Tivoli, Portland and Norway

After two, fairly expensive, fixes the Subaru was running like a champ. We drove North, ticking off a few new states on the way. Virgina? Check. West Virgina, Maryland, Pennsylvania? Check, check and check. Since we left Charlottesville at noon, our plan was to drive until we got sleepy and then pull over at a rest stop, making it to New York the following day. Sleepy caught up with us in Pennsylvania, but all the rest stops had fairly menacing signs warning travelers that anyone caught hanging around for more than 2 hours was subject to prosecution. No matter how slim the chances of actually being caught were, we decided not to risk it and pushed on. Luckily, the first rest stop past the Pennsylvania border into New York was menacing sign-free, so we pulled over for some much needed rest. It amazed us that in a shorter amount of time than it had taken us to get out of Texas, we were able to cross through 4 states and into a 5th, and the states were only getting smaller the farther north we headed.

We woke up the next morning to more traffic than we had seen in quite a while. Welcome to New England! Since it was a Wednesday, our buddy Devin was working. We decided to check out Connecticut before heading to Tivoli. We powered across southern Connecticut in a sprint to the coast. If anyone ever feels like going on an unpleasant and unscenic drive, I recommend I-95. Fortunately, we were able to turn off of it pretty quickly, as we opted for the slower, but much more scenic Hwy 1. We found a state park on the coast and Mark got to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. He and Maggie went for a swim as I settled onto a large boulder and watched the gentle waves rolling into shore. The Connecticut coastline is primarily made up of the Long Island Sound, so the water is much calmer than the Atlantic we would see later on the coast of Maine. After taking an accidental detour into Rhode Island, we headed west, across northern Connecticut. The leaves were beginning to change and we passed some beautiful farms on our way back to New York. We made it to Tivoli around 9:30pm and were pleased to find out that Devin's roommate KC and her partner Owen were fans of Top Chef and were about to head down to the local pizza place to catch the show. What better way to spend our first (non-rest stop) night in New York than with friendly people, tasty pizza and our favorite reality show?

Tivoli proved to be a blast. Devin had a multitude of wonderful farmer friends. The Lower Hudson River Valley was gorgeous and our days were spent driving around, taking in the fall colors and going for short hikes. Our nights were filled with fun people and activities including a spades dress up party, a goat feed (the goat fed us, we didn't feed the goat), and drinks at the local bar. After 3 short days in Tivoli, we decided to continue north to Maine.

Tivoli to Portland is 4 hours if you take the fast route. We are generally averse to the fast route, so we took the scenic route which lead us from NY, into southern Vermont and then up through New Hampshire, before hitting southern Maine. 7.5 hours and a short detour to the Maine coast later, we rolled into Portland and the waiting arms of our friend Audrey. We first became friends with Audrey in Portland, Oregon, so seeing her in Portland, Maine was awfully exciting. Two Portlands, two coastlines, one great friendship.

Portland turned out to be different, yet quite reminiscent of the "other Portland." When we first started walking around I kept getting excited by all signs and fliers mentioning Portland. I had to keep reminding myself that we were in Portland, just not the one with which I was familiar. Though it has a population of only 40,000, it is the biggest city in Maine and it feels like a proper city. It has everything you could want from a city, just on a smaller scale. It was also awesome. We ate great food, went to the beach and walked all over town. One of Mark's E-corps friends from Austin, TX was a native Maynard (Mainian? Mainite?) and after working in Texas had moved back to Maine. We spent an evening with him and his girlfriend and became thoroughly convinced that we should move to Portland immediately. However, the call of the open road was still too strong and after 3 lovely days exploring the city and surrounding area, we headed north to Norway, to stay with 2 of my Mom's college friends. They lived in a beautiful house that was backed by a 25 acre lake and they happened to be heading out of town that weekend. They offered us a dog/house sitting job and so we settled into Norway for the next 5 days. In the area they live, all the towns are named after foreign locales. Here's a picture of a sign just up the road:

And the lake that we were babysitting. Mark went fishing every day in the canoe and we had some tasty fish dinners.

The area we were in was lovely. Norway is a super cute town with a great health food store and a couple good bookstores. It was also home to the New Balance outlet and I got some new kicks for $20! We went for a few beautiful hikes. One thing we learned about Maine is that just because a hike is short, it doesn't mean it's easy. All the hikes we took ended up taking us straight up the mountain. There were no switchbacks like we were used to in the West. Here's the view from the top of Mt. Pleasant. The mountain is quite aptly named.

After the hike, we went to the best beer bar either of us had ever been to, the Horse Brass Pub in Portland, Oregon included. We actually saw someone in Ebenezer's with a Horse Brass Pub t-shirt on. Ebenezer's had the most extensive beer list I have ever seen. They even had a bottle of aged Belgian beer for $275! We opted for some slightly cheaper beers..... Here's their website if you want to take a gander at the beer list: http://www.ebenezerspub.net/ It's definitely worth a look.

Two of Mark's and my long term goals are to visit every state and National Park in the U.S. Since we were already in Maine, it made perfect sense to keep heading north to Acadia National Park after our house sitting gig was over. On October 5th, we bid farewell to the 2 goofy, chocolate labs we had dog sat, and their wonderfully hospitable owners, Kate and Glen, and hit the road once again.