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Published: October 31st 2017
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We ended the previous blog having had a 2nd day in Acadia National Park and anticipating a Ghost Tour in the evening.
But, we forgot to mention the popovers we ate during that afternoon in the park. The only eating place in the park is famed for them. Although they are called popovers for us they are really tall Yorkshire puddings, and they were yummy. Paul has always eaten his Yorkshires as a pudding, and so had his with warmed maple syrup - mmm mmmm. Pip normally prefers her's with gravy but was happy to devour them both dry. We were so close to ordering a second portion ?
The Ghost Tour was very good. Our guide, Jennifer, was of the local Wabanaki Indian tribe and she took us to four particularly ghostly locations to tell us about the dark side of this island. We can't say that we saw or experienced any apparitions ? though there was a street light that we walked under 4 times in the evenings we were there, and each time it switched off as we passed beneath!
Monday morning, before breakfast and before leaving the island, we took a walk across the
'bar' in Bar Island. This patch of land only becomes walkable for an hour or so either side of low tide, which that day - Monday - was around 07.30, so we took the walk before breakfast. On the way out and back it was fascinating to watch gulls dropping mussels from about 50 foot up onto the rocks below to break them open.
That day we were just moving a hundred miles or so north to moose country, Greenville at Moosehead Lake in fact. But on the way we were briefly bought up short by a field of solid red which we just had to stop and have a closer look at. Turned out it was a solid field of blueberry bushes in their autumn colours. Wow!
We arrived at Moosehead Lake in lovely sunshine. It really was delightful, and the local hostelry The Stress-Free Moose Inn made for a pleasant drink evening out at the end of the day.
Tuesday we tried our hand at fly fishing again (see New Zealand blog from earlier this year). The river we were at this time is famed for its brown and rainbow trout, landlocked salmon and bass.
At least this time there were visible fish about. A fisherman across the river from us caught something 3 times in around 5 minutes, though it turned out to be the same fish three times. And Paul had a couple of decent sized fish leap from the water in the area he was casting into. However, all we had to show for our day was the bass caught by Pip you can see in the photos - if you magnify the the photo ?
That evening we were back at the SFM Inn to eat and we risked our hand in that evening's Trivia Quiz. We were particularly rubbish in the round titled 'local' but redeemed ourselves somewhat in 'space' where we scored the maximum 6 plus a bonus point. Didn't get us into the top three though.
Wednesday we went moose hunting. Didn't see one though - annoying, as they supposedly outnumber humans 3 to 1 - just some quaint locations like Kokadjo, population 'not many', which coincidentally was the one local question we knew the answer to the night before.
Thursday - turned over 11,000 miles in the car today, heading for Concord to stay
with one of Paul's relations. Roberta is a 2nd cousin. Paul's grandmother was the first of 11 children. Roberta is the eldest of the 10th of those children, great aunt Sonia. Sonia was a GI bride, who went over to America in 1946, in a boat that apparently had a torpedo hole in its side, when she was only 19, to join her US serviceman husband who was 36!
We passed through some early settlements on our way down, getting older as we move closer to the coast, seeing settlements that date back to the mid 1600s. We had coffee in Kennebunkport, home town for the former presidents Bush. Amusing to see a shop full of 'do you miss me yet?' memorabilia ?
We had a delightful stay with Roberta and Joe, Thursday through to Saturday morning. Friday we went to the New Hampshire State Capital building in Concord where R & J were able to blag us some behind the scenes' access, including the Governor's office. In their Hall of Representatives, which has around 400 delegates, we were regaled with story of how they would be locked in until they had reached a decision. The flap in
the door is supposedly how they supplied food during the deliberations. They couldn't say how they toiletted during a lock-in ?
We said our goodbyes to R&J after breakfast on Saturday, heading to Boston for 6 days. But we detoured on the way to Salem. Salem is famous for the Witch Trials of 1692. In the space of around 12 months 200 individuals were accused, and 20 convicted of witchcraft and (mostly) hung. Historians now generally class it as being an example of 'mass hysteria' but that surely oversimplifies what happened at that time. There is a memorial to those unfortunates.
But this hasn't stopped Salem from building a massive tourist industry on the back of these 17th century events. And at this time of year, Halloween, the town welcomes 300k visitors over the weekend to their festival, fair, psychic fair etc etc many of them going well over the top with costumes.
We are now in Boston for 6 nights before we fly back on Friday/Saturday. Boston is for the next blog.
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