The Smell of Coffee

I love the smell of coffee on a cool fall morning. The nights are getting cooler, naw I think I can say cold! Last night it got down to 40 degrees but we are warm and cozy in our trailer. Over the past week we have seen summer days but fall nights are creeping up on us. But that’s ok because our mission right now is to do some serious leaf peeping. Leaf peeper is what the locals call those of us visiting to see the fall colors. So here we sit in the middle of a forest next to a stream near the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There are only a few hints of color so far so we will have to wait on that story in the next blog entry.

Gettysburg, Accidental Tourist – As we were moving through Pennsylvania towards Upstate New York, I was having difficulty contacting the selected RV park. Seems they would never answer their phone. So in a shift of plans we looked towards other areas and found a nice park just outside of Gettysburg. Gettysburg with its battle fields and cemeteries would be interesting enough I guess although after Washington DC and Arlington we were a bit worn out on stories of dead people. The Hershey factory in Hershey PA had sound much more entertaining, oh well maybe another time for that. We did end up enjoying our visit though and found Gettysburg a very interesting and friendly place. After all, how bad can it be when I was able to buy a fresh rhubarb pie from the nearby market? We bought some sweet corn too but it just does not compare to the Iowa corn.

I Love New York – at least that’s what they say. I think I can go along with that as long as you clarify that we are referring to Up State New York and not the city. We took a wide berth around the city just to make sure it stayed out of our way. Our primary target in New York was Niagara Falls. More than six million cubic feet of water fall over the crest line every minute in high flow, and almost 4 million cubic feet on average. It is the most powerful waterfall in North America. Which is probably why after parking our truck and walking a good distance to our first lookout over the falls looking down at this torrent of falling water I realized that I have to pee…really bad. Later after being fully relieved, we bought tickets to ride the imfamous Maid of the Mist boat. This boat takes you right up the to foot of the falls. They provide rain ponchos to help keep you dry but it didn’t work much for me anyway. I got soaked. Good thing it was still a warm day and I dried out quickly after our sorjourn to the falls. As you may know, the falls are on the US/ Canadian border and can be viewed from either country. We observed them from the US side and did not go over to the Canadian side although many say the best view is from there. They probably just say that as a way to make Canadians feel better (ha, ha just kidding my Canadian friends!).

Boston City of Good Taste – Would you believe it that a large US city can actually have great tasting tap water? It’s true. In Boston their water source is so pure that testing indicated that no filtering was necessary. A few years ago they switched their purification system from chlorine to ozone and the water tastes great! During our time near Boston we visited the Kennedy Presidential Library, Plymouth (home of the famous Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims) and had dinner on Cape Cod. There were so many things to see and do in this great city but we selected just these few so we could at least experience a small bit of Boston culture. It was well worth it. As we drove around, navigating round-abouts and narrow old city streets I mentioned to Mellie how different this feels compared to California with its wide streets and accommodating freeways. Maybe you get use to it but right now I miss California.

Road Revelation #15 – Consider an unanswered call for what it is and accommodate change. No sense wasting time trying to make plans that just refuse to be made. When things aren’t working out maybe its time to look in another direction. You never know what you might find.