Visit to Quebec and New England
Summer 2001

 

 

Back to Pittsburgh - Page 5

 

 

We had decided to experience the states of New Hampshire and Vermont on our return to Pittsburgh. So from Belfast we started inland in the morning along highway 3 into 17 and finally no 2 across Maine. We mainly passed developed hilly farmland until we reached New Hampshire. Here we entered the White Mountains region. Everything looked so clean and polished both  here and later on in Vermont.  At the border was a nice visitor center with lots of brochures. One of the

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Distant view to Mt. Washington
New Hampshire

 attractions here is the Mt. Washington peak (6288 ft), which is the highest mountain in the northeastern North America. It is also famous for its extreme weather conditions. In 1934 the highest wind speed ever measured on earth was recorded here: 231 miles pr hour. Unfortunately our time and money (28 $ fee for the drive up) did not permit us to go to the top. Instead we had a photo from a distant parking lot. We made a loop around the
mountain (highway 16 and 302). These were all within the White Mountains National Forests. To our surprise we found out that  at all parking areas along the highway signposts told you that you must 

pay to park. We did not know how so we only had few breaks. On route 302 we passed the famous Mt. Washington Hotel and Resort. Its like a fairy tail castle in pretty nature with a golf court in front. A nice waterfall was also here just at the roadside. To our surprise

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The Mount Washington Hotel
New Hampshire
no fee to watch this. But still signposts told us to pay a toll to park. Admitted here we could not resist parking to enjoy the waterfall.
We drove northwest until we encountered I-93. We followed the Interstate into Vermont. At the border we made stop at a visitor center. Unfortunately they had no vouchers for accommodation so we had to try the hard way. After St. Johnsbury we turned south on I-93. Here were nice green hills. It seemed to be nice unspoiled nature here. Towns and villages were very rare. Later we turned west towards Rutland on route 4. This led us through nice vacation resorts with many small motels. We went into one of these but prices were sky-high so we continued until Rutford. Here were plenty of accommodation and few guests so we negotiated a price of 40 $ incl. breakfast/newspaper after having visited a few motels.
Now we had been so intensively touring that we discussed how to reach Pittsburgh in the fastest way. We decided to stick to Interstates

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Michael in front of waterfall
New Hampshire

and went via Albany, Scranton and Harrisburg to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Jens had a great wish to visit the Battlefields at Gettysburg, but we decided this had to wait to a later visit. After returning to Michael's apartment we still had a couple of nice days in Pittsburgh where we did some shopping for our last $. The flight home was a little bit exciting as Air Canada had cancelled the flight to Toronto, but we managed to come on a later flight with another company, and with the help of kind Air Canada staff we also reached the flight from Toronto to Copenhagen in the last minutes.
Only two weeks later Michael came to Europe and visited us in Kulhuse for a few days. This was a nice end of the vacation. Fortunately we had a dry and nice summer in Denmark. And we really pitied the poor Canadians who always seem to have rain.