New England Trip 2 - White Mountain, NH

Monday, 10.11.2010
The second day was another long day of driving from New York, through Vermont to New Hampshire. Took about 12 hours drive to the cabin where we would be staying for the next two days in White mountain, New Hampshire.
On the way, we stopped at Utica, NY for a nice Vietnamese lunch, drove through Sarotago Springs and Andridock region, and crossed over the Vermont stateline at around 5pm. During the car ride, Elle had been kept asking, "Are we there yet?", "Can we go to the hot-tel-ler now so that we can make a sand castle and play in the playground?". Whenever we made any stopovers, she always complained, "No! I don't want to get out! I want to go to the Hot-tel-ler now!".
It's a pity that the daylight is so short during the fall season that the sky was getting dark while we were driving on Vermont scenic Route 4 from Rutland to Woodstock, with the Ottaquechee River runs parallel. Woodstock is a really charming town. While we were stopping over Woodstock for gas, it's a delight to find rows of gourmet european bakery goodies, sandwiches and pizzas at the food court inside the gas station. We got a piping hot cheesebread snacking in the car, so yummy. Another two hours drive on the dark, narrow, hilly country road, we saw lots of "Moose crossing" signs at the roadside. It's a relief that we finally arrived our cabin at around 8:30pm.

Our cabin is a lil' cute house with 2 rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. Outside the cabin, it has a porch with couples of lounging chairs, a pinic table and a fireplace, with a playground and sandbox closed by.

It's priceless to watch Elle's ecstatic face when we got settled in the cabin. She got real busy checking the cabin inside out. A slew of lovely comments came out of her mouth: "Mom! See, it's a nice clock over there!", "The towel is lovely.", "Look! A moose blankie.", "WHOA!..I love this. It's so pretty.".


Tuesday, 10.12.2010
We woke up in the morning to the sounds of stream running through the campground and the smell of bacon cooking from the camper across our cabin. It was a beautiful, crisp Autumn day. Elle pulled up the curtain and screamed excitedly, "Mom! I see a playground!".
What a breathtaking drive as we were driving towards Franconia state park. Gorgeous mountains view dotted with spectacular fall colors against the blue sky above. It's truly a mesmerizing sight to behold, which reminded me of the song "Country road, take me home.".
It's a surprise to find Franconia Notch State Park such as popular tourist attraction that we met people coming from all over the world. We visited the flume, a stunning granite gorge along cascading waterfalls.
As we headed back to the visitor center, we decided to hike down the two-mile loop trail through the forest. Whenever Elle found a boulder, she'd sit on it and sign, "My legs are so tired. I need to take a break.". She dragged her feet all the way downhill that we had to use bribery like chocolate and candy, and playing silly games like pretending to be bears hiding in the bear cave and chasing each other, to make her move along.
We drove up to sugar hill and had lunch at the Polly Pancake Parlor which famous for its pancakes and maple syrup. Even their sugar and pepper are maple flavor. It's quite a let-down to find only 3 silver dollar sized pancakes came with the sampler with a $16.99 price tag.
After lunch, we took the tram climbing to the summit of Cannon Mountain at Cannon Mountain Aerial Tranway. Elle shrilled "Yipee! We're going to ride on the flying choo choo train!". It was a fun ride and the temp dropped at least 20F degree when we arrived the summit. Gorgeous paranoma view of mountains of four states (New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and New York) and Canada from the top.
Elle fell asleep after we got down from the Cannon Mountain. While Hin stayed inside the car with her, I ventured into hiking the Artists Bluff trail by myself, a.k.a "Cardiac hill". Oh boy, caridac climbing all the way up made me breathless. The hike was rewarding with a bird-eye view of echo lake and the surrounding mountains.

Wednesday, 10.13.2010
It's the day to bid farewell to the cabin and leave for our next destination, Arcadia National Park, Maine. We hang out at the cabin feeding the ducks, playing in the playground and then went on a leaf-peeping ride along the legendary Kancamagus scenic highway that runs east to west through the heart of New Hampshire's White Mountains.

Along the Kanc highway showed brilliant autumn colors with plenty of scenic vistas and hiking trails. It's a relief that Elle found setting up the tripod and let the timer taking our group photo was such a fun thing to do that she finally stopped her all-time favorite question of when would we arrive at our new "hotel-ler". She asked excitedly, "Can we let the tripod take our picture?" whenever we made a stop.