Newport, Rhode Island

On Wednesday we spent the day in Newport with Will's friend Kenny that is a band director in NC. Kenny works in Winston during the school year, but works on the coast in Newport during the summer and spends lots of time on his sail boat.

We started out the day with a drive around Newport and did the Cliff walk. Basically the cliffs of the coast go behind the historic mansions in town. We saw some pretty amazing houses. You might recognize a few as looking like the Biltmore House. The Vanderbilt family vacationed in Newport and had a few houses here that looked very similar to their Asheville house.

We definitely enjoyed looking at all the sailboats and yachts in the harbor. We had lunch in the shipyard with a great view of all these boats. It was delicious! From here we got to spend several hours out on Kenny's sail boat. Will used to sail with his grandfather when he was younger and has talked about it ever since. Kenny's sail boat was very similar to this one, so it definitely brought back some great memories...the sailing abilities seemed to come right back as well. We started out in the harbor and it was a pretty easy and nice sail. We went out past a light house into open ocean for about a mile. It was a little rough and scary! The waves seemed to come from several different directions and definitely made us a little queasy. We went back into the bay area, sailed under the bridge that takes you into Newport and enjoyed the nice breeze and calm waters. We finished the sail by going to Kenny's favorite swimming spot where the boys did some cliff jumping. 

We got back to the yacht club just in time to see the end of some sail boat races. It just happened to be grilling night at the yacht club, so we enjoyed dinner on the water while visiting with some of Kenny's friends from Newport. Huge thanks to Kenny for spending the day with us, showing us the sights, and taking us sailing. We had such an amazing day!!!!

Boston

We had a little time on Tuesday to explore Boston. Neither of us had ever been, so we figured it would be a cool city to explore a little. We were a little nervous about parking the teardrop and heard prices were outrageous for daily parking. We were looking for free things to do, so we started out at Sam Adams Brewery for a tour. We were able to park outside for free and actually just left the truck and trailer there. The tour was neat....the brewery was actually very small and mostly used as a research brewery, They told us all about the history of Sam Adams and how their beer was brewed. We got to smell all the different ingredients, and then there was a free tasting at the end.

From here we rode the T into the city. Our time was definitely limited, so we just walked around and explored the city. We saw several of the historical sights, ate some delicious clam chowder at Durgin Park, at walked out on the long wharf to look at the boats. All in all a great day, but we were definitely ready to get out of the city...so much traffic!!! 

Stonington, Maine

On Sunday morning we made a pretty long drive down to Stonington, Maine. Stonington is a small coastal town in Maine that is very picturesque and everything you would imagine Maine to be from pictures. There is a small downtown area off the water, the view of the rocky coast, as well as a view of the forests and mountains. We spent Sunday night and Monday at Old Quarry Ocean Adventures. When we got there we took a bike ride around the island to check out the town and get a view of the sights. We had a campsite with a view of the ocean and even had some fresh lobster for dinner Sunday night. Will went down to pick it out after much confusion about how the process worked and then the campground steamed it for us. 

Monday morning we rented a tandem sea kayak. Off of Stonington there are several small islands that you can explore. We explored several of them for about 4 hours. A few were private with really cool houses and views, but the others were just forested. We hung out on the swim quarry island for a while where we were able to take a little hike to the top and then have some lunch. There was also a fresh water swimming hole on the island. If you are ever on the coast of Maine this is definitely an area that we would recommend. It is not overpopulated with tons of tourists everywhere and it gives you the postcard views you would imagine from Maine.

We left Stonington on Monday afternoon and began our drive down the Maine coast. We stopped in Freeport to checkout the LL Bean flagship store. Only bought a pair of biking gloves, but it was definitely neat to look. We needed a convenient and cheap place to camp for the evening, which there are not a lot of up north, but we did discover that you can stay in Cabela's parking lots for free. You can also do this with Walmarts, but Cabelas seemed a little safer. We stayed at the Cabelas in Scarborough, Maine. There were several other people doing the same thing. 

Sugarloaf Mountain, Maine

We spent the past weekend hanging out with our friends Alex and Hillary near Eustis, Maine. They live right at the base of Sugarloaf Ski Mountain. Alex works for Vestas commissioning wind turbines and is currently stationed here. Below are a few pictures of some similar wind turbines that we passed in NY.

We spent Friday morning just hanging out around their house doing laundry, watching tv, cooking in a kitchen…all the luxuries you miss when traveling. We went for a mountain bike ride that afternoon and were able to just ride from their house which was really neat. There is a fairly new biking trail system that is built within their cross country ski trails. The riding was great, as was the scenery. We finished off our ride at the Sugarloaf disk golf course and played a round of disc golf. Hillary is a really great cook and we enjoyed hanging out and having dinner that evening.

On Saturday, Alex and Hillary had the day off and we were able to all go riding together. We started on an old rail trail and then rode several trails through the area. We spent most of the day exploring on bikes and picking some mushrooms for dinner. It was a great ride. Normally when Will and I ride mountain bikes he is lots faster and so just waits for me at the trail intersections, but with all 4 of us riding, Alex and Will were able to ride together and so Hillary and I had lots of fun attempting to conquer the rocks together. We enjoyed an evening soak in the river and hot tub followed by some pretty amazing barbeque brisket pizza for dinner. Such a great weekend and lots of fun to be able to spend it with friends. Huge thanks to Alex and Hillary for letting us hang out with you, sharing your house, and feeding us lots of good food this weekend! 

Oh Canada

We started off our Canadian adventure with a bike ride through the city of Montreal. They have really nice bike trails along the St. Lawrence and around the city. We rode along the river and made a loop around the Lachine Canal. There were some locals surfing the rapids we got to watch and then ate lunch in Parc des Rapides. We finished out our ride through some of the city and a few neighborhoods, which ended up being about 25 miles. The market is right next to the old ports where we started our ride, so we parked the bikes and did some walking. There was peruvian pipe band playing in the square and lots of local artists to watch. We walked to the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal...very beautiful inside! We finished out the day by stopping in a little cafe in downtown where we were able to sit outside and have afternoon coffee and fruit crepes with real maple syrup. Delicious!

 

That night we drove to Parc National de la Mauricie to camp. The next morning we did a canoe and hiking trip. We canoed through 2 different lakes connected by a small stream trail. We arrived at an area with a 5 mile hiking loop where we were able to see a waterfall and a few really pretty overlooks of the park. This was a very popular local activity. We canoed up to the island and there were about 50 other canoes there.

Wednesday evening we drove through the rest of the park to do some sight seeing and then made our way down to Quebec City. The next morning we parked at  Parc des Chutes-de-la-Chaudière in Levis where we saw a waterfall and started our bike ride. The city map made it look very easy to get from here to the ferry that would take you into Quebec City, we found out otherwise. We were looking like some lost tourist when a nice older man named Julian rode up and asked where we were going. He was riding in the same direction, so we were able to follow him through some neighborhoods down to the ferry. He stopped along the way to show us some of the sights around Levis. It ended up being about a 10 mile fast paced ride to the ferry, but Julian definitely saved us some time. We rode the ferry over to Old Quebec, would definitely recommend it, it gives you a great view coming into the city. Once in the city, we continued our ride up the big hill. We rode around many of the back city streets and were able to see lots of the landmarks. We stopped at a local restaurant for drinks before riding back down. We rode the ferry back over to Levis and finished up our ride. Only got lost a few times on the way back for a total ride of about 35 miles. From here we were ready to get back into the states and made our way into Maine. Crossing the border was not as difficult this time, still lots of questions, but fast and not quite as scary as going in.

And just for kicks, we thought the watch for deer sign was really funny here...the deer looks a little crazy!

We are currently in near Eustes, Maine for a weekend with our friends Alex and Hillary!