We drove south along I-95 to East Millinocket, where we had decided to camp. Unfortunately the campground we had decided on was full, and the woman who managed the place informed us that we would be lucky to find an empty campground anywhere north of Bangor on a weekend. We looked in our campground guide and found a large campground at Bangor, which we decided to head for. As we continued southward it got darker and darker, later and later. Eventually we decided it was just stupid to camp so late, and we decided to try for motel rooms instead. We exited on a suburban strip north of Bangor and found a Comfort Inn. Brian and I walked in and were promptly told that they, too, were full. We were able to use their phone to check other places in the area and eventually found a room at the Riverside Inn.
The Riverside Inn was at one time the nurses' residence for the Eastern Maine State Medical Center (the equivalent of Westlawn in Iowa City). It is an old building that looks exactly like what it is--a cross between a hospital and a dorm. A few years ago it was remodeled to be a pleasant inn, with modern plumbing, beds, and other amenities. We had two double rooms, at a cost of $54 each. Only once have I stayed in a more expensive room-when John and I stayed at Chicago's Holiday Inn Lake Shore Drive when my parents flew back from England. Chicago is a major city where you expect such prices; Bangor (with 30,000 people) is smaller than Iowa City. The rate did seem fairly typical locally, though. The Comfort Inn was charging $46.50.
For dinner we sent out for, of all things, pizza. It had a papery crust, a bland sauce, and it was not nearly as good as Pizza Delight. Paul and I then went back to our room and went to bed.
I woke up fairly early this morning-my body still adjusted to the time zone, if not the sleeping habits, of the Maritimes. Since no one else was up, I had a pleasant Sunday joy ride around Bangor, a stately little city that looks a lot like Burlington, Iowa-where we used to go shopping when I was growing up. (The buildings are about the same age, but Bangor is better preserved.) I bought three different Sunday newspapers and read through almost all of them, all before anyone else was awake. We had a late breakfast (well, let's call it "brunch") at a pancake house in Bangor. Then we set off west across Maine.
Maine strikes me as a place that should be prettier than it is. It is the "Pine Tree State", and most of the place is covered with forest. The people have a very libertarian attitude, though-they think a person should be able to do what he wants to do when and where he wants to do it. One way this is expressed is the fact that here are no zoning laws in Maine. Because of this much of the natural beauty of the state is spoiled by junky homes. All over the state there are clearings in the forests where you see shells of mobile homes with laundry hanging in front of them. Junk is often piled in the yards of these homes. Most of them also have a beat-up pickup truck or station wagon and a TV antenna. There are farmers in Iowa filing for bankruptcy who would be ashamed to live in such conditions, yet it seems very commonplace in Maine. Maine is officially the second poorest state in the country. I have read, though, that if the cost of living is considered, Mainers live a lifestyle that makes them worse off than the residents of Mississippi. The car dealer said the average income in Calais was less than $15,000. That's more than I make, but far less than the average income in Iowa. I don't know how much money the people in these trailers have to live on, but it certainly can't be much.
There is also litter all over Maine. Like Iowa, most of New England has a bottle law, so you don't see bottles and cans at the side of the road. You do see paper trash, though. All along the road there was fast food garbage, empty cigarette packs, and crumpled newspaper. The fine for littering in Maine is only $50, compared to $2,500 in New Brunswick, and it would seem that it might be time to bring their fine in line with current prices.
I don't want to make it sound like I disliked Maine. Really I had no particular feelings about it one way or another. It's just that I expected Maine to be nicer than it was, and I was disappointed.
In the middle of the afternoon we entered New Hampshire. We drove across the panhandle of New Hampshire on U.S. 2, a grand total of 35 miles. It was some of the worst driving on the trip, though. Highway 2 runs through the middle of the famous White Mountains, right in the center of New Hampshire's biggest resort area. There are only two real towns along the way, Gorham and Lancaster, but both are full of tourists in the summer. The road was packed with traffic all the way across New Hampshire-we never did more than 45mph.
My car was having problems, too. The muffler was getting noisier, and it was making new unfamiliar sounds-like metal grating-when I accelerated. Going up a hill west of Gorham it bucked as if it had a vapor lock. The road in New Hampshire had no real shoulders, so I couldn't easily pull off. Even if I could have, I wouldn't have had the slightest idea what was wrong. I nursed it on through New Hampshire and then into Vermont. We camped for the night near the town of Concord, ten miles east of St. Johnsbury. We loaded in my car to try to get o St. Johnsbury for supper, but it bucked again, and I didn't make it more than a mile from the campground. Brian and Paul took the pickup into town and brought us back a strange variety of sandwiches from McDonalds.
Rustic Haven Campground was also rather strange. Although it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, a lot of tourists passed through here. It was run by a wicked old lady who kept a close watch over everything that went on around the place. When we arrived it was extremely hot, and she was standing in the campground office with the door open and an air conditioner running. A fat shirtless man on a golf cart who called himself "the sheriff" directed people to their campsites and gave children rides around the place. All the gravel roads at the campground were "streets" named after the owner's grandchildren. This place also locked its restrooms. There was a four-digit combination we had to remember every time we wanted to use the toilet or shower.
It was extremely hot in Vermont; it only got down to the 70s at night. There was no wind at all. It was stuffy, and there were biting flies all over the campground. Sleeping wasn't pleasant, but somehow I did manage to get some rest.
We got up today so we could get into St. Johnsbury right at 8am. My car still made awful noises, but I did get it safely into town. We found Wayne Ford-Chrysler (I wonder why Chevy never combines with the other two), and I explained the problems I was having and dumped the car there. We were told to check again in the middle of the afternoon, so we explored the town.
The only real tourist attraction in St. Johnsbury is the Maple Grove Factory and Museum. Maple Grove makes maple syrup, sugar, and candy. We saw their little museum and saw a film explaining how the stuff is made. We also bought some sweet souvenirs at their gift shop. After that we drove all over the town to kill some more time. I had lunch at the local McDonalds, which killed the most time of all. Never have I seen such an inefficient place. It took over a half hour for me to even be waited on. The place seemed to be out of half of their menu, and the other half was only available if you waited. The people were surly, and it wasn't very clean. (They left salads sitting out uncovered next to the fryer.) How they keep their franchise, I'll never know.
In the middle of the afternoon we returned to claim my car. My receipt lists sixteen different things they did to it, for a total cost of $266.57. I'm not really sure what exactly they did do (the exhaust system, of course, and apparently some work with the timing), but whatever they did seemed to fix it. I made a point of putting it on a credit card, in case there was any reason to suspect fraud, but so far everything seems to work fine. (Knock on wood.)
We had dinner at Anthony's, an unpleasant, overpriced café in downtown St. Johnsbury. The food was bad, the waitress was unpleasant, and the booths were awkward to sit in. For a small slice of ham and iced tea I paid $7.84-and that's American dollars, too. We noticed a sign at the check-out telling about "Green Mountain Cards". Apparently the prices on the menu are jacked up for unsuspecting tourists. The locals present their Green Mountain Cards and get a discount, which would bring the prices more in line with any other café.
It was still horribly hot when we returned to the campground, but I showered and got to sleep as best I could.
With my car finally working again, we set off fairly early this morning. We drove northwest from St. Johnsbury, through Montpelier and Burlington, two of Vermont's major "cities"-places that many Iowa towns could easily rival. North of Burlington we followed a causeway onto Grand Isle, in Lake Champlain. There we caught a ferry across the lake to Plattsburgh, New York.
It was good to be in New York. The New England states are beautiful, but they seem overly touristed and rather artificial. New York is a place real people live. I've been to the state three times now, and each time I've had exactly that impression. We had lunch today in Keenesville, at a simple little café with a pleasant waitress and REAL prices.
It rained all afternoon. We drove down Interstate 57, locally called the Adirondack Northway. A sign along the highway bills it as "America's most scenic highway". Perhaps it is, though I tend to doubt such self-proclaimed superlatives. There are forested mountains there, but mostly we saw rain, fog, and mist. At times there were severe thundershowers, and it was difficult to see along the highway. I was just glad we had chosen the interstate through these mountains, rather than a two-lane road.
Driving along I-87 it's easy to tell just how populated New York is. Most of our route was through Adirondack State Preserve, an enormous park covering most of the north end of the state-you may have heard of places like Lake Placid in that part of New York. While we were still in the park, about seventy miles north of Albany, the state capital and first real city on the road, the interstate suddenly grew to six lanes, which it stayed all the way to Albany. It needed the extra lanes, too. Traffic was heavy, but the wider highway handled it well.
We drove down to Albany, where we picked up U.S. 20, which we followed west across New York. I had badly needed to use a restroom, but every roadside park we found had "parking only" and many of the little towns along our route didn't even have real gas stations. Eventually I did stop at an ancient Mobil station and dashed through the rain to use the toilet.
We continued west along highway 20 through hilly farm country (lots of corn in upstate New York), stopping for the night at Buck's Woods Campground, a beautiful park west of Morrisville. We had supper at a quaint diner in Morrisville and then got to sleep relatively early. The front had passed, and it was cooler and drier sleeping that night.
We had breakfast at that same diner at which we had eaten last night. Then we set off west again on highway 20. Upstate New York is really beautiful-not spectacular, but very pretty. It's rolling hills and farm country, with grapes mixed in among the corn and beans. The people are friendly, and they seem to drive more safely than elsewhere. One is never far from a big city (Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, etc.), but most of the area is very rural. The towns are small and well-separated, and they are very old and established. In many ways the place reminds me of eastern Iowa.
Margaret and I stopped briefly for coffee in the city of Auburn, at an UGLY mall that looked like an above-ground bomb shelter. We then drove on to the Finger Lakes region. This is a series of long, narrow lakes running the length of central New York State. We drove down Cayuga Lake and up Seneca Lake-the two largest lakes in the region.
I stopped to buy gas in the city of Ithaca, at the bottom of Cayuga Lake. I used my Mastercard, which was a time-consuming mistake. The convenience store where I stopped had a telephone equipped to read the magnetic strip on the back of the credit card and then have the charge approved. The attendant (who acted as if he were high on something-seriously) first put the card in the phone incorrectly, so it couldn't read the magnetic strip. When he finally figured out which way was up, he couldn't get the phone to dial the bank number for approval. Eventually the owner came out from an office. She was very upset when she said, "You should have told me you were doing a charge. I was on the other phone, and you can't do a charge when someone is on the phone." After she got off the phone, the attendant tried again, but he still couldn't get it to work.
The manager came out again; she seemed quite a bit closer to earth than the clerk, but she couldn't get the phone to do its thing either. She then attempted to do the charge manually, but she couldn't get her credit card machine to work either. Finally she just wrote my card number and the price on a charge slip and had me sign that. (All that effort for $6.75!) I've gotten one bill since the trip, and it wasn't on that. I'll be amazed if it ever does go through.
We drove west from Ithaca to Seneca Lake, where Margaret stopped briefly at a winery. She and Brian had been through this area shortly after they were married, and they particularly enjoyed the wine of the region. New York isn't particularly renowned for its wine, but the Finger Lakes do warm the temperature enough to allow grapes to grow. Margaret sampled some of the product and then bought two bottles of a white wine. I passed; when I drink something alcoholic, it tends to be a mixed drink rather than wine. (We found out later that Brian had stopped at the same winery. He bought four more bottles of the same wine.)
We drove on north and west through Geneva, Batavia, and Medina until we finally got to Lockport, at the edge of the Buffalo/Niagara Falls urban area. We crossed back into Canada (which fortunately wasn't a problem, even with all the wine) and re-joined Brian and Paul at a rather obscure monument at the north end of the city of Niagara Falls. Then we all piled into my car to go into town and explore the falls themselves.
There are far more beautiful places on earth than Niagara Falls. They sit in the heart of a dirty, old, unpleasant industrial area, and the water that flows over the falls is likely toxic. (Ever hear of Love Canal? -- That's the water that flows over Niagara Falls.) The area by the water is a tourist trap if there ever was one, and the falls themselves aren't all that spectacular-they're really rather overrated. (Go ANYWHERE in the West and you'll see higher falls.) Having said all that, though, I must say it is fun to visit Niagara Falls. It's the very fact that they are such a tourist trap that makes them fun. Like everyone else we paid an outrageous price for parking, strolled the Niagara Parkway, and browsed through the endless souvenir shops for "authentic Canadian" items that were made in Asia. We passed on having our pictures taken in a barrel or riding the "Maid of the Mist" beneath the falls, but we did enjoy ourselves nonetheless.
Niagara Falls is very much an international place. Without question the majority of the tourists there were NOT from North America. I would hate to even guess how many different languages I heard just walking along the river bank. The Japanese were by far the largest group of tourists. Some stores had signs in Japanese to lure them, and we saw people with souvenir pennants and T-shirts printed in Japanese. I also saw large groups from all over Europe, from other Asian nations, from the Caribbean, and from Latin America. The Canadian dollar has been falling in value along with American money. That makes both the U.S. and Canada inexpensive places for foreigners to visit. (That's the exact opposite of how it was just two years ago-when the high exchange rate made it very cheap for me to visit Spain.) It was fun to walk among people from around the world, and it added to the feeling of the place.
We spent about three hours seeing the falls and then set off again. Margaret checked the campground guide and found a provincial park on Lake Erie, about 60 miles from Niagara Falls. It was the longest 60 miles we drove on the trip. At Niagara Falls we got on the "Q.E.W." (short for "Queen Elizabeth Way"), the first freeway in Canada. It is also just about the only concrete (as opposed to blacktop) road in Canada, and it is in awful condition. From the condition it is in, it would seem as if it hadn't been repaired since it was built-which was not long after its namesake's coronation. We bounced among its potholes, looking into the sun, through the city of St. Catherine's (population 150,000), from which we took another expressway south to Welland (100,000). I was driving with Paul at the time, and I thought we missed our exit when we saw a sign with the highway number we were looking for. I just kept driving along the freeway and eventually re-joined that highway-no problem. Unfortunately Margaret took the exit, which gave her a tour of beautiful downtown Welland. Welland is home to the famous Welland Canal, which ships on the St. Lawrence Seaway take to avoid Niagara Falls. While driving through the city Margaret had to wait while a bridge was raised to let a ship through. She, too, eventually got back to the highway-but well behind Paul and me.
From Welland we continued south to Port Colbourne (30,000), where we followed a tiny little road through a solid resort along Lake Erie. Finally we did find the park, just as the ranger was leaving for the night. We waited about forty-five minutes before Margaret and Brian arrived, and it was after 10pm when we scouted the campground looking for a site. Margaret and Brian wanted a space with electricity, and they stopped to look for plug-ins at several different places-all to no avail. I was getting very impatient, and I kept wondering why electricity was so important at this hour of the night. Finally they did settle on a site-without electricity-and we got to bed.
While we got up rather late today (having gotten to bed late the night before), we pushed to put on some miles today. We stopped in the town of Dunnville for breakfast. The place we stopped called itself a coffee shop, but it really was nothing more than a bakery. They didn't even have any chairs. We did have some doughnuts, though, and then we got on our way again. We drove across the tobacco fields of southern Ontario, past the city of London, and on to Sarnia, which is at the south end of Lake Huron. Those of us in the two cars met again at the information center in Sarnia, and we had lunch at a shopping mall there. We then crossed into the state of Michigan, clearing customs for the sixth time on this vacation.
We drove west across Michigan to the city of Flint, and then southwestward to Lansing. I stopped briefly in Charlotte (shar-LOT)-a rough little city-to buy gas (at 86.9, the cheapest on the trip) and then drove into Olivet, where we used to live. We met Margaret again and then headed southward into Indiana.
I can't say exactly why, but every time I have been in Michigan I have felt UNDER-whelmed. To begin with, it is one of the flattest places in America. People who think Iowa is flat should head for the Great Lakes; Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois all make Iowa look mountainous. From the highway Michigan looks rather rural (mixed farms and forest), but it is really VERY urban. There are large cities all over the state (I count 27 orange spots on the map in my atlas), which makes traffic a mess. It's not an unattractive state, but here's nothing particularly beautiful about it either. Overall it's just a place that leaves me unimpressed.
We drove about a hundred miles into Indiana and camped at Chain-O-Lakes State Park, south of Albion. The park rules did not permit two cars per site, but after some polite bargaining we managed to take both in. After all, I needed a place to sleep.
At about 9pm we drove back to Albion to try to find a place to eat. The place was crawling with bars, but it seemed at a loss for any REAL place to eat. Eventually we did find a place that called itself a "family restaurant", and we walked in. The salad bar was empty, which I thought was strange, but we seated ourselves anyhow. Just as we were sitting down, the waitress informed us that they had been closed since 8:30. Can you imagine a restaurant that closes at 8:30?-the sun hadn't even set yet. When I worked at the Iris, we served dinner until 10:30 at night, 11:30 on weekends. I guess they go to bed early in Indiana--or they go to all those bars. We drove about ten miles further out of our way to the town of Kendalville, a much larger place where things stay open when it's dark. Then we drove back to the campground and got to bed early.
We got up VERY early this morning and were on our way before six. This was going to be our last day of travel-no matter what-Brian had to preach Sunday. We were still a long way from home, so we drove and drove and drove some more.
We drove south to Columbia City and then followed U.S. 30 past Valparaiso and into the Chicago area. Every other time I have been through Chicagoland I was on Interstate 80, a highway that always seems to be under construction and which runs through some of America's worst traffic around Gary, Indiana. This time we followed highway 30 across the southern suburbs-a much wiser move. While it probably took more time getting through Chicago this way, it was much less tense driving. Traffic was heavy, but it moved at a steady 40 to 45 miles per hour, instead of alternating between 65 and 35, as they do on the freeway.
* * * * *
The last suburb we went through on highway 30 was New Lenox, a town where my parents lived long before I was born (and back when it seemed further from Chicago than it does today). Margaret had gone to school there, and she noticed that the same school still exists, although it appears to have had many additions since the 1950s.
We got on Interstate80 at Joliet, quite literally the end of Chicago. I remember back when we lived in Michigan and we came back to Iowa for the holidays, we would stop in Joliet to eat. We didn't eat there today-after all, it was just past morning rush hour. We got on the freeway and drove all the way across the state. Illinois is not a large state, but it still seems to take forever to get across it. The signs to "Moline-Rock Island" kept counting down, but I wished were still in Canada, where the kilometers count down twice as quickly as our miles do.
We got to the Quad Cities shortly after noon. Almost immediately at the Mississippi traffic picked up; I-80 is a much more important highway in Iowa than it is in Illinois. We had lunch at a truck stop in Wilton, where I paid less than $5 for more food than I could eat. Iowans can complain about prices, but I've never been anywhere else in North America where prices are cheaper than they area here.
The drive through eastern Iowa was HOT, but familiar and pretty. I've lived out west for four years now, but I don't think I'll ever really feel at home there-it's so flat and dry and remote. HOME will always be in eastern Iowa. There is just the right combination of urban and rural there for me, and the hilly scenery is just lovely. It was an Iowa summer day, but fortunately I had air conditioning. (Not so fortunate were Margaret and Brian, who alternated driving the bare-bones pickup.) After all the troubles we'd already had on this trip, I was just waiting for the car to overheat or something-but nothing of the sort happened.
We drove west to Iowa City and then north to Cedar Rapids, where I stopped to buy gas and a cold drink. We continued north on Interstate 380 to Waterloo. I remember my parents saying they would never live to see that highway open-they were right. The new interstate isn't much to look at, but then again it's less than an hour from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo these days.
* * * * *
My apartment was an oven when we arrived; the INSIDE thermometer read 87 degrees. I turned on the air conditioner, but it was far overworked. Brian and I sat and sweltered. Margaret arrived before too long, and we sat around a while to cool down. Some people in another apartment were having a party (as they always seem to do on weekends), and Margaret and Brian had to sift through some girls who I seriously doubt were of legal age to get to their car. They still had another two hours in the heat before they got home.
Shortly after they left my brother Paul called. I had sent him a card from Amherst mentioning the accident. Canada Post is notoriously slow, and with the strike just over I figured we would beat the card home. Need I say it-Paul had gotten the card on Wednesday and had been trying to call me ever since then. We had a pleasant chat, and then I collapsed into bed.
With apologies to Margaret and Brian, I must say that overall I enjoyed this trip. I doubt the vacation was worth the thousands of dollars (including truck) they spent on it, but it was well worth the hundreds I spent. And, for better or worse, I've had a travel experience not everyone has had. Most trips are ones that are ones that are never to be forgotten, but somehow I imagine this one will stick in my mind in a different way than the others. I enjoyed this trip, and I'm sure it won't be long before I return to "the true north, strong and free". I do hope, though, that my future journeys are a bit less eventful.
--2004 David M. Burrow
The background music on this page is "Dreamer's Ball", originally by Queen.