seen any moose today?

Day 4
Bar Harbor to New Hampshire
October 12, 2011

We got up this morning…

packed the car, grabbed hot chocolate and breakfast and set out for New Hampshire

We were making good time, but not sticking to a time schedule, if we wanted to stop and get out or look at something, then we would.

Here are a few pics we took along the way:

Stopping to see Paul Bunyan is where we went terribly wrong!

Right next to this statue was a little visitor center building. It was lunch time, so we went inside to see if he suggested anywhere good to eat. Chain food is almost non-existent here. It’s mostly local restaurants, so we needed to know what was close to us.

We got a little side tracked…The man in the visitor center, “John”, wanted to know where we were coming from, which way we were travelling etc…

He recommended some restaurants, then went on to tell us that we really needed to go a different route than planned. He showed us how to go thru “moose valley”. He said that it would add about an hour and a half to our trip, but that we would, “most definitely” see a moose.

Since we were not on a set schedule, we decided the added time would be worth it if we got to see a moose.

We ate lunch at The Covered Wagon

And set out in search of a Moose…
The drive was beautiful…we got out at a few places to enjoy the view

looks like  a postcard doesn’t it?

As we kept driving and driving, we kept seeing signs such as this

But were not seeing any moose!!!

We saw a man that worked for the state on the side of the road… I told Stacey to pull over.

I rolled down my window and said, “excuse me sir, Have you seen any moose today?”. They were giggling in the background, so it was hard for me to have a serious conversation with him, but he showed me where I could find some moose tracks. So what did we do?

You guessed it!

Went on a moose hunt

we found the tracks, but no moose

Just some more beautiful scenery

After no signs of any sort of wildlife, 3 extra hours in the car (because John was WAY off on his distance calculation)

We were over the “fall foliage” for the day and ready to be in New Hampshire, OUT of the car.

Needless to say, we were not very happy with John and his recs, by the end of the day. We didn’t make it to Mt Washington before it closed, so we decided to do that first thing tomorrow morning, before heading to Vermont.

People that we met along the way told us that we needed to stay in a town called Gorham, because the actual town that Mt Washington was in could get pricey.

We followed their advice…

Let me tell ya something about Gorham

there.is.nothing.there.

you can literally throw a rock from one end to the other

We were so tired of being in the car though, we planned to just find a place to stay, eat dinner, and rest since we had to be up early the next day.

And this is where we stayed….

Moosebrook Motel

wood paneling, bubble tv, hideous décor

We couldn’t decide if this or budget host was worse, but it was a bed to sleep in

and it was clean

“sanitized for your protection”

All in all a good day, we just feel like we wasted a good portion, by being in the car longer than anticipated…

But we had fun along the way, and tomorrow brings a new day

goodnight from the small tiny little town of Gorham, New Hampshire