Jojo October 3rd, 2008
After a nice breakfast this morning we got ready to leave, and the rain was pouring down. We left for the trail anyway, but missed the route (Sleeping Beauty Mnt.) so we ended up at Pilot Knob, where another trail starts. This trail was a little shorter than the one we had planned but marked as being “difficult” on the trail map (the one we had in plan was “moderate”). So we took the 6.4 mile trail to Buck Mountain (elevation 2000ft, a little less than 700m) and arrived at the summit about 90 minutes later (what a view!). Now, the trail wasn’t that much longer than the one in Acadia National Park, and it wasn’t even steeper, but we were really tired after just half of the distance. And I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not fit and have adequate shoes. Also it was kinda remote and not that much frequented, so that they had a sign-in book at the trailhead where you could sign-in and sign-out in order for people to notice if you actually went missing on one of the trails. We arrived back at our car almost 4 hours after we had departed, and since we were so exhausted and it was already in the afternoon we only made it as far as Albany, where we’ll stay for tonight (the town we’re at is called “Bethlehem”). We decided against crossing over into Vermont for the reason that there isn’t really that much to see and we couldn’t find any halfway inexpensive accomodation for tonight.
Jojo October 2nd, 2008
The Adirondack Park, located in New York state, is the largest park in the US (except Alaska), and covers an area of 24000 km^2 (for comparison: NRW is 34000 km^2). So it’s sufficient to say that we’ve been driving for a few hours today without leaving the park or even traversing half of it. When we left this morning the weather was still shaky with heavy showers from time to time, making it hard to drive. But as we entered the park the weather gradually got better, so when we reached the visitor information center (which took us more than 3 hours driving in the park itself), we felt safe enough to take a short 2-mile hike. After about an hour of hiking (Katrin was annoyed with me because I was whistling all the way, to keep potential bears alarmed) we returned to the road and drove the short distance to the beautiful Lake George, where we got ourselves a room and a nice pizza. Tomorrow we’re gonna try (given that the weather plays along) an 8-mile-hike nearby before crossing into Vermont.
Now, what else can I tell you about the Adirondack Park. It’s simply magnificient, and we liked it even more than the Acadia National Park. Good thing too that right now the Indian Summer is in full bloom. The simple idea that a strip of land as large as this one is inhabited by so few people and covered by so few roads is hard to grasp. Having to tell yourself to fill up the gas because the density of gas stations (or cities or anything for that matter) is pretty low is something special ;).
Jojo October 1st, 2008
I suppose this is the post you’ve all been waiting for ;). Well, today my little honey-bunny turned 23 and what better day than one’s birthday to visit the lovely Niagara Falls. We left Heidelberg and drove straight towards the border and stopped on the canadian side (for those of you who don’t know it: the “big” part of the falls is canadian, and from their site you can only really appreciate the falls). Although I have been there once I didn’t really remember that much, but the main street towards the waterfront looks like Disneyland and the whole place is buzzing with (yes, again) asian tourists. Anyway, the falls were magnificient, and Katrin was impressed as well. We took some really nice photos and then crossed the border into the U.S. We had a lot of ground to cover, so we took the Interstate 90 across New York state which costs some toll but is the only way to quickly do the kinda distance we were looking at. At a service area (which is like the “Autobahnraststätten”) we stopped, filled up and finally found the Roomsaver booklets we had been looking for all this time. With this in hand we found an inexpensive and really good motel in Oneida, NY, which is where we’re at right now. This is probably the best motel we’ve stayed at the whole trip. Tomorrow we’ll try out the Adirondack National Park, provided the weather plays along.
Jojo September 26th, 2008
Today we left Montreal southbound, along Lake Ontario. We stopped at Upper Canada Village, which is a must-see if you’re in that region and also one of the best examples (I know of) of how American/Canadian museums differ from those known in Europe. The village is an accumulation of houses that you find in the 19th century along the banks of the St Lauren’s river. Because of numerous dams and canals which had to be built in order to generate electricy and provide safe passage for vessels which had to conquer some pretty scary looking rapids before that, a lot of small villages and settlements were flooded. So the government relocated about 6000 people and also managed to put some of their houses and churches on flatbed trucks. A few of the particularly pretty ones were driven to the site where the Upper Canada Village is today (and a few of them were reconstructed). This process started in the 1950s and is still continuing today.
The village is a living museum, that means that you can’t only walk through the streets and look into all of the fully furnished houses, but also that there are actors employed which wear the era’s clothes and go about their daily business. For example there is a broom-maker who makes all the village’s brooms, there is a blacksmith and a saw-mill where all the wood needed for the village is cut into the right shape. Of course these people don’t talk exactly the way it was back then or pretend that we’re not actually living in 2008, but it’s still nice enough to see them around town and visiting one another.
After a very nice day there we drove one for a few miles and managed to get a nice cabin where we’ll spend the night.
Jojo September 20th, 2008
For our second day in Bar Harbor we had planned to visit Acadia National Park, obviously. We rose at 7am (as we did every day so far), bought some groceries and then drove to the park’s Visitor Information Center. We bought a 7-day-pass ($20) and drove on the Park Loop Road down to Otter Point. A ranger had recommended for us t take the Ocean Trail (hiking), which we did. At first it was easy, near the coastline (and the road), without any differences in elevation. After we looked at Sand Beach we crossed the road to continue the trail. Boy, did it get rugged. Immediately the number of people on the trail dropped to about zero and so did the speed with which we progressed. We finally managed to mount the summit of Mount Gorham (elevation 168m) and took some nice photos before heading down the other side. When we arrived back at Otter Point it had taken us about 3 hours (about 6 miles) and a lot of strength. On the Park Loop Road (which is one-way at that point) we headed on and stopped again at Bubble Rock, where we climbed the South Bubble (took us about an hour and was much easier than our first hike that day). 
Our last stop was on Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest mountain on the US atlantic coast and, thank god, paved all the way to the top (you certainly could tell by the sheer amount of tourist, of the type you didn’t encounter on any of the hiking trails). Since it was to early to take the quickest route back to Bar Harbor we took the 233 East and then Route 3 which goes around the southern end of the peninsula.
Putting the beauty of this national park in words is hard, it’s simply georgeous, unbelievably pretty. It’s hard enough not to take a photo after every bend and not to stop the car at every possible scenic point. The park looks small on the map, and even smaller compared to other parks (like Baxter), but it is really more than big enough for a few days worth of discovering. One thing you should never, ever do (I’m glad we didn’t) is to rent a bike. The distances are still pretty big and the road just goes up and down all the way. Have a look at the photos, or better yet, visit it yourself if you can manage.
Jojo September 16th, 2008
Ok, I’ll keep this short as we’re on the verge of falling asleep (still a little bit of jet-lag I guess).
Today we took the bus (and subway) into Boston, which is a much easier way than trying to get there by car. We exited Downtown Crossing, which is near the Boston Common (a public park), because that’s where the famous Freedom Trail starts. The Freedom Trail is a red-lined footpath through Boston which includes a lot of historic sites and buildings, so it’s an easy way to see some of the most important things when it comes to the history of Boston (and the United States of course). As you can imagine the path is quite frequented (especially by more senior citizens) and at some points has become somewhat commercialized (we didn’t really go into any of the buildings, avoiding the charge and saving some time). Near the end of the path we rested at the USS Constitution and decided to go aboard the ship itself. As the USS Constitution is still commissioned, it (and the surrounding facilities) are US-navy installations, so we had to go through airport-like security in order to get in. Afterwards we finished the trail at the Bunker Hill monument and then made our way back downtown in order to get some food (we had breakfast at about 7:30 am and were nearing 3 pm at that time). After a somewhat disappointing meal at one of the usual fast-food-places we finished our first day downtown with a nice Latte and then headed back.
While this all might sound like a pretty quick tour I can assure you that it was not, especially distance-wise. So, now we’re at the hotel, the last thing we managed to was to get some food at a supermarket (can’t really eat take-out twice a day) before putting up our numb feet for the last time today.
After a day in the city, a trip to the supermarket and about 2 hours of CNN I already noticed a few things that bothered me somewhat about the way things work over here, things that didn’t really strike me as negative the last time I was here (which is about 5 years ago). Maybe I’ll find the time to put those things into a separate post at a later time. For now enjoy the photos ;)
By the way: Our car is a Toyota Corolla S and you should buy the diet-version of joghurts as they taste what I would call “normal” ;)
