From: John Freeman [johnfree@pacbell.net]

Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2000 10:30 AM

Subject: New England

 

 

Monday October 9, Columbus Day - Newton - Lincoln - Portsmouth, NH

 

It is VERY cold in jolly old New England today.� The kind of cold that hurts your face after a couple of minutes.

 

Today's plan is to make it to Portsmouth, NH by 5-ish, to the house of my old friends John and Mary, who are schoolteachers in the local system there.� Mary teaches 8th graders (oh, the horror :), but she has just the right no-nonsense, sassy attitude to have done it well and happily for years.

 

I had had no interest in venturing into Boston all weekend, but I did manage to visit one site that was on my way to NH, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Garden in Lincoln MA.� It's a rich folks' estate with modern sculptures peppered about the grounds, and an exhibition space cleverly built around the original mansion.� I bundled up and cruised the grounds for a while and found the sculptures to generally be a whole lot of fun.� Inside there was an exhibit of current Boston photography that was pretty cool.� A picture called "Steve gets his eyebrows bleached" was hilarious.�

 

 

Tuesday Oct 10� Portsmouth - York, ME - Kennebunkport - Old Orchard Beach, ME

 

Mary was long gone by the time I arose.� Today's destination is the house of Bob and Debbie, some friends of my sister's who live only about an hour away, so I have plenty of time to kill.�

 

This is the portion of the trip where I get to be America's guest, which is certainly cheaper than paying for lodging every night, not to mention more social and interesting, but it takes it's own toll -- you have to be nice all the time!�

 

After walking to downtown Portsmouth for coffee (and to confirm the tragic passing of Club Elvis, the hipster haven that was thriving last time I was here), I made my lazy way up the Maine coast.� I visited an 1840-vintage naval fort outside of Kittery ME.� It is built out of huge chunks of the local granite (like 4' X 4' X 5'), and is pretty darned imposing when you stand outside and try to imagine trying to fight your way in.

 

I am remembering now how much I love the water around here.� The Piscatagua River, which divides Maine from NH is always a deep, pure, cold blue, and it's always going really fast.� I can just imagine all those tasty lobsters and clams and fishes of all persuasion milling around in that lovely pure water.� Did I mention that it's cold also?

 

There's a lot of rich people's "cottages" around here.� A few miles north I will pass through Kennebunkport, summer home of Bush senior.� (How Junior gets away with passing himself off as a political outsider when his dad was the ultimate Yale-going east coast CIA establishment insider is beyond me.)

 

Anyway, now I am puttering through York, ME and I espy this tidy little levee type thing that the helpful sign calls the Barrel Pond Mill Dam.� The tides around here are ridiculously huge, and it turns out that in the old days just about every likely inlet up and down the coast was dammed and a waterwheel stuck over the outlet to capture the power of the flow, both in and out.� I'm posting some pics of this, one of which shows the outflow.� The tide was receding so much faster than the water could escape that there was at least a 2' difference in water level between the pond and the river.!

 

Eventually I do get to Old Orchard Beach and Debbie and Bob's sweet condo.� It's in a modest little high rise right on the beach and is very comfortable.

 

They feed me, give me a place to sleep, feed me again and send me off into the wilds of the northern interior.

 

 

Wednesday Oct 11� OOB, ME - Portland, ME - Gorham, NH

 

I continue sticking to the coast all the way to the Portland, ME waterfront.� I have a great breakfast at a little restaurant called Becky's.� Becky herself got into a heated discussion with the crusty old guy on the stool next to me over admitting girls into the local Catholic school.� She was still sputtering and fuming and going on about what dorks men are long after the guy left (but she was still nice to me :).

 

After Portland I left the coast, heading northwesterly, towards the White Mountains.� Today, it is no longer VERY cold, rather it is now VERY windy.� Boo on wind I say!� It will knock the beautiful leaves off the trees. :(

 

Somewhere in eastern NH, I stop to pee (a recurring theme) at what I will now call the blow-job rest area.� I pull into this lovely little wooded glade, and notice 5-6 cars all parked some distance from each other in the trees with no one in them.� Being the kind of guy who pees in the woods rather than a smelly portapotty if given the choice, I start down the well-worn path.� There is a guy ahead who stops in his tracks when he sees me.� I walk around him and head on, still clueless, then there are two more guys, just standing there, who also stop talking when they see me.� Suddenly, I GET IT!� This isn't my party, so I do a quick about-face, march right back to the suddenly inviting portapotty, read the interesting graffiti and head on down that road.

 

In my most vacation-like act so far, I stopped early in the afternoon in the town of Gorham NH, got a room, and headed back out again to be out somewhere scenic when the sun sets, secure in the notion that I have somewhere to sleep.

 

I headed up the gap to the foot of Mount Washington, to see __ Falls (I've gotta do these more quickly before I lose the details).� At this elevation and latitude the leaves are "past prime" as they say around here.� Most of the trees up here are birches, and they have pretty much given it up leaf-wise.� The maples and oaks are still holding on to most of their leaves.� So the effect is kind of cool,� the ground is yellow with birch leaves, and the occasional maple is anywhere from green to red to yellow and easy to see through the bare birches.

 

The Forest Service exhibit says that continental drift-wise, the White Mountains were created when Africa slammed up against North America 400 million years ago.� This means they are old (duh) and made of highly stressed and pressured rocks.� The rock is mostly granite, but it is a lot tougher and shinier than the granite in the Sierras.�

 

They seem like real mountains when you're here, but Mt Washington is less than 6,000 feet tall.�

 

 

Thursday Oct 12� Gorham, NH -- Conway -- Kancamagus Valley - Waterbury, VT

 

I drove a few miles out of my way to tour the Kancamagus Valley, which turned out to be a wonderful move.� The road follows the Kancamagus river and it winds its way through the granite bedrock.� I am a huge fan of waterfalls, rapids, etc, so I spent about five hours on this one hour drive, crawling around the rocks and water.

 

Then I took more back roads out of NH and into Vermont, ending up in Waterbury, VT.�

 

As I passed through the Waterbury town center there was a little bar/restaurant/club that looked inviting, so I took a room at this strange little place about three blocks away, with the idea that I could walk back and treat myself to a little nightlife for a change.� I did, and it was better than no nightlife at all, although sadly, Thursday was karaoke night and not too entertaining to moi.

 

 

Friday Oct 13� Waterbury - Ludlow - Stowe Mtn - North Adams, MA - Pittsfield - Lenox - Lee, MA

 

Well, what a busy day.� Spent most of it driving down the side of the Green Mountains.� I didn't quite get to Lake Champlain, and now that I've seen how super-fine the Hudson Valley is, I think I'm sorry I missed it.� Anyway, the Green Mountains of Vermont turn out to be serious, spare working class mountains, as compared to the touristy, country club White Mountains of New Hampshire.�

 

The architecture is more Spartan and straight-edge over here.� The roadside information signs use a distinctive old-school Helvetica typeface that gives them a quaint 70's look.

 

Over the course of my two days of driving around here (Vermont), it has sunk in on me that there's a gigantic flap about gay-ness going on here.� On the afternoon news yesterday, the republicans were accusing the (woman) governor of appointing a (woman) judge solely "to advance their lesbian agenda".� huh?� Then it hit me, all across the state I had seen these signs in front yards saying only "Take Vermont Back".� The very fact that the signs don't specify "take back from what?" is an indication that they are ashamed to spell out exactly what the heck they are afraid of.� That's as much as I know about the whole thing, but there's something going on here where the breeders are feeling threatened in some way that will be tested by next month's election.

 

Anyway, on I go, eventually filtering out of the bottom of Vermont back into Massachusetts.

 

North Adams, MA turns out to be a place one could spend some time in.� It's got the MaMoCA - Mass Museum of Contemporary Art - which I sadly did not stop at ):, and seemed to have a bit of a 'scene' going for it.� It also had Natural Bridge State Park, which is a little gorge cut through the local marble - maybe 40 feet deep and about 6 feet wide!� The coolest thing is that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a little series of meditations on this very spot which they have on signs at more or less the same spots that he wrote them 170(?) years ago.

 

As soon as I start looking for a place to stay I realize I'm in a heap of trouble.� It's Friday night of the number-one weekend for fall color viewing (still "prime" down here! :), and the forecast is for great weather (clear and 70's) all weekend.� After a few miles of stressing about No Vacancy signs I remembered "hey, I'm in a truck with a camper shell!"� And sure enough, three miles outside of Lee, Mass there's a state campground that will close for the season at the end of this weekend.� I stumble in after dark and score a sweet little spot and have a delightful evening.�

 

So, by the light of the full moon, I sit on the tailgate of my beautiful truck and eat my Subway sub and listen to the geese honking overhead and decide that life is good again.�