Leaf peeping

We are now in the state of New Hampshire and have become leaf peepers. Since last we posted, we stayed one more night in Montreal at an African themed hotel called Hotel Kutuma. We felt like we were on the set of a Tarzan and Jane movie. The restaurant called Le Nil Bleu served Ethiopian cuisine, typically eaten with your hands. Adrian's meal was served with rolls of injera, a pancake like consistency. The idea was to break off pieces and use it to pick up your stew like food. A bit of a challenge !

 

Greyhound Canada took us from Montreal over the border to Burlington, in Vermont. At the border everyone was requested to front up to the counter to face the inquisition. Some people were not as easily "processed" as us. One girl, a Pollyanna look-alike who looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, was taken into the back office, as had happened to a few others, but was in there for 25 minutes, while the whole bus waited for her.

 

We enjoyed our time in Burlington, and Vermont in general. We went on a tour of Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory, but they omitted to tell us when they collected our entry fee, that there was no ice cream being made that day! Still we had a good view of the maintenance crew hard at work and a sample of ice cream to follow. The highlight was the graveyard where headstone are provided for flavour combinations that weren't a success. Each headstone had a corny rhyme that explained its demise, such as

"Peanuts, popcorn, mix them in a pot, plop them in your ice cream, well maybe not"

We also enjoyed taking ourselves on a tour of some of the 106 covered bridges still in existence in Vermont today. The reasons for covering bridges are diverse but include the protection of the bridge decking, to add strength to the structure of the bridge and, in the past, to prevent horses being spooked as they travel above a raging torrent below.

 

 

 

In New Hampshire we're staying in Bethlehem where our host is Mary! She is a young woman in her 30s, who is very personable, a great cook and loves a chat. The other guests here have all been very pleasant and we have had some good conversations around the breakfast table and after returning from dinner out at various restaurants in the area.

In both Vermont and New Hampshire we have seen many signs warning us of moose crossings, but we weren't sure whether they saunter out of the forest and stand in the road or gallop across. Adrian reckons it depends on what sort of mood they're in. It wasn't until we visited the Flume Gorge visitor centre and saw a model of a bull moose that we fully realised how huge they are. Adrian is pictured here with Max the Moose. A sign nearby provides clues on how you can tell if you are too close to a moose in the wild. The bottom line reads "if a moose charges you, be afraid for your life".

We certainly did not want to meet one face to face. Apparently they are very unpredictable, but also very dumb. If you run behind a tree, they might charge straight past!

New Hampshire has provided us with great leaf peeping. The colours are becoming really vivid, if somewhat patchy. Tomorrow we are off to the coast and into another state, Maine, where we will be sampling the lobster, a speciality of the area.

Doing some train spotting!

 

 

 

 

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