Saturday, November 24, 2007



Our next stop was in Adirondack Mountains to visit yet another Houston friend, Christina Anderson and her mother, Freddie, who in her mid-80s still skis the most challenging runs in the mountains! Although they live in Schenectady, where they run a ski school, they have a beautiful house in the mountains near Lake Placid. The view from their balcony just can't be beat. Christina is a wonderful cook, and we enjoyed lovely evenings eating good food and drinking good wine made in the Finger Lakes, but sold in Lake Placid. The furnace is wood burning and Christina stays in amazing shape hauling wood and clearing land. She took Dick and me on a hike that, although doable, was challenging. But the views from the various stops on the way up the mountain made it worth it. A cold snap had arrived with us (something that would become a bit of a trend), and we had a chilly lunch at the top. It was a great hike and I was very proud of myself when it was over – one of those “hurts so good” deals. We went to The Wild Center, a natural history museum that gave a very effective overview of the Adirondacks – including otters, who put on quite a show. Well worth a visit if you are in the area. On the way home, we stopped at the winery to make sure that we liked the wine we had been drinking at home as well as we thought we did, and to stock up. It was a great, long overdue visit and we hated to leave.
My plan had been to go back through the southern part of Vermont, but we became convinced to go through the Berkshires in Massachusetts instead. I knew nothing about that area. We found another Passport park just north of Pittsfield and settled in for a few days. I was still marking scenic color routes on our atlas, so we hit the road, one day north into Vermont and the next day south to Stockbridge and Great Barrington. Another great area in which I could easily spend a month or more. That became my mantra the whole summer – I should be so lucky as to live as many summer months as I have places to visit!! In Stockbridge, I went to the Norman Rockwell museum – I grew up loving his often topical and insightful pictures. Great Barrington is remote, but is full of upscale restaurants and shops – I should have so much money as to spend a month in that place! When we were working, on vacation I would always try to figure out how I could earn a living in each of the new places we visited and loved. Now I try to figure out how I could live free or cheaply in them for a summer.


Boston was next on our list, and we were luck enough to be invited to park at Todd and Tammy Sells' (the family we visited at Moosehead Lake in northern Maine oh so many months and miles ago). They live in Bellingham, a suburb, and had room in their side yard for us – what a treat – great company and the price was right :-). Our first trip was to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum – beautiful site on the water and interesting, but we both agreed that it somehow was not as impressive as others we have seen – still definitely worth a visit. Todd and Tammy live near the last stop on the train into Boston, and since we had no intention of driving down there during the week, off we went. All went well except that I left my Tilley hat on the train – never to be retrieved :-(.


In retrospect, we probably should have taken one of the tours, but opted for a self-guided walking tour instead on the Freedom Trail. The highlight for me was the North End – boy, you couldn't feel anymore like you are in Italy, unless you are. Old Italian men are sitting out on the sidewalk solving the world's problems, and there are an endless number of very authentic restaurants. We picked a one with a menu from Napoli, and sure enough, there was the table of 6 or 7 men in the back of the room, eating spaghetti, drinking red wine, and speaking Italian – right out of a movie. What a great city!!!


On Sunday, we decided to drive up the north coast to Gloucester, stopping in Salem along the way – what a bonehead decision that was – the Salem part. We never stopped to think that it was the Sunday before Halloween! (Refer back to my comments on weekends and holidays). After fighting our way in traffic to the center of town, we were greeted with mobs of kids in costumes, and an offer to let us park the car for only $20! We just kept creeping along, straight out of town. We found a great pub for lunch and drove on up to Gloucester, a scenic town almost at the end of the peninsula

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