Hullo there! Lang time nae see, ya wee radges! When we last left you, it was the eve of our last day in Rochester and we had big art museum plans ahead of us. However…we did not make it.

Unfortunately we had a combination of a late night, late morning, packing up the car and a long drive ahead of us – enough to deter us from spending the best part of the day in Rochester and to instead head onward to our next destination. It’s okay, though – we’d wandered the grounds of the museum a day earlier, so we got a good taste of the outside exhibits already.

Our first stop on Tuesday the 17th was Siamese Pond, NY. To break up the journey, we made a pit stop in the town of Williamson, NY to do laundry and get some lunch. This town was ADORABLE. Very quaint and quiet. They had affordable, quick laundry services and a conveniently located diner/chocolate shop right next door. We stopped to gaze longingly through the window of The Original Candy Kitchen before we realized that they were a diner and not just an apparition from our sweetest dreams. We each enjoyed a veggie burger and a coffee while we waited for our clothes to finish washing. Brian went and switched everything into dryers and then we continued lingering and mooching their WiFi until we were finished. Having sat for that long, we figured it was only appropriate to partonize the establishment even further and buy a box of chocolate for the road. How selfless are we?

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Back on the road again, we spent the next few hours snacking, beholding beautiful homes/nature and jamming to some old Linkin Park albums and got to the campground at Thirteenth Lake after nightfall. We went without dinner as we were more determined to go to sleep early and wake up at a reasonable time for the next day… a day that I had been looking forward to for quite some time now…that we’ll get to later.

In the morning, we were one of the first vehicles to stir – a very unfamiliar situation for us! As we prepped some oatmeal and coffee, our usual on-the-road breakfast, we watched SUVs and trucks pull in, unload boats, and head out to the nearby lake for some morning fishing. We overheard several conversations (including one man cursing loudly at the posted notice about artificial lures only, which was apparently a recent change) and were looped into one by a boisterous border collie who was very eager to find out what we were eating. Its human companion engaged us as well, asking “how [we] like them ADKs?” Which we found rather humorous. ADKs, of course, referring to the Adirondack mountain range in which we were currently situated. In truth we’d had less time than we would prefer to take them in, as they were pretty much along our driving route and not much else. However, we agreed that the drive had been beautiful and could answer in the affirmative based on that at least. But anyway, this is all inconsequential and boring compared to what’s coming up next. Ladies and Gentlemen, this was the day of our long-awaited visit to …none other than… the one…the only…

(oh, get on with it!)

THE BEN AND JERRY’S FACTORY

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That’s right. This was the day. We had researched times and prices and came fully prepared for a day full of chunk-filled, dairy-related excitement. I was all abuzz when we arrived and Brian had to attempt to calm me down a couple of times. And, as anyone who has been told to “calm down” can tell you, this tends to have the opposite effect. Nevertheless I could be nothing but HAPPY and EXCITED in this land of my ice cream dreams! We arrived about 15 minutes before the start of the next factory tour which gave us just enough time to sit and take some cute pics with the interior murals and to look at the map of Ben & Jerry’ses around the world.

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The tour itself was only about 30 minutes and full of excrutiating/adorable puns from the tour guide. We learned a good deal about production of the ice cream in this (flagship) factory and others around the world, including which kinds of flavors tend to sell well in different regions and which ones don’t (sweet ones tend to suffer in Japan, who have wasabi and matcha-based Ben & Jerry’s flavors, and maple never seemed to take off here in the US…unfortunately.) We also learned about the management of Ben & Jerry’s as an organization, including its founding and growth over the years and a relatively recent (and relatively hostile) acquisition by Unilever. At the end of the tour was the tasting! The factory had been making Triple Caramel Chunk on the day of our visit, so that’s what we got to taste. Deeeeelicious! There was a sample left over at the end of the tour, so Brian took one for the team and enjoyed a second helping.

After the tour it was time to peruse the gift shop for the perfect souvenir. I was torn between two t-shirts and ultimately took Brian’s suggestion. We bought another sticker to stick onto Lloyd’s cargo box hat and headed out to the brave the scoop shop crowds!

We had to wait in the line for about 20 minutes, as there was a tour of elderly Vermonters who had visited the factory at the same time as we had and they were all just as eager to get their ice cream! There was also a man with a baby strapped to his chest who ordered a Mini Vermonster… that held things up a bit. (To those wondering, the “mini” version has 4 scoops of ice cream at its base instead of 20.) We both tasted a new sorbet called Pucker Upper which, though delicious, we ended up deciding against. Brian ordered a small (2-scoop) cup of Coffee Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz! and Bourbon Brown Butter. I went for a small (2-scoop) cone with a new flavor called Sweet Like Sugar and a flavor you can ONLY get at Vermont scoop shops – Maple Walnut (not even listed on their website because it’s s0o0o0o exclusive!) We were both very pleased with our choices. We sat in the sun for a while, took some more fun pictures, and then headed to the flavor graveyard to pay our respects to the ice creams of yesteryear.

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With the knowledge that this only displayed American retired flavors, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to find the grave of my own personal fave from sleepovers with Sinead back in England – a flavor called The Full Vermonty, which is so hard to find online that you might think it only exists in my head. However, I’ve found this amazing master list of every flavor of Ben & Jerry’s along with details! So now I know it exists and I CAN PROVE IT! It was yummy…rip. As far as what WAS present, we saw lots of combos that looked very tasty and some that looked like a bad idea from the beginning. Each gravestone has a cute little poem and the release dates of the flavor.

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A little way down the hill there were three cute Holstein-Friesians, the Ben & Jerry’s trademark cow, grazing in a field – solely for non-dairy display purposes. They were beautiful and we admired them for several minutes before departing the factory grounds. Admittedly I was a little disappointed to have learned of the Unilever acquisition and there was a definite sense of disapproval from the workers (though a good percentage of them were younger than me and probably weren’t even born in 2000 when the acquisition happened). Ben & Jerry’s started out as 2 hippie dudes using their love of ice cream to change the world, one scoop at a time. On the surface it appears that all of fundamental beliefs and business practices would be maintained through the acquisition, but a little digging implies that that isn’t so much the case anymore. Jerry tends to shy away from talking much about the topic, the most recent article I could find being from 2008. Not to delve too deeply into the crushing of my idealistic ice cream wishes… let’s continue!

Our home for the evening was the Emily Proctor Trailhead outside of Lincoln, VT. The small rural Vermont town was about as picturesque as you’d expect. The autumn colors were just starting to take hold and we were engulfed in a lovely mix of green, orange, red and yellow leaves on our journey to the woods. We also drove by a beautiful brown horse with a blonde mane and tail who approached us when he saw us pulled over beside his little field. We didn’t get out to greet him but took a couple of glamour shots and shouted admiration and affirmations from the car. The sun was setting as we arrived so we didn’t have much chance to explore our surroundings before calling it a night. We prepped a quick dinner and settled into Lloyd for the night, bundling up a little extra in the chilly Northern New England climate.

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The next morning we took a look around to see where we’d decided to sleep. The small gravel lot of the trailhead, where we’d parked, was right next to a cute little stream and a small incline that led up to the Emily Proctor trail. We made breakfast watching the stream, only occasionally being horrified by the oversized insects that called this area home. We packed some things into our rooftop box and gave a wide berth to the leggy spider who had decided to climb aboard.

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Today’s travels would take us down into Burlington, VT. We had heard good things about this little city, most notably that Bernie was their mayor from ’81-’89 and that his campaign HQ is downtown! Burlington is located right on Lake Champlain and is some serious picturesque Vermont-ness. The average age was a little above ours and the average house price was a little above our ideal…but something about it makes us want to put Burlington on our list of potential future homes. We maxed out our free 2hr parking in the city sitting outside a cafe on the docks and flipping through the Seven Days weekly paper to get a feel for the town. We saw an advertisement for “Maple Creemees” and Brian was intrigued. We decided to give one a try (newsflash: they’re pretty much just soft-serve ice cream). We asked the ice cream stand attendant for a pro and a con about living in the area – pro is the “good vibes” feel of the town, con is the price of rent. Thank you, kind stranger!

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After exploring the downtown area we drove a little way out to the Magic Hat Brewery in South Burlington. They offered brewery tours and we debated taking one, but decided we’d seen enough breweries to get the gist of it. Instead we hung out and had a beer each – Brian had the Pilot Stout and I had the Art Hop Ale. We were both delighted with our choices. After a little while we decided we’d had our fill of Vermont (for now) and would head back out, North Hampshire-bound. On the way we stopped at a Healthy Living Market in the hopes of finding some of my beloved Soy Curls. Alas, we were unsuccessful…but we found that they sold textured vegetable protein in bulk, which I’d also been wanting to try for some time now. Hooray! We scooped up about half a pound and were on our way again.

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That evening was spent at a rest area on the outskirts of the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire. We arrived late, having stopped to prep food at a park on the way, so the visitor/information center was closed, as were the bathrooms, but there was a porta-potty accessible to us for nighttime use. In the morning we spent a little while preparing breakfast and going inside to use the facilities, wash our hands, and fill our water bottles from the drinking fountain inside. We both got a definite feeling of being hurried along by the attendant of the visitor center so we skidaddled as soon as possible, before he could ask too many questions. (Though there were no time limit postings anywhere in the rest area, so he could kindly step off.)

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While inside the rest area, I peeked at the brochure shelf to see if there were any hidden gems in this area (à la Paw Paw wine fest). I was not disappointed. The very weekend we’d decided to spend in the White Mountains was the same weekend as the New Hampshire Highand Games & Festival! We decided we’d definitely have to stop by on one of the three days. It was Friday, which was also the cheapest day to attend, but by the time we got into town it was already past noon and the Games ended at 5pm. Saturday was the most expensive, so we decided to extend our 2-day stay to 3 days and go on Sunday.

Somewhere along the way, I regret to say, I cracked my phone screen. It’d be less depressing if it weren’t for the way it cracked – in Alison’s words, “I would say this is ‘seeing Jesus in my toast’ level of kismet coolness dude.”

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Our first day in the White Mountains was spent wandering around the town of Lincoln, NH. It was very tourist trap-esque, as was the majority of the National Forest. Lots of lodges, restaurants, guided tours, etc. We stopped for lunch in the Gypsy Cafe for a spicy black bean burger (Brian) and a portobello sandwich (moi). We very much enjoyed this restaurant and may have returned if we weren’t trying to avoid eating out! (As you can tell, we’re doing quite poorly at that…)

We had two campgrounds listed as possibilities for our time in the White Mountains. We found the first one easily and drove up the dirt road to scope out the numbered campsites along both sides. We saw that #1 was taken, and #2 was not. As it was quite close to the road and thus more noisy than those farther in, we decided to try our luck at finding a vacant site deeper into the woods. We drove past #3…taken. #4, taken. #5, 6, 7… all taken! It was about this time that we saw a sedan driving in the opposite direction. It was unclear whether the driver was vacating a campsite that we’d be able to take or turning around as they were all occupied. We decided to continue up to about #9 and, seeing it was also occupied, we turned around and hoped to find #2 still vacant. Of course we’d missed our opportunity by less than 2 minutes and that dang sedan from earlier was happily setting up camp at spot #2. CURSES!! Oh well, that’s what backup plans are for!

We laughed at our misfortune and decision to be picky, claiming that we absolutely would not make the same mistake at the next campground. We arrived, this time traversing somewhat more rugged terrain on the way. We passed an old refurbished ranger station on the left and, soon after, the numbered campsites began. #1….vacant. We pulled in immediately. After a little bit of back and forth, with suggestions of whether to leave belongings or Brian at the campground as a placeholder, we decided that we absolutely hadn’t learned our lesson less than 30 minutes earlier and continued down the dirt road to see if other sites were vacant. We got to #2, saw that it was taken…looked up the road to #3 and it was also taken. I made a somewhat haphazard U-turn in the middle of the road and we sped back down the hill to campsite #1. Luckily it was still vacant. We pulled in and began to set up camp. As time went by we saw several other vehicles pass us on the road, a handful of which didn’t come back down again; presumably there were other campsites available farther along that we didn’t get to (or a big mountain monster past campsite #3 ate them all). Either way, we were happy with our decision to stay put at #1. It was a huge double-sized campsite with a pathway through to a small stream behind. There were 3 or 4 medium sized boulders in the middle of the clearing with a second fire ring on the other side. We decided that, if anyone asked, we’d let them park up and utilize the other half of our campsite. Nobody asked.

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We spent an evening collecting damp firewood, working together to get a fire going, cooking some dinner, and staring at the stars. Brian took some astro-photos and I started a new book (The Second Death of Daedalus Mole). All in all, a lovely evening.

Saturday was going to be our day of mountaineering…or something like that. We wanted to soak up all that the White Mountains had to offer, as the next (and last) day here was dedicated to the Games. However, our drive to Lincoln from our campsite in Conway took us through Littleton NH, and that changed our plans somewhat. Not so much the drive itself; rather the “pie festival” sign that caught Brian’s eye. Brian is a sucker for pie. Foolishly I tried to debate attending the pie festival…and lost. (I confess I didn’t try that hard.) We found street parking and made our way down the hill, taking in the quaintness of this little town on our way. The pie festival was held in a church and was mostly attended by septuagenarians+. But that didn’t stop us! We eyed the listing of available pie types and tried not to drool all over ourselves. In the end we split a spinach quiche, I had a slice of blueberry lemon pie and Brian had a slice of pumpkin pie. They were all FANTASTIC. It was a bit of a ripoff at $5 per slice, as Brian noted later…they were selling whole pies for $15. In future, ALWAYS GO FULL PIE! We truly are collecting lessons on this trip to keep with us for life.

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Back to mountain things. We stopped by the visitor center in Lincoln and asked for some tips about must-see White Mountains splendor. A lovely lady at the front desk advised us to drive the Kanc for the best overall taste of the area. There were tons of parking areas along the 34-mile route; however, there was a “day use fee” at each parking area of $5. Dumb! We decided to pull off on the side of the road to explore a little. 10 minutes later I had illegal-parking-anxiety and we decided to head back to the car. Luckily we hadn’t been given a ticket. We continued our drive, enjoying all of the autumnal beauty we could. To our delight we discovered a vista point with no fees(!) and got out to take in the beautiful views.

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We had decided the day before that it’d be nice to watch the sunset from a mountaintop of some sort. By the time this was our priority, we had about an hour until the sun was due to set. We headed to Echo Lake beach, another recommendation from our visitor center friend. We discovered that there was yet another day use fee at the beach, but luckily we weren’t headed to the beach itself. We parked in a nearby lot and headed off to climb Bald Mountain. The hike wasn’t long, but it was pretty steep! We huffed and puffed, fueled by pie and PB&Js, and reached the end of our hike with about 15 minutes to spare before the sun set. It was worth the short-lived strain.

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We had to pick up the pace on our way back down, as most of the trail was shrouded in trees and the darkness was fast approaching. I regaled Brian with tales of my horse-riding youth and we made it to the car before dark.

While in Lincoln we’d picked up a bundle of firewood in the hopes that we’d have more luck with our fire this way. Unfortunately that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. The logs burned awfully and Brian tried and tried and tried to get them going while I cooked dinner on the stove, only to be insulted repeatedly by the fire dying mere moments later. He kept at it and we ended up with a mini-fire at most for the majority of the evening…with maximum effort to maintain it. Oh well. We didn’t want to stay up too late, as we knew we had festivities awaiting us bright and early!

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We managed to get up, washed, dressed and breakfasted by about 9:30am the next morning, which may be a record for us – at least when free bagels aren’t at stake. After a little confusion over where to park, we were on a shuttle with a gaggle of kilt-clad pale folks and off to the Highland Games!

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The event is a big deal in this little mountain town, attracting thousands of attendees from around the world. We grabbed a map and list of events, piecing together an itinerary that we ended up mostly disregarding. We watched some bagpipe quartets, weight for distance throwing, and a band called Syr before seeking out some traditional Scottish fare. And by that, I do indeed mean haggis…at least for me. Brian opted for some lamb stew. We both enjoyed our own dishes, but not so much each other’s.

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We spent the next few hours wandering around all the stalls with different apparel and gifts for sale. It was a warm day and we were at a high altitude, so we tried to prioritize being in the shade or indoors. Luckily we happened upon a band performing under a large tent and decided to sit in. This band was WILD. Their name is Albannach and they’re described as “Bareknuckle pipes and drums”. They’re comprised of several drummers, a bagpiper, and…you guessed it…(or maybe you didn’t)….a didgeridoo-er. The audience connected with this band in an unreal way and spent the majority of the set that we saw absolutely losing their shiiiiit. The didgeridoo made its way into the audience and poked in between the heads of an unknowing couple, to hearty giggles from the audience. Fun times all round!

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We continued and saw lots of darling little trinkets and cute kilts and other miscellaneous Scottish thingies. We even saw some (ludicrously overpriced) British staple goodies, which I resisted the urge to purchase. By the time we made it to the end of the row of stalls, the haggis and the heat were just about catching up with me. Feeling a little bit woozy, we walked back to one of the few established buildings in the area and sat inside at the bar so I could drink some water and get out of the sun. Luckily I didn’t have to haggis-gaggis and all was well with my tummy after a little while. During our time in this upstairs bar area we heard Syr begin their second set downstairs, interrupted rudely by a random group of bagpipers/drummers walking into the upstairs bar and beginning to play with complete disregard for the band. They put on a quick impromptu (and seemingly pointless?) performance and were on their way again, at which point Syr started back up. We decided to head out about 30 minutes before the official end of the festival to avoid huge lines at the shuttle stop. Our efforts were successful and we were able to hop on the second shuttle to our pickup point.

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As it was still relatively early and New England is pretty compact, we decided to head eastward to Maine and get a jumpstart on our first day in the Pine Tree State. We hadn’t spent much money at the Highland Games so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at an Italian restaurant when we got to Freeport (where we’d be spending the night). We found Petrillo’s conveniently located a stone’s throw from where we’d be sleeping. It had lots of unique tasty dishes. Brian had a vegetable risotto and I had the squash calzone (which was so big that we had to split it). The server asked if we’d like dessert and listed the options…including tiramisu and cannolis. Our…freakin’…faves. So, of course we got both! Little did we know they were pretty sizeable portions…

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After a truly delectable Italian stuffing, we staggered back to the car and drove around the corner to the public parking lot in the middle of the city that we’d be staying in. There was a designated area for RV overnight parking and no specific area allowing overnight car parking, but we saw a sedan parked when we arrived and a small VW van pulled up during our stay too. We felt that we were probably safe and decided to go check out the LL Bean store close by. It received great reviews from a fellow camper who recommended the lot in the first place, plus it was open 24hrs and had restrooms we could use!

We had a bit of a hard time navigating the Freeport Village Station mall, in which the LL Bean was located, but eventually found our way to our destination. Unbeknownst to us, there are actually 4 LL Bean stores in the area – the outlet that we saw first was closed, but that was the only store that wasn’t 24hrs. Also unbeknownst to us, having never (LL) been in one of these stores before, the one we wound up in was the flagship, first-of-its-kind-ever, LL Bean original store! We feigned interest in the sporting equipment and used the restrooms, making small talk with the employees when necessary. After choosing a canoe for when we’re rich one day, we headed back to the car to sleep….

OR SO WE THOUGHT!!

What shenanigans befell us this time, you ask? Well….let me tell you. Brian’s keys are all connected with a hinged carabiner clip. The rest of his keys are on one ring, but his car key/fob flies solo. The carabiner is loose and has been notorious on this trip for freeing the car key from its grip in both of our possessions, causing an instance of panic until we reach farther in and discover the car key sitting by itself in the deep recesses of our pockets. I had been driving, so I was holding the keys. When we got back to the car from LL Bean, I reached into my pocket to retrieve them…and discovered that the car key had become disconnected. I reached further into my pocket and discovered….nothing. Except maybe pocket lint.

Ohnoes ; ~; what happen? Find out next time!