Maine, at last!

After three days of riding with Mark, Jeff, and Heather, I'm in Maine. Comments from the journey thus far:

Day 1 was exciting but not so scenic. Lots of Michigan and the part of Ontario that looks like Michigan, although stopping for lunch in Detroit was a highlight. The Canadians hassled us on the way into the country, possibly randomly or possibly because Jeff accidentally drove past a stop sign before the customs booth. In any case, we had to pull off to the side and have them search the car, and then we were made to go inside to immigration and have someone officially let us into the country. Jeff and I were bitter toward Canada after that -- after all, it's like the same country, really! Between the border and Toronto, our first stopover spot, we drove through the heart of a couple of thunderstorms that unleashed massive amounts of large water missiles on us. We reached Toronto around 7, checked into the hotel, and then found a nice, hip Italian restaurant to eat at. I was a particular fan of the fact that they had an "All Ontario" section of the menu, with items made of local ingredients.

On day 2, Mark and I got up around 6:30 and went for a walk through downtown Toronto, getting our socks, shoes, and sub-knee portions of our pants soaked. But it was cool, and nice to see at least a little bit of Yonge Street on foot. Before leaving the city, we all stopped by a nearby grocery store to pick up lunch supplies in order to make the drive go faster with fewer stops. Then we got our coffee and some breakfast for the road. New York let us back into the US without a fight, which we appreciated. I've since proceeded to eat a lot of maple flavored everything...although this technically began with maple cheesecake at dinner in Toronto. We drove through the Adirondacks, which were beautiful. Mountains, trees, and rushing rivers...just gorgeous, everything I'd hoped for from upstate New York. In the early evening, we reached the ferry dock and enjoyed the ~50 minute cruise across to Burlington, Vermont, our second night's stopping spot. It was a beautiful ride across Lake Champlain, with mountains in the distance on both sides and the sun setting with a brilliant pink to the west. After checking into the hotel, we went to dinner on Church street, a bustling retail and restaurant strip in downtown Burlington. I proceeded to become very sleepy and crabby, but managed to eat my salad anyway.

Day 3 is today. After I got up and showered, Jeff and Heather had gone to take a dip in the pool, and Mark and I left to take a stroll along the lakefront. It was a great and refreshing way to start the day. We left Burlington a little after 9, riding past the University of Vermont campus, which was beautiful. We stopped in Montpelier, where Mark, Jeff, and I spent a few minutes browsing through the state capitol (Mark and I have a quest to hit all of the US state capitols.) It was a really neat building, with old, historic furnishings still intact, and a manageable, not over-the-top size, which I suppose is appropriate for the capitol of a state as small and practical as Vermont. The town also seemed very nice, with a lot of shops and restaurants. That's how a lot of our drive has been so far, though, small towns strung together in the middle of some of the most amazing scenery you can imagine. There are an incredible number of ice cream shops, and we've taken to watching for giant ice cream cone cutouts, blow-ups, and statues along our travel route. At one place where we stopped yesterday, I got a medium waffle cone, and it appeared to contain a full pint of ice cream, piled on it precariously. It was deliciously overwhelming. We managed to cover the width of Vermont and New Hampshire and get to our final destination, Bar Harbor, Maine, before 6. We ate at a nice diner in Littleton, New Hampshire, for lunch -- a really idyllic small New England town. After checking in at our really nice, cozy bed and breakfast here in Bar Harbor, we all headed out to dinner at a seafood restaurant (where else?) downtown. I'm looking forward to exploring the shops and the national park here more over the next few days...but for now, I think that's an exhaustive amount of detail.

In summary, it's lovely here. :)