Moonlight in Vermont

Hello, readers! This time around, we're going to pretend to be photobloggers. Having provided you with a few wordy entries, we're going to use the medium of photography to document our trek from Minnesota through Quebec and into New England. Forgive us if we can't restrain ourselves, and we throw in a few words here and there.

Hiking at sundown

Early morning on Lake Superior

We bid our Minnesotan hosts farewell and hit the road, along the Upper Peninsula (at our old hitch-hiker Holly's recommendation). Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan...

The merry town of Christmas, MI

This trip was largely a mess of long days and driving, seemingly endlessly. However, we found our silver lining when we crossed the border into Ontario, without a hitch!

Canadian Border Guard: [takes passports] Where are you headed?
Us: Montreal.
CBG: When are you leaving?
Us: In approximately one week.
CBG: [hands back passports] Have fun!

The following photos are of us in Montreal. We only stayed in Montreal for two days, but we managed to pack a good deal into our weekend, thanks to an extremely thorough guide, custom-written for us by a friend from New Zealand. Thanks, Anna, for the guide, and for helping us to organise our accomodation.

Navigating around Montreal was certainly a test of Nancy's years of French study, a test she undoubtedly failed on several occasions. In said situations, we found an apologetic smile transcends language barriers.

At Anna's suggestion, we visited the Old Port (cobblestoned and resplendently historic, especially for us Kiwis, who hail from a very young country). The Old Port, allegedly, was a trading post for French fur traders in the early 1600s, and has remained a cultural hub since. The port itself has been moved further east, leaving the Old Port area for tourists and recreation-seekers.

New graffiti in the Old Port.

Your dutiful bloggers outside Basilique Notre-Dame de Montreal

In Montreal, we checked poutine and St. Viateur bagels off our list of foods to eat. Bear with us as we describe poutine. It could clog your arteries just to read about it, but really, it tastes great. It's a cultural and culinary staple in Quebec, comprised of fries, cheese curds, and gravy. It looks like this:

Thanks, spotlightseries.blogspot.com for the photo!

OK, so it doesn't look that great either. But trust us, it tastes great! Granted, we didn't feel all the way right for hours afterwards, and ended up skipping on dinner, but poutine is not to be missed if you're in Quebec!

St. Viateur bagels are a food that was recommended to us over and over again while we were in Montreal. When we finally went to St. Viateur, we bought our two sesame bagels (sesame are the best, because they're most likely to be warm, due to their high turnover), along with some cream cheese, and smoked salmon (these are purchased separately). After we had finished our bagels, we walked straight back to the bakery and bought another twelve. They're different from New York bagels, sweeter and lighter. The best part: the bakery is open 24 hours! We met many people who had paid St. Viateur Bagel a drunken, 4 a.m. visit.

And here it is:

Mmmm...bagels!

Montreal, although we only visited briefly, struck us as a clean, colourful, and exciting city. We felt safe and well-accomodated. That said, we found that it was extremely important to make a valid effort at speaking French, even if our spoken French was patchy at best. Most Montrealais speak English fluently; however, we got the impression that to assume (without making an attempt at speaking French) that they do and will won't earn you friends. We saw a great many tourists address servers with "Do you speak English?"--others who persevered with their broken French received noticeably better service.

From Montreal, we moved on to New England! Our crossing back into the USA was fairly seamless, although we did have our avocados confiscated (an excellent way to ruin a perfectly good lunch).

In Orford, New Hampshire, the leaves were just beginning to change. We were told that we were a week short of their true splendour when we left.

We visited with more good ol' family friends, who happened to be preparing for the arrival of forty-odd visitors for an annual college reunion. In America, the "college experience" seems to provide more of an opportunity for friend-making than university in New Zealand. This was certainly evident in the closeness of friendships these old classmates shared. It was an inspiring event. We'd like to thank the Steketees for letting us tag along for "Stekfest 2011" (alternately named "Woodstek", "Stekstock", and "Gailapalooza").

Steff tends to the grounds in preparation for the big weekend!

Several deer stop by our house (not only did we have the luxury of sleeping inside; we were given a whole house to stay in!).

We stopped by Cavendish, Vermont to see some of Steff's "family". Shortly after our arrival, we worked out that they weren't technically family at all. We chose to overlook this fact, as they were as caring and hospitable as family can be, anyway.

Vermont had just been blindsided by Hurricane Irene. This made it exceedingly difficult to navigate the roads. Indeed, many of the roads on our map were now ex-roads.

This road was in the process of reconstruction. The house on the corner had had the ground beneath it swept away. It now hangs ominously over the river. At the time of the hurricane, all roads to the house were washed away, and the inhabitants were trapped.

The weather had improved considerably by the time we arrived.

Just before we left Vermont, we went for an excursion through the forest. Colonial New England was heavily deforested, so that the land could be used for farming. Today, however, the situation has reversed, and New England states are some of the most densely forested areas in the United States (Conservation New Hampshire names the state as the second most forested in the country with approximately 79% tree cover. It is second only to Maine). As a reminder of its slightly more naked history, New England forests are lined with beautiful stone walls, used in the 19th century for marking property lines and fencing animals.

Thanks, consideryourselfathome.blogspot.com for the photo!

As much as we loved New England, we can't stay anywhere indefinitely, and New York loomed on our horizon. And so, a little reluctantly, we stepped out of the forest and into metropolitan jungle.

But first! We finally had our happy reunion with the ocean, on our ferry from New London, Connecticut to Orient Point, New York.

Ocean, how we missed you!

Coming up next: like Sufjan Stevens, we "drove to New York, in a van". Stay tuned!


The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.