This hitch was all about eating… or so it seemed most of the time. The northeast happens to make some of my favorite foods—pizza, ice cream, and cheese—in their most delicious form. New York style pizza, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Vermont cheese. And then there were the whoopie pies, lobster, crab cakes, beer, and Vietnamese food in upstate New York, thanks to Xuan’s mother who cooked us egg rolls, chicken wings, and Vietnamese lettuce rolls when we visited her family in upstate NY. And then there were the Dunkin’ Donuts, where I encountered the best Boston accents listening to people order their donut and coffee. I also had the best cup of coffee that I’ve had in probably six months, in Portland, ME. It was a latte that tasted like it had molasses in it.
This post would most accurately reflect the hitch if I talked about food for 80% of the time, work for 15%, and off-time recreating for 5% (most of our off-time recreating is included in food discussions). It may turn out that way.
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| at work. The Presidential Range in NH as our backdrop |
We flew into Boston on the 6
th of June. The first few nights Xuan and I stayed with her friend just outside of the city. Our first few refuges were in northern MA—Parker River NWR and Thacher Island NWR. Parker River was a beautiful refuge right on the coast where we needed to inventory several beach-access boardwalks. Thacher Island was a small island about a 15-minute boat ride from the coast. It has two lighthouses on it and lots of aggressive gulls that wanted to peck our heads, or at least deafen us with their squawking. We were finally grateful for the otherwise horrible and inconvenient four-foot-level, and were comforted that we could at least beat the gulls off if they went for our heads.
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| Thacher Island NWR |
When we finished with Massachusetts we drove up into Maine, where our first stop was Rachel Carson NWR. The coast of Maine is quite lovely. Lots of typical New England style houses whose inhabitants I imagine wearing seer-sucker and digging for clams. I didn’t actually see that happening though. We were shown the Bush (Sr) mansion on the coast—it’s very big and well protected.
The last refuge we inventoried before the weekend was Petit Manan, which is happily right near Acadia National Park. We were able to use a FWS camper on Schoodic Peninsula (a part of the park) for the weekend. It was really lucky—the Schoodic Peninsula is a beautiful but less-visited part of the park. It also started raining halfway through the weekend, so the shelter was nice. We spent the weekend hiking in the park with Toji and Stefano who drove up from their work in MA for the weekend. Rain moved in on Sunday so we slept in to the sound of rain drops and then had a lazy day that mostly involved driving to get lobster, eating lobster, driving back home, and sleeping off the rain and lobster.
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| climbing around in Acadia |
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| green rocks at Acadia |
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| Toji and Stefano with lobster and hamburgers |
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| Xuan and I with our lobster and crabcakes |
The Lobster dinner was something Xuan and I had been scheming about in our trip-planning. We decided we’d eat oatmeal for breakfast, ph&j for lunch, and beans and rice for dinner EVERY day so we could afford the lobster experience. We did it too, without eating the same thing every day either. Dunkin’ Donuts has lots of flavors of donuts.
Alright, so from Acadia we continued up the coast to Calais, ME. Right on the Canadian border. We actually almost got in the line at customs to pass into Canada, luckily there is a gas station to pull into for those that get cold feet. We did end up going into Canada for a jaunt. We thought we’d visit the city of St. John in New Brunswick, but then decided it was too far to drive, so we just took a little Canadian detour on our way to Baxter State Park. Unfortunately we looked suspicious, I mean, we were “”randomly selected” at customs for a full search. Half-an-hour later and one bag of clementines lighter, we were released back into the US. Phew. Our plan was to hike Mt. Katahdin. Katahdin is the highest peak in Maine and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. We hiked it and it was a killer hike. Both for the awesome view and knife-edge ridge at the top, and for the near-vertical hike. We were in quite some pain for days after.
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| We made it! Now to go back down. |
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| The knife-edge ridge |
For our second weekend we made a rather epic drive from Maine to upstate New York where Xuan’s family lives. She wanted to make it home for her nephew’s first birthday party. And I got to eat lots of delicious Vietnamese food. Xuan’s family is pretty big- she has two sisters and two brothers, and they have their significant others, plus two little boys and the mama and the papa. These very petit people can eat a LOT of food. When we weren’t eating it was only because the food had run out, or we were driving to eat more food, or we were waiting as Xuan’s mom fried up more food in the kitchen. And if I wasn’t eating and there was food available, then Xuan’s very sweet mother who spoke little English would worry that I was hungry and why don’t I go into the kitchen and eat something. There’s plenty! So I did.
The third and final week we traveled though northern Vermont and New Hampshire. The parts we were in were very rural—very few chain stores, and old-fashioned gas stations with old non-digital pumps and wheels of cheese on display in glass cases. Plenty of mosquitoes and deer flies though. We had to visit the Ben and Jerry’s factory of course. And buys some fine Vermont cheese. The contact at Silvio O. Conte NWR told us how he makes his own maple syrup. It’s refreshingly different up there. I would like to have more time to explore the towns.
Next month I'll be in Oregon and just barely in California for a few nor cal hitches.
