, because Misty Pearl hasn’t moved since we arrived at Basin Harbor. Off to Maine to pull Mallory off the trail for a couple of days. That meant driving through Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Lots of beautiful scenery.
Between getting Oscar to the vet in Portland for a scratched eye, getting deep into the woods to get Mallory, and then a tad of sightseeing, we drove roughly a thousand miles of narrow backroads. These states don’t believe in freeways.
The other thing is that all of the natives drive about five miles below the speed limit. We figure it’s because eleven months out of the year they’re driving carefully on snow and ice, and during the summer month they can’t override the muscle-memory. Or maybe they just figure the small town they’re heading to is about the same as the small town they just left, so no need to hurry. Or—to be charitable—maybe they know more than Doug and actually take seriously all the signs warning about the dangers of hitting a moose. Regardless, they’re as bad as snowbird Sun City-ers back in Arizona.
The towns may all look about the same, but at least they’re quaint and charming. And sometimes quirky. For example, in one of them we found the National Headquarters for the American Society of Dowsers.
Dowsers? Didn’t they burn all the dowsers at the stake some 250 years ago? Isn’t fraud a crime? We would’ve ducked in to argue about paranormal gibberish but one of us is both fascinated and terrified by people who believe in ghosts, people who join cults, and dowsers, and was afraid of what might happen inside. Dana wasn’t much interested anyway.
Speaking of being terrified, our one touristy thing was the Mt. Washington Auto Road.
Seven miles of 12% grade up and down a narrow windy road with thousand-foot drop-offs but no shoulders or guardrails. Not even the passengers took their eyes off the road.
But the top was pretty cool.
The other noteworthy thing we saw was the site outside of Gorham, New Hampshire, where a week earlier a heroin junkie wiped out seven motorcyclists who were affiliated with a Marine Corps club. Essentially the road was blocked by mourners and flags. We didn’t take a picture. Lots of finger pointing up here in New England, but the upshot is that the death penalty is too good for the scumbag responsible for it all.
Now we’re back and ready to head up to Burlington. Incidentally, we fully expected to find Misty Pearl coated with seagull poop when we returned, because the seagulls are everywhere.
We had a few spiderwebs outside, but nothing else. And these spiders are to Lake Michigan spiders as ping pong balls are to beach balls, so no biggie.
We are proud of our Lake Michigan spiders.
Yeah, well that says more about you than it does the spiders. Because your spiders suck.