Maine: good people, good lobster and lots of blueberries!

Its been a whirlwind tour of the east coast and we are almost 2 weeks behind on the blog. Time to play catchup on what we have been up to!

We crossed the border into Vermont via highway 141 with relative ease.. the border official asked us if we had any citrus and made us toss the wild flowers we picked in Ontario but other then that he waved us through. Next stop was the coast of Maine to meet up with my college friend Matt and his (new!) wife Alyson, who drove up from Boston. I was especially excited about exploring Maine since it would be my first time in the state. I couldn't wait for lighthouses and lobster!

The drive from Vermont to Maine was very pretty, consisting mainly of back roads. At one point we saw a bunch of people on the side of the road... upon closer inspection we realized we were driving through a patch of wild blueberries! We figure we might as well join the locals and harvest some for ourselves.

Harvesting blueberries later to be used for blue berry muffins

Catching up with Matt and Alyson at Matt's mom's place in St George, ME was amazing. The house was situated right on a cove so we could sit on the deck with a view of the lobster pounds and watch the tide come in and out. Speaking of lobster, I was in heaven. I think I tried lobster a different way for every meal... steamed, lobster roll, lobster grilled cheese, lobster stew.

Steamed Maine lobster, comes with a rock for cracking the shell

more lobsters

It was incredibly nice to catch up with Matt and Alyson (still working on getting them to move out to the bay area). They knew all the cool spots to check out in the Rockland/ St George area: culinary highlights included sunny afternoon lobster rolls at a BYOB spot right on the water, drinks at the bar attached to the Inn that Matt's dad is running (his retirement project) which were served up by the retired Navy Admiral that now runs the bar, coffee and bagels at a cute garden cafe and fish tacos cooked by Alyson! Over all is was a weekend of good company, good drinks and good food

Beers and lobster rolls right on the beach

Matt also scored us spots on the Morning in Maine, a Sailboat owned and operated by his uncle Bob. We couldn't have asked for a better sailing weather. From the boat we had awesome views of the coast,including multiple light houses. We also got to see a Windjammer, the type of schooner pictured on the Maine quarter.

Us in front of the Windjammer

In addition to catching glimpses of the lighthouses from the boat, Matt and Alyson took us on a tour of local lighthouses. This included the Marshall point light house which is featured in Forrest Gump. We also saw the Owls Head light and the Rockland Harbor breakwater light, which included almost a mile hike out on the breakwater.

Marshall Point Lighthouse

Owls Head Light

 

 

Chillin on the beach below Owls Head Light

Hiking out to Rockland Breakwater Light

Overall it was a great trip to Maine. Perhaps we can make Maine a yearly tradition?

This car climbed Mt. Washington!

Just to start off, the car climbed Mt. Washington! 

While trying to find what to do between Maine and NYC, we decided to try the White Mountains in New Hampshire.  

The White Mountains are a lush and peaky mountain range.  The area has always been a bit of a tourist attraction, at times it reminded me of Tahoe, but without the huge lake.  Over 100 years ago, the entire forest was decimated by logging.  While exploding with natural beauty, the area has been refined with world-class lodges, touristy towns, and ski resorts.

We found a camp site in National Forrest Sugarloaf area.  Despite it being 5pm, we set off to climb Mt. Hale and loop around to the Appalachian Trail and back to camp.  At the late hour, it was aggressive.  We planned to finish the last mile in the dark. 

 We ascended over 2500' in 2 miles or so.  Unfortunately, the view at the top of Hale is blocked by trees.  I had to climb one just to see what was there.  Apparently the trees are making quite the comeback after 100 years

We came back down into the Appalachian Trail and encountered one of the "huts."  There was a bunk-house and a kitchen.  It was a surprising encounter considering the location.  From there we went down by some beaver ponds and back.  We were thrilled to encounter some moose in the dark on our way home.

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The next day we drove to the top of Mt. Washington at 6,288' in elevation.  It's quite the tourist attraction!  There is a toll road that gains over 4,000' in 7 miles.  First gear the whole way.  We are proud to say the van made it without incident.  The hill also boasts it's own "cog railway."

On the last day, we did a quick hiked up Sugarloaf, which did indeed have an excellent view.  The top was also covered in wild blueberries.  

Our campsite in the White Mountains.

Quebec... Parlez-vous Anglais?

Lac Poigan, Réserve faunique La Vérendrye

Clues we weren't in Ontario anymore

After spending a couple of hours digging ourselves out of the sand pile (see previous post), we were ready to leave the backroads and go in search of coffee and breakfast. Heading to the next town meant crossing the border between Ontario and Quebec. We didn't fully appreciate what this would mean until we suddenly found ourselves transported to the  French countryside.  While bigger cities like Montreal and Quebec City are much more bilingual, the little provincial towns of Quebec are exclusively French speaking, even 10 km from the Ontario border.

My introduction to poutine

The first town we came upon, Duparquet, was hardly more then an intersection with a gas station, thrift store, and a tiny restaurant with a takeout window. We made the mistake of wandering into the thrift store first, after picking out the word "cafe" from a  sign on the window written in French (Ben last took French in elementary school and his French is better then mine). Fortunately there was  a coin operated coffee machine in the quarter so we at least got our coffee before attempting to order food from the restaurant takeout counter. Again we were faced with a menu completely in French and a counter worker who spoke no English. We were saved by a super friendly women from Ontario who approached and helped us order two plates of poutine. I had never heard of this magical dish before... it was delicious!
   

Well fed and caffeinated, we continued driving until we got to the town of Rouyn-Noranda. We decided to celebrate getting unstuck with a hotel room and a few beers. This down time also allowed us to clean out the 3 inches of sand that had accumulated in the van. Rouyn-Noranda was a random town but we really enjoyed our recovery time here. The town was even raffling off a Westfalia as some sort of promotion! We never did figure out the whole story, but we figured one Muskey was enough for now.

Beers celebrating the van being unstuck

Rouyn-Noranda

 After a good night's sleep we were ready to continue on. We decided to spend a couple of nights camping within the Réserve Faunique La Vérendrye, a nature preserve south of Rouyn-Noranda. Within the preserve you could camp at rustic campsites, accessible by gravel roads. This seemed like a good compromise to camping: a way to get away from the big RV's but still camp at designated campsites (i.e. less likely you will get stuck in a sand dune). Ben wasn't  tired of the back roads yet so he picked one of the most remote sites the park had to offer, Lac Poigan, 41 kilometers off the paved road. .

Our effort paid off. Our campsite was on the edge of a lake which we essentially had to ourselves. 

The lake was connected to a larger reservoir by a chain of lakes and waterways. This allowed for a lot of exploring with our inflatable kayak. Ben also tried his luck at fishing but unfortunately the walleye weren't biting.

36 hours in Montreal

Olympic Park, Montreal

After spending a few days in the wilderness we decided we were ready for some city time.  Montreal is the second largest city in Canada and the second largest French speaking city (after Paris) in the world, which is probably why it reminded us of a cross between Paris and San Francisco. One thing that was immediately obvious about Montreal was how bike friendly it was. Split bike lanes allowed you to safely navigate the whole city. Once we found a predictably overpriced parking spot for the van, we spent the rest of our 36 hours in Montreal exploring the city on bikes.

We went to Plateau Mont Royal neighborhood for a late lunch at Hachoir. This neighborhood was a trendy hipster neighborhood with lots of funky shops and restaurants, reminding us of the Mission in SF. Quite a contrast from our typical camping dinner of beans and quinoa!

Later that evening, we continued to explore Montreal on bikes. We biked by Notre Dame and the Old Port part of the city before stumbling upon the Juste Pour Rire (Just for Laughs) festival, which was essentially a comedy festival with music, stand up, and food carts! We sampled some of the food options, bought a bottle of wine and wandered around checking out some of the shows. Seth Myers from SNL was hosting a VIP event at the festival which unfortunately required tickets. They were simulcasting the standup outside though, so we enjoyed some top notch comedy (which mainly consisted of Americans making fun of Canadians) while drinking wine.

The only food cart necessary

An acapella group performing at the Just For Laughs Festival

 The next day we spend another full day  exploring Montreal by bike. We checked out the Olympic Park and the Jardin Botanique de Montreal (botanical gardens). The botanical gardens in Montreal are huge! We easily could have spent an entire day there. The landscaping ranged from extremely manicured (some very impressive hedge art) to natural and wild (we even saw a fox sunning himself!).

Chinese Gardens

Just one of the many topiary experiments

A fox enjoying a sunny day in the gardens

After the botanical gardens we biked over to check out the Marche Jean-Talon, a huge outdoor food market. This market was a food lovers paradise and we were immediately overwhelmed. Highlights included the William J Walter "Saucissier", a sausage store that had over 50 different types of sausage (the cheese infused sausage was amazing!). We ended up leaving empty handed but we came back with the van on our way out of town so we could properly load up with supplies.

mmmmm oysters

After a long day biking around in Montreal we drove off towards the border and ended up getting a motel about 15 miles from the Canada-Vermont border. One last night in Canada before returning to the States.