Holiday Inn Portland-West,Me

... June&#8217;s Comments: <br><br>The drive to Portland was quick &#8211; we only stopped for gas and fast food. The visit with Tom, Denise and Foster from Thursday to Monday was well worth the long drive. We took two days to drive back to Milton. Besides Montreal, the weather was very mild and the trees sported their usual fall colors for this time of year.

Along the way:<br><br>Heading to Portland, Maine (to visit Tom, Denise &amp; Foster) we drove from Milton, through the Lewiston border crossing (N of Niagara Falls), through New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and finally into Maine, an 11 hour drive. Surprisingly, there are no orchards or farms east of the Niagara River &#8211; it's all bush. <br><br ...

Ni hao! (Hello in Chinese...pronounced "knee how")<br><br>We are now one week away from our departure and realizing that next week at this time we will be in the air over the Pacific and headed to China! The accumulating of stuff is coming to an end and the real packing is beginning. The girls love the whole packing thing...their mother...not so much. Excitement is in the air as the count down begins. <br><br>We are looking forward to ...

... so decided just to snoop around Wells. Wells is a beach community with a small harbour, lots of tacky tourist shops, antique shops and some lovely summer homes. Our snooping did not take long.......we decided to spend the rest of the rainy day inside reading and watching TV. <br>The next day the weather had improved so we headed inland in a northerly direction. Our destination was Alfred and Sabbathday Lake where a Shaker Community ...

... had no idea there were so many! but you can only see them by boat, and turns out maine has the longest coastline of any of the 50 states (i'm pretty sure this is what chris told me). some islands have lots of houses on them, plus a few stores, maybe a school. some kids have to take a ferry to the mainland for school in portland. but some islands are privately owned and have only 1 or 2 houses on them. if maine wasn't ...

... rojo. Por lo que se ve, eran todas de madera pero tras varios incendios que asolaron la ciudad dijeron que como que la madera es muy bonita pero que le da por arder. Y además tiene polillas... De ese modo, alrededor del puerto que domina la ciudad aparecen multitud de casas rojas con sus bajos llenos de tiendas y restaurantes. Además, tiene un par de iglesias, que aunque relativamente nuevas, son muy llamativas. A lo que nos hemos ...

Our drive from Ithaca was gorgeous! The hills with all the trees provides such a wonderful layering of green this time of year. We followed a four lane state road for about the first two hours before hitting the interstate and there were surprises at the top of every hill. Each time we hit the top of a hill, we wanted to pull over to just take in the view. Sometimes it was the neat layout of a farm in the valley ...

... then, I bruised easily and weighed 97 pounds. I remember splurging on a skirt once ($8) at a thrift store. Other than that I just wore any free stuff I could find at the free stuff cardboard boxes at garage sales. I read lots of Sylvia Plath in those days. Life was rough and it was cold. But nothing could spoil the beauty of the place for me.

... Right!!<br><br>After lunch, Mel continued to do more laundry and Neil proceeded to take the bus apart in order to fit the insulation that SDCVW had omitted to put back in. Hopefully from now on, the temperature inside the bus will be warmer than that outside!<br><br><br>Miles travelled: 25<br><br>Total miles travelled: 14519<br><br>Days on road: 133<br><br>States visited: 29<br><br>National Parks visited: 20

Woke at 5am and watched the dawn come up on Boston. Fabulous and given it was a Sunday the Charles River was quiet. I get the impression it isn't ever that busy but it was blissfully still when I got up to take some photographs. I nipped off in the Shuttle Bus to pick up the car. Given the weakness of the dollar and my adolescent desire to re-live the Dukes of Hazard I decided on the $12 a day ...