New England

Greetings again! I started this blog really to cover my travels in Italy, but why not include recent travels in the States? This past week I did a tour of New England, starting out with Boston. I flew in with my family Friday afternoon, and after we checked in to the hotel, we headed towards Little Italy. We walked a bit before we found the restaurant that the hotel reserved for us, Limoncello. It was quite lovely. I got the fettuccine al nero di seppia con astice, pasta made with squid ink, a delicacy in the North End. I even was able to practice my Italian with our waiter, who was one of the brothers who owns the joint. (There’s gotta be mafia ties to that place.) We then got biscotti (cookies, not the Americanized version) at a bakery that had a line going down the street!

The next day we explored the rest of Boston, and then headed to Plymouth, New Hampshire, where my Aunt and Uncle play in the New Hampshire Summer Music Festival. We did two hikes the following days, and a picnic at a lovely lake. Something I noticed about hikes on the East coast verses the West coast: you can actually reach the top of the mountains on the East coast. The Sierra Nevada’s and the other ranges on the west are wonderful, but since they are so much younger, it’s not completely feasible to make it to the tippy top of the mountain.

On the first hike in NH, I meet a fellow geologist, who after showing me were a neat out cropping was, taught me how to set a rock up, like this.

View from the top.

Wednesday we headed up to Mt. Desert Island, which is better known for Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor. We stayed in a tiny cottage in Salisbury Cove, which is about 10 minuets outside of Bar Harbor. That night we walked to Bar Island, which can only be reached at low tide. The next day was our hiking day, and we went up Penobscot Mt., which west of Cadillac Mt. It was a little challenging of a hike, mainly because of all the rain the area had received, causing all the rocks to be very slippery (and the trail basically was going up rocks).

Does it need explaining? Just picture all the Lobsters these pots caught.

I’ve been to Acadia three times now, and the previous two times I’ve never made it past the park on the Eastern side of the Island. This trip, we made it down to Bass Harbor, where Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse is located. Southwest Harbor and Northeast Harbor were also down in that area, and where significantly larger towns than Bass Harbor. Overall, it was quite a lovely trip, and I will always look forward to going back.