Sugar Hill Inn – Go Sassy Sisters!

21 June 2008

The first day of summer started for us about 1 AM as we loudly creaked our way up the stairs of the Sugar Hill Inn in Franconia, NH. We were so lucky to have stumbled upon this great inn! It was so old that the floors slanted downhill and the doorways were too short for Rex to have fit through. We were in the Blue Room, which as you may have astutely deduced was decorated in shades of blue. The bathrooms in this old inn have been remodeled and renewed, so we were treated to wonderful showers. We got to sleep in a little bit (until 7:15) since breakfast was not served until 8. We got there about 8:10 and found that Joey, Kathy, Jean, and Keith were already there and Jean and Keith did go for their morning run! We were impressed with their diligence and discipline, especially since we kept them up partying until way after their bedtimes! Not only that, we were jealous, because they saw a moose on their run. We still have not seen a real live one yet.

However, we did have a little excitement at breakfast. We had finished our meal of fresh strawberries and blueberries, a blueberry muffin, eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, bacon, and home fries when Alan called out, “There’s a bear!” We all looked to see where he was pointing, and it was at the house across the street. And when I say at the house, I mean the bear was up on the front porch looking like it was ringing the doorbell! It was a good sized black bear, and when no one came to the door, it went around the house and came out on the other side and headed across the yard to the woods. Not an everyday occurrence for us! We said our goodbyes to everyone and pointed the car in the direction of Mt. Washington and the famous Cog Railway. As usual, we had intended to be there when the first train ran at 9 AM, but since we didn’t leave until about 9:30, that wasn’t happening. In addition, we foolishly left the directions to Jill, who told us we were there when we were still miles away…

As you know, though, we are resourceful and able to read maps (perhaps better than the people who program GPS systems) so we pulled in the parking lot about 10:30, in plenty of time to catch the 11:00 train. The ride takes about 3 hours in all, which includes a twenty minute stop at the top of Mt. Washington, home to some of the worst weather in the world. In fact, the highest wind speeds ever recorded were there – 231 mph!! Mt. Washington is in the Presidential Range, and it’s the second highest mountain east of the Mississippi (NC’s Mt. Mitchell is the highest). The Appalachian Trail runs along the ridge to the summit, so it was funny to see hikers taking pictures of us on the train as we took pictures of them. We each probably thought the other was crazy.

What was really crazy was that there was a road race going on that morning, too, which was just ending as we approached the peak. Believe it or not, LOTS of people actually ran up the road from the bottom to the top of Mt. Washington! They are the really insane ones! There they were in their shorts and sleeveless tanks while everyone on the train was putting on their fleeces and jackets. And no telling how long they’d been running! The Cog Railway is really something. It goes up the opposite side of Mt. Washington as the road, and the train is powered by coal. On the way up, a locomotive pushes the train and it runs on a cog system. On the way down, gravity takes over and the brakeman earns his keep. You’ll have to check out all the details at http://www.cog-railway.com/.

It was after two when we left Mt. Washington, headed for Maine. Not being quick learners, we again let Jill do her thing. Big mistake. An hour later, we might have gone 15 or 20 miles, but at least we were on the right track.

We didn’t have much of an agenda for the rest of the day – we wanted to see the famous Lynchville, Maine, signpost and we wanted to get where we were going by about 7 PM. Could we make it??? When we were just stopping for lunch at 3 o’clock (and finding almost everything closed) and we were STILL in New Hampshire, it was beginning to look like we would not make it all the way across Maine to the coast.

For heaven’s sake, we couldn’t even get out of New Hampshire and we were maybe 50 miles from the border at most to begin with! We were in Gorham, and thankfully found a small café that was still serving. SALT was in the basement/bottom floor of a building that used to be a bank, and it was really cool. The nicest young man served us, and Kim had a chicken sandwich with roasted tomatoes and lettuce on delicious looking bread, and I had a chorizo meatloaf with pepper jack cheese sandwich, also on very tasty homemade bread. For dessert we split a whoopie pie, which was two cakey chocolate cookies (big ones) with buttercream frosting in between them and homemade toffee bits on the edges of the frosting that were showing. YUM!! The toffee was so good we got a piece to go!

Soon after we got back on the road, we crossed the border into Maine. One thing we have noticed on this trip, as well as our other road trips, is that we can almost tell when we’ve passed from one state to another even without ‘Welcome to….” signs. It’s like they each have a very distinct personality and geography. The road we were on (Route 2) was extremely bumpy and clearly suffered from many harsh winters. We were a bit leery about getting off of this ‘good’ road onto a smaller one, but that’s how we had to go to see what we wanted to see. As it turned out, the smaller road was just fine and in much better shape. Before long, we passed a yard with lots of interesting yard art and a man out working in it. We were reminded of John (on Route 66 last year) and we thought about stopping to chat with him, but we didn’t.

Until we noticed the signpost in the corner of his yard – STOP!!! We found a place to park not too far down the road and came back for some photo ops. We found out that the owner of the property was from London, and even though he’s been in country for 16 years, he still sounded like an East Ender. We asked him how that happened, and he laughed and said he didn’t want to sound like an American!

Back on the highway, we were on a mission to get to Round Pond. We bypassed ice cream and only stopped to take a picture of Red’s Eats in Wiscasset, and by some minor miracle, we pulled into Denise and David’s driveway (which is a mile long!) just a little after seven. Friends from Durham who have recently built a dream vacation home in Maine, Denise and David were so kind to offer us a place to stay for a couple of days. I can’t begin to describe how beautiful and well thought out their ‘cottage’ (aka, palatial home) right on the rocky coast is! Besides being huge and wonderfully planned, it is decorated perfectly. Not one detail was overlooked that I could see, and our room was looking so comfortable and inviting it was all I could do to not crawl into bed and snuggle under. Except for one thing – dinner and music!

We took off for Schooner Landing where some friends of David and Denise’s were playing in a trio there that night. The Horseshoe Crabs were great and the food was mighty good, too! I had fresh fried oysters, just pulled out of the water out back of the restaurant that day, a baked potato, and cole slaw. Kim had broiled haddock, a salad, and garlic chive mashed potatoes. Worth driving all day for! We listened to the music for a while longer, and then made our way back to the house. I spent a while downloading and backing up photos, and then it was bedtime. Let me just say right now that Denise wins the prize for best bed, best shower, and best house right now. Kim and I give her a five or ten star rating! And she was worried about being one of our curiosities! We told her the only thing curious about her was that she invited us to stay with her, but we are so glad and grateful that she did.

Loving Maine and fresh seafood,

Jan

20 June 2008

On Friday morning, we got up early at Katy’s and had breakfast and chatted with her for a while. We had so enjoyed our time at The Princeton, and we were not as eager to get into our car after such wonderful hospitality. But we did, since Katy had wedding planning to do and we had miles to cover! Thanks a gazillion, Katy (and Chal) for having us and treating us to a delicious meal and a gorgeous sunset! While we had been talking at breakfast, Katy mentioned that there was a Champy (Lake Champlain’s sea monster) in Vergennes that we had missed the night before, so we started off heading south instead of north. We found Champy and then went on our way towards Burlington.

On our way, we saw one of several old round barns we’ve noticed on this trip. This particular one is in bad repair, but it’s cool all the same.Since it had taken us so long to get from Waterbury to Burlington the day before, we voted to try the interstate for the short drive from Burlington to Montpelier, the state capital of Vermont.

So far on this trip, we have been very close to several capitals that we have not opted to see the capitol buildings, but this one is practically right on the way. It’s a beautiful building that is the oldest State House still being used for its original purpose. Out on the front lawn was an interesting sculpture of bicycle parts, which turned out to be only one of many odd bicycle sculptures we viewed around the town.

At the front door of the building (which was HUGE!) was a statue of Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys. Once inside, we met a nice man (we’re pretty sure he was a congressman) who told us some fun facts about the building and told us to take our time looking around. He also told us about a Maple Sugar farm not far from town. We took some time to tour the capitol and then took off for Morse Farm Maple Sugar Works. The first thing we saw there was a miniature of the capitol building!

There was a great self-guided tour at this farm (go to the Woodshed Theatre and pull up a stump while you watch this DVD) and some funny and good sculptures and really life-like mannequins. I especially liked this one of the horse’s ass…

Our congressman had also suggested that we be sure to visit Barre, which is famous for its granite works, so we drew a bead on “Rock of Ages” and headed in that direction. We got there just in time to miss the last tour before lunch, so the friendly lady at the desk suggested that we go down the hill to the Hilltop (go figure) Restaurant and then come back for the after lunch tour. So we did!

We had some delicious chicken and rice soup, and I had the salad bar and Kim had a ham sandwich. It hit the spot, but we had to wait so long to get our check that we thought we would miss the next tour, too! It turns out the tour was a caravan tour, and we got back just in time to be the last car. We tuned our radio to the designated station and then followed the leader up to the quarry. Wow – was it ever impressive!!! They are now on the third hole being quarried, and it was so deep the workmen looked like little play people.

It was 600 feet from top to bottom, and the blocks they dig out and bring up are humongous! When we got back to the main building, we watched a video and then went to the outdoor bowling alley that was built out of granite as an experiment that obviously didn’t take. From here, we went to the Hope Cemetery, which is full of interesting monuments that some of the area granite artisans had made. Most interesting…

On the way to the cemetery, we learned why the Hilltop Restaurant was so named – even though it was at the bottom of the hill to us, it was at the top of a very steep hill!

After touring the cemetery (don’t you wish you were on this trip seeing all of the highlights we’re seeing?), we went to Cabot to see the Cabot cheese factory. Once again, we just missed a tour, but they had samples of about 25 different cheeses, spreads, dips, sauces, and popcorn for us to nibble on while we were waiting. That was a good thing, since the samples were about 100% better than the tour itself. It was getting late, and we wanted to see the Dog Chapel in St. Johnsbury, which is right on the Vermont border.

It was time to put Jill to work, and she sort of got us where we needed to be. On the way, we saw this funny moose at the miniature golf place. Jill didn’t exactly know where the Dog Chapel was, so we asked her to take us to the St. Johnsbury Athenaum. We had no clue what that was, but Jill got us there and it was this totally cool old building that is now home to an art gallery and the library. Even better, the librarian gave us directions to the Dog Chapel. Unfortunately, it closed at 5:00, and it was about 5:05. So, we did what any resourceful and sassy sisters would do – we called and begged them to stay open til we could get there. Actually, we didn’t have to beg – they very kindly agreed to let us see the chapel, so we were off.

I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. After experiencing a near-death experience, the artist, Stephen Huneck, was inspired to build a chapel honoring dogs and the friendships humans form with them. Out front is a sign that says, “All breeds, All creeds. No dogmas allowed.” and inside, the pews are decorated with dogs on the ends. All that, I was expecting. What I was not prepared for was that every square inch of wall space was covered with notes, photos, and drawings to and of dogs and pets who are deceased. Clearly, their owners miss them terribly. I was sobbing by the time we left. I have never even had a dog in my whole life, but now I want one because I feel like I must be missing something very special. I’m so glad we got to see this dear, special place.

From St. Johnsbury, it was a short trip to Littleton, New Hampshire, where we were staying at a Hampton for the evening. I was so excited that we would have an early day, internet, and a great bed! I would have plenty of time to catch up on the blog. Wrong. It turns out that I did not have a reservation for Friday night, but we had gotten to pay for our room on Thursday night…and of course, they were FULL tonight. Bummer. We just got back in the car and drove on. I was rapidly losing my personality.

In Franconia, we were looking for the “Rustic Log Cabins” that the Garmin told us about, but when Jill led us to them, she commanded us to turn right into our destination. Into a CHURCH. Thankfully, we had passed a couple of B&B’s that advertised vacancies. We stopped at one, and Kim went in to get us a room. Amazingly enough, although the door was open, no one was home. There was a note on the door to the people they were expecting, telling them to pick a room and the innkeepers would be there in a couple of hours. We considered picking a room, but we went on. You know, sometimes things happen for a reason.

We got a room at the Sugar Hill Inn, which was built in the late 18th century. After a quick tour, we went in search of food at the Dutch Treat. We shared some pork dumplings, and Kim had a grilled rosemary chicken salad and I had Thai Vegetables over pasta. Maybe it’s just me, but I was expecting Japanese noodles or maybe cellophane noodles, but I never considered penne. Oh, the culinary delights we are experiencing! Actually, it was pretty good, and dessert (a Chocolate Chambourd Torte) more than made up for it. Back at the Inn, which miraculously had wireless internet AND a bar, we dragged the laptop down to the lounge and prepared to get to work. There were two couples already there, so we quietly sat at a table by the windows. Before long, though, we had made new friends!

Joey and Jean, who are brother and sister, and their respective spouses, Kathy and Keith, were vacationing together from Taunton, Mass, and we had a blast sharing stories with them. We were laughing and talking so much that a couple (Clive and Sheila) from the dining room joined us (they were from Australia) and then later another Boston area couple (Alan and Tracy) came out, too. Turns out Susan, the bartender, makes a fantastic margarita (we agree!) and before long, it was midnight and everyone was still up. Nothing new for me, but our Boston friends are early to bed and early to rise (and run) kind of people. We were corrupting them already! Thanks, Joey, for that round of drinks – you made what had been a grumpy evening turn into a fine, fun one!