Why are we in Greenville in black fly season?

 Greenville, ME, is not quite as isolated as Jackman, ME, but the AAA Tour Book doesn’t list another town that is north or west of Greenville (except Jackman) and only eight that are either north or east of here. And seven of those are on the Canadian border. It is a pretty area, however, and the weather has been more or less cooperating. And I have now seen three moose and a mooselet.

What are NOT cooperating are the mosquitoes—have I mentioned that I hate mosquitoes and the feeling seems to be mutual? Randy and I went on the Hike From Hell yesterday. It should be listed that way but they sucker you in with the innocuous description, “Little Wilson Falls (Moderate, 2 miles round trip).”

A rare moment without mosquitoes

The Hike From Hell trail

What they didn’t tell us (me, really, because Randy and the mosquitoes have a mutual aversion for each other) is that mosquitoes have home field advantage. AND it has been raining for weeks so they have had plenty of time to procreate and call in their buddies for reinforcement. Given the numbers of mosquitoes I wonder how they have time to do anything other than make more mosquitoes.

The other thing they didn’t tell us is that the trail is actually 14 miles long, all uphill. Well not really, but when the trail is strewn with roots and mud holes and rocks and goes up and down, up and down, up and down the whole way it absolutely seems like 14 miles. And that’s just to the junction with the AT (as one must call the Appalachian Trail or be thought a doofus). Then it’s another 10 miles (OK, OK, a tenth of a mile) to the aptly named (the only thing about this trail that IS aptly named) Little Wilson Falls. The falls are truly beautiful! But the mosquitoes have not only taken over the trail, they have a battalion camped at the falls along with a regiment of the infamous Maine Black Flies. My daughter said that one of her co-workers, who is from Maine, asked, “WHY on earth are they in Maine in Black Fly Season?”

Therefore we only stopped for about 5 seconds to take a few pictures. Randy would have to warn me just before pressing the shutter so I could smile (if I left my mouth open in a smile for longer than a nanosecond, a mosquito would fly in) and stop doing the Australian salute (waving your hand in front of your face to shoo away the insects).

How come they never mention “Black Fly Season” and “Mosquitoes” in the tourist brochures?

Some vacation homes on Moosehead Lake

One way to get away from the mosquitoes and the Black Flies is to take a flight. We hired Jack, of Jack’s Air Service, and his C182 float plane to give us a one hour flight around the area. Jack is a retired Delta pilot and has been flying in this area of Maine for over 40 years. He and Randy immediately hit it off, natch. But not enough to give us an airline discount (yes, Randy actually asked for an airline discount).

What a steep turn in an airplane looks like

He flew us over Moosehead Lake—remember, there are three times as many moose as there are people up here—and over Mt. Katahdin where we could see the trail to the top, the end of the AT; Elephant Mountain, where the B52 crashed; another mountain (possibly Big Spencer, it was so noisy in the C182 that I couldn’t understand what he said, nor could Randy, even though he was jammed in the seat right next to Jack) where there are the remains of a B17 that crashed; then back over Moosehead Lake by Rockwood (where we drove yesterday).

It’s kind of depressing to see the miles and miles of clear-cut forest. And interesting to see the Deliverance vs Beverly Hills of the various homes on the lake. There are lots of expensive homes, especially on islands in the lake, but lots of shacks, too. But all in all, it was a outstanding flight, although it may take me several days to get my hearing back! And a spectacularly good landing; it was hard to know that we were back on the lake.

B17 tail on the side of the mountain

It was interesting talking to a float plane pilot, they are a different breed! He told us about the FAA and how they come to inspect every year (as they should and as he expects them to). A while back he apparently had a relatively new inspector who asked him why he didn’t have any scales to weigh baggage so as to be able to load the plane properly (to keep balance of the plane in the right place). The pilot doesn’t want the plane tail-heavy. So Jack just told him to step on the back of the plane’s float. The new FAA guy did that and of course the floats went way down with his weight and he almost fell in the water. His companion inspector was laughing so hard he could hardly stand. “See,” Jack said, “I don’t need a scale, if I load her too far back, she sinks.”

Sir Galahad

He wasn't real pleased!

On the way back, Randy rescued a turtle trying to cross the road.

And we watched a couple of moose (meese?) even though we weren't supposed to!

The worst weather in the world

 Since we were in Lincoln, NH, a mere 70 miles from Mt. Washington, if the weather cooperated, we HAD to drive to the summit. With Randy’s interest in things meteorological, how could we not go there?

The morning the weather looked promising—not fabulous, but definitely promising—off we went. At 6288 feet, the “mountain” in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains is the highest in the Northeast. I’m not at all sure who “owns” the road, but it cost us (and anybody who drives up the mountain) $33—$25 for the driver and car and plus $8 for each passenger. We did get a CD (our car CD has broken and we can neither play nor remove any CDs), a bumper-sticker saying, “This car climbed Mt. Washington,” and explicit directions on how to drive the mountain road. They gave pretty good advice on mountain driving and it appears that most people obey the rules. We, of course, needed no instructions on mountain driving.

Driving up (and down) was pretty much like any mountain road I have ever driven and as we got closer to the top, the weather improved tremendously. So much so that we could see for miles and miles, not as far as they promise on a really clear day—the Atlantic Ocean to Québec but certainly to Maine and Vermont. We had stopped and bought our lunch at a marvelous deli in the White Mountains, called, naturally, the White Mountain Deli, so we found a convenient table and ate with the entire panorama surrounding us. After, we wandered around the area for a while, saw the old hotel which had bunk beds and communal dining, clambered over some rocks to take each other’s picture next to the Mt. Washington elevation sign. We had to go down eventually—the sign says we must start down by 5:45pm.

Oh, yes, the title of this episode: The worst weather in the world. Not my claim, but Mt. Washington’s owners seem to be inordinately proud of their terrible weather. Highest wind ever recorded on earth (!), 231mph. High temperatures are not their big thing as the highest ever recorded on top of MW was 72° and none of their thermometers have any number bigger than 72. But low temperatures are another thing they are proud of: average annual temperature is below freezing; they get an average of 15 feet of snow every year; they have awful pictures of all the building totally covered in ice and snow (the buildings aren’t even recognizable as buildings). They put their slogan, “The world’s worst weather” on all the snowplows that are discretely scattered by the side of the mountain road.

Driving home several things occurred to me: Why are the motels advertising that they have phones? (When I see that and some of the rundown motels, I start humming the theme to Deliverance.) The tourist bureau says this is the time to see moose; where are they the rest of the year?

Heading to Lincoln NH

I've managed to upload a few pictures

May 23, 2011

Melinda hosted an awesome dinner at Mistral last night! Melinda’s graduation gift to Jilly was letting Jilly decide on the wines for her graduation dinner. She did a great job! There were about 15 of us, all friends of Jilly or Melinda and all of us had some connection to the new graduate. Randy and I got to meet a lot of really nice people, and Jilly got to see the people who mean a lot to her. After, we adjourned to the Union Club for some quiet talk. A wonderful evening of good food, great wine, excellent conversation. I wish the evening had been longer!

Fire!

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On May 23^rd we headed for Lincoln, NH, via Old Sturbridge Village, yet another really old American village, but perhaps the gold standard for those villages. We watched a musket demonstration that showed us why the soldiers preferred to have paper packets of gunpowder rather than just the loose powder. Reloading takes 14 seconds with the paper packets vs 40 seconds for the loose powder (he had one of the visitors time it).

Master bedchamber in Salem Towne's house

We toured the Salem Towne House—yes that is a confusing name! We thought it was the city hall for Salem; it isn’t, it is the home that Mr. Salem Towne and his family lived in—to see how people lived in the 19^th century. This house is perhaps my favorite of all the houses we have looked at and toured while we’ve been back here in New England.

Because I am a guide, I am very sensitive to guides and how they do their jobs. Our guide, “Mary,” was extremely knowledgeable about some things and woefully uninformed about others. She waxed rhapsodic about cheese making for an interminable 10 minutes and probably could have, right then and there, produced a wonderful cheddar if she’d had the makings, but she couldn’t answer the question, “Who made this chest” about a piece of furniture that was the only one in the hallway. But she did teach me that a “bedchamber” is always upstairs and a “bedroom” is always downstairs. Nowadays, if you have a guest, you might tell them to take the “second bedroom” and they wouldn’t know exactly where to go. In 1825, if you told them to take the “second bedroom” they would at least know that it was on the bottom floor. The “first bedchamber,” on the other hand, would be on the second floor.

It started raining—AGAIN—so we left Sturbridge and drove north to Lincoln, NH.

Other than losing our reservation (moral: ALWAYS keep your confirmations!), the InnSeasons Pollard Brook Resort in Lincoln is very nice. What is not nice is that our unit is on the third floor—THIRD!—floor and there are no elevators! I’m sure climbing to the third floor is God’s punishment for our bringing so many things with us.

There is so much stuff to do in Lincoln that we tried to extend our timeshare here for another week, but according to Interval International (our exchange company) there isn’t a timeshare to be had for the rest of the summer in all of New England. I find that hard to believe, but nevertheless that’s what they say. We’ll have to make the best of our time here.

So we spent the week doing really touristy stuff: looking for moose. So far I have seen one and a half moose and no mooselets. The half moose was the back half of a moose disappearing into the trees. There are supposed to be more moose than people up here but you can’t convince me of that!

OK, OK, we’ve done a lot of other stuff, too. The humidity has been close to unbearable but at least it’s not raining. At least not much right here. The TV the previous night (May 26^th) had had dire warnings about possible tornadoes and torrential rains in the mid- and eastern areas of Vermont. No mention of New Hampshire, but it WAS a Vermont station and the weather maps seemed to ended at the border of VT. They were right, at least about the torrential rains.

On the 27^th we decided to drive to Montpelier VT and visit the Cabot Creamery along the way. US2 was completely closed and the state routes we took to get to Montpelier were barely open. The rain had caused dramatic problems with streets and driveways, many of which looked as if they would take days to fix enough for people to just get out of their driveways. The Cabot Creamery was open but not actively making cheese as they had had no power until the middle of the night. When we finally got to Montpelier, many restaurants and shops were closed to business but their doors were open to get the flood waters from the Winooski River out of the stores and basements. All the roads were a mess. One of the “Road Work Ahead” signs had covered up the “Ahead” and put “Everywhere” in its place.

Our guide, Liz, and Saint-Gaudens' bas relief of Col. Shaw

Saturday, the 28^th, our last full day in Lincoln, we planned a visit to the home of a sculptor I had never heard of before, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. You may recognize his work if you’ve seen a $20 gold piece: he designed the “Standing Liberty” that graces that coin. He also did, among many, many others, a huge sculpture of General William T. Sherman of Civil War infamy and another of Colonel Shaw who lead the first all black regiment into battle in the Civil War (and died in that battle).

Augustus Saint-Gaudens home, Aspet

One of the hundreds of flowers in bloom

Saint-Gaudens' home is in Cornish, NH, was built in 1800 and extensively remodeled by him and his wife. It and the grounds are, as you might suspect, stunning. He called it “Aspet,” and summered there from 1885 to 1900 and lived full-time there after that until his death in 1907. During his life the grounds included (but do no longer, unfortunately) a swimming pool, bowling green(!), and nine-hole golf course. Throughout his working life he collaborated with many landscape designers and leading architects, including his friend, Stanford White, to enhance his sculptures with equally beautiful and unique settings for them. We took several tours while we were at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site including his home as it was in 1900 and tour of his art that graces the grounds.

Beautiful birch alley at Aspet

Another of his bas reliefs and pool

We’ve spent a lot of time touring New Hampshire looking for covered bridges. They are really big on covered bridges in NH! There are whole maps devoted to covered bridges. Some are drivable, some are walkable, and some are so fragile that we could only look at them. They come in many different designs and suspensions and really are quite beautiful. More so when it’s sunny, of course, but we take what we can get!