The Wrong Turn

Michelle and I said goodbye to Bar Harbor and drove southwest into New Hampshire with the game plan of taking the Kancamagus Highway into the White Mountains and having lunch in Franconia around two. Of course, things did not go as planned. First off, it rained almost the entire drive. Second, the Kancamagus is such a beautiful highway with so many interesting turnoffs for hikers and those suffering from SOS. Third, we entered the White Mountains searching for the Franconia Notch area and stopped at the Basin for a bit more sightseeing. All of these conditions led to us stumbling around lost in the White Mountains around five. The GPS decided to take us for an adventure down a one lane dirt road and announced we'd reached our destination, a Best Western Hotel. Upon stopping on the dirt road, we found ourselves surrounded by forest with no hotel in sight. We managed to get down the hill, onto a two lane highway and managed to stumble into a small town.

Shockingly, the town had an information booth for hikers. Mich explained to the nice lady that we'd driven in from Bar Harbor and were lost, we needed information on a place to eat, sleep, and how to get to the Flume Gorge at Franconia Notch, which was our destination for the next day. Apparently, there were only two restaurants in town, though one was really a bar and a hotel off the main street, up the hills, behind the stream, pass the dilapidated houses, which were not part of the hotel. Okay, we were at our wits end. We'd snacked in the car, but otherwise hadn't eaten, were cold and wet from the rain, and I was feeling truly out of sorts at this point. So off we went to the recommended hotel, which had the lone office and the hotel building up the dirt lane. The gentleman at the counter was nice and knew all about our tale of woe from the woman at the information booth. Our room was clean, but scary looking. The curtains billowed when the heat was on and the bathroom truly reminded me of the shower scene from Psycho.



After our night at the Bates Motel, where people at breakfast knew our sad story, we moved on to the Flume Gorge, where glaciers cut a notch in the mountains. Entering the gorge wasn't for the claustrophobic as we climbed stairs up the notch, buffeted by rocky walls and waterfalls, but it was beautiful. We headed off to Vermont and discovered some of the hurricane damage in Chester, VT, where part of a hill and roadway were swept into the river. Continuing our drive, we ended in New York rush hour traffic as we headed towards Syracuse for the night.