Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Day 1 -- Road Trip: Maine to PEI

August 13th we landed in Portland, ME and immediately started our drive to Vermont in our rented Pontiac G6. It sprinkled a little on the drive, but by the time we got to South Royalton, the clouds gave way to freaking awesome sunshine! It didn't rain again for the rest of the trip.

Our destination in South Royalton was the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial. When we arrived, we were greeted by an older Missionary who didn't hesitate to ask if we were Members. We said we were on a road trip and that we were both Members. She then asked if we were married. I hesitated for a moment but answered friends. We would later discuss the hesitation as a moment of wanting to equal her bluntness with a "nope, we're lovers" or something similar just to mess with her. Ah well, she meant no harm I guess, just seemed a little motherly being that she could see there were no rings on our fingers.

Pictures of the Memorial.

From South Royalton, we drove to Hanover to stop by Dartmouth; my sister's alma mater and I place I've visited a few times. It felt strange to be there sans Meredith. We walked around the green, then down to the co-op to replace my old, worn-out "Dartmouth Soccer" shirt I had bought there years ago. Neither of us were hungry enough to stop at Molly's for sweet potato fries... oh if only we had.....

Took a picture of Baker Library while there. I do think it's the most beautiful college campus I've been to.
What New England Road Trip would be complete without a trip to Lake Winnipesaukee? Since we were in the neighborhood... sort of... we stopped on by. I had forgotten how huge the lake is! We got a little lost (a theme that would persist the rest of the road trip sadly) looking for the main area. We ended up at Weirs Beach.. not the picturesque part of the lake I was looking for, but the sun was setting, we were running out of gas and getting hungry (also a common theme that would persist through the weekend, hehe).

Took these pics from the Lake:
After our sunset trip to the lake, it was time to move on back to Portland to catch some zzz's. The drive back was on small, country roads which didn't offer my by way of gas or food; two things we were in dire need of. We kept pushing on and eventually found gas, but still no food. My directions to the hotel weren't quite clear and we ended up taking a wrong turn.... ugh... luckily, Danny brought his GPS and it saved the day (another theme here people...) Finally, around 10:30pm, we rolled into the Fairfield Inn, Brunswick, ME, tired and hungry. NOTHING is open past 8pm in Maine. NOTHING. ... except Tim Hortons and McDonald's. McDonald's it was at 11pm. It was pretty gross, but it was food.

The next day we promised we wouldn't challenge ourselves like that again... we would eat and gas more frequently.