“You can either ‘hoof’ it up the stairs with me or take the ‘vanillarator’ round the corner”

Ok so at the end of yesterday’s blog I put that we were heading to Vermont…and we were…until I realised we could visit 2 other states and only add on an hour (or 2 so says Nathan!) exciting prospect right! That means I can pick up a pen from Maine and New Hampshire! Or not…by the time we arrived in Portland, Maine, everywhere was closed. We drove to the old port which on google looks lovely, however at night in the rain a slightly different picture is painted 😂. We needed fuel anyway so we filled up and grabbed a take-out tea and jot chocolate before setting off to our hotel in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Driving through Maine was a bit different to where we had been as there were some real “shacks” as we drove down a single lane carriageway for about 50 miles, stopping at fuel stations still searching for that elusive pen!! Alas, we failed 😩. Still, as a memory I have the fuel receipt 👍🏼. Every cloud….

We arrived at our hotel at about 930pm and were shattered so that ended our day of dalliances. 335 miles covered and 3 states.

Today however THE SUNGLASSES ARE ON!!!!! We started off with a 2 mile hike to rainbow falls, about 3 miles from our hotel. It was a lovely sight when we eventually got there!

We genuinely thought we were going round in circles despite following the yellow marked trees, which wouldn’t have been confusing normally however there were two trails with yellow markings! Still it was a nice walk first thing in the morning!

Next stop, a post office! They are so few and far between that the one we found was only open until 930am!! We also hadn’t found a New Hampshire pen either 😔 and before we knew it we were entering Vermont. We actually found a post office open and letter 1 back home finally went in the post! (Sorry guys, wrote it in Boston, mailed it in Vermont!) still it’s the thought that counts 😁. The drive from our hotel along highway 25 to Vermont was so pretty! We had no signal and miles and miles of beautiful, colourful hills and rivers.

 I guess it’s like driving through the new forest only bigger, a lot bigger 🌲🌳 with signs every now and then. We didn’t see any, only a couple of deer 🦌. We arrived at our first original destination….the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory. Which is where we were originally going to 2 days ago before we got sidetracked and covered off 7 other states before hitting Vermont. The tour of the factory was only half an hour but you do get the taste ice cream at the end so it’s definitely worth it. Today’s ice cream was “Strawberry Hibiscus” and it was delicious. They show you every section from the huge ranks full of ice cream mixture, to where the caramel goes in or the chunks and the machine I couldn’t take my eyes off which was the self filling machine where they fill up 250,000pints of ice cream a minute which equates to something like 3million calories! (I may be slightly out 🤔.) The bit I found most intriguing was the fact they actually give their ice cream testers free gym memberships and cholesterol tests as they taste that much ice cream! It does sound appealing if I didn’t have to go to the gym to counteract my job 😂.

And now begins the 415 mile journey to Philadelphia 🚗🚗🇺🇸

Until tomorrow…