Welcome back all you loveable loveables, Colleen/Crackleen here (depending on what "language" you speak)! Sorry for your day without exciteme
nt, we spent Tuesday night at a cabin in New Hampshire and were busy "being at one with nature". (Translation, I've got a skeeter bite on my bum and have been sneezing nonstop, but I swear, I love nature.) To recap, we woke up on Tuesday morning in Montreal and raced for the English signage border and all of the treasures Vermont and New Hampshire could bring. The border cop made it into the top ten nicest police officers we've ever met when he a- didn't yell at us, b- laughed with/at us, and c- gave us a tip on Vermont: it's beautiful even if/when you get lost. With his directions 
and blessings, we left Canada for good and began to wind through the lakes of Champlaign.
As lunchtime rolled around, we asked our tour guide, Jill Garmin (not to be confused with Isabelle as we weren't in our Spanish hour yet), where some good eats were. As we drove past some "snack shacks", aka tents in people's front yards, we decided to take a slight detour for a restaurant approach. Suffice to say our detour was an adventure in and of itself and Shaggy's was everything we hoped for and more. Since we pl
anned to cook hotdogs over the fire for dinner, we were happy to see that Shaggy’s provided alternative grill foods like cheeseburgers and corn dogs and soon made the half hour trek back to our original route. The monsoon muffled some but definitely not all of the beauty of Vermont, and before we knew it we had arrived at the one and only Ben and Jerry's Factory where tours were led every ten minutes. Talk about heavenly convenience!! We made it into the 4:20pm tour and enjoyed our samples before heading to the flavor graveyard where Nancy Pants taught us how to ride a cow.
After some quality seconds with the B&J Bovines, we rac
ed back to the car and onto our cabin in the hopes of arriving in the woods before nightfall. Our timing was good, as was our luck, depending on your seat in the car and point of view. Unsure where I'm going with this? Imagine you're in the car with us for a second: If you see a bear in the woods not more than 20 feet from your car on the strange possibly deserted road that may or may not house your cabin at the end of it, do you a- roll down the window closest to the girl figuratively crapping her pants, b- drive like the wind and hope it didn't see you and won't follow you down the road to eat you in the 
middle of the night, or c- ask politely if it has seen any moose nearby as you'd really really like to see one before you depart the moose states of New Hampshire and Maine? We chose a... and I could barely keep my hands steady to hold a camera much less snap a picture, and so the bear made some threatening eye contact and ran off to join his mother... who was 3 feet away. We managed to snap a picture of the house I'm sure they have taken as their own for your viewing pleasure:
The bear spotting site was not next door to our cottage, hence our safety and livelihood, and so we checked into the cottage and waited for a fire to light itself. Our cottage manager, who was on a whole different spectrum of road trips lasting 5 years to date, started a fire for us and did his best not to laugh as we learned how difficult it truly is to roast hot dogs on thick sticks. In an effort to make friendly conversation, he asked us how
our stay was in Canada, and as we each looked down, we remembered that we were all sporting Canadia hoodies that we had so earnestly bought while on the road... in Canada. We made sure to "burn the nature off' the roasting sticks and moved along to dessert: marshmallow, or BONBON (word of the day in Espanol, yo), roasting and s'mores!!! Nancy led the way with the first m
arshmallow that was perfectly roasted... so well in fact that it slid off her nature free stick and into the fire. Just sharing a taste with those who have roasted mallows before us.
THIS morning, Wednesday morning, we woke up with nature coming out our ears, or nose if you're allergic to foreign items such as trees, grass or mold. We packed our bags and hopped into the car and on to Freeport, Maine where we passed entertaining sights such as Hobo Junction (a theme park complete with miniature golf and extra benches for hobo sleeping pleasure, I'm sure), a McDonalds that is an otherwise normal looking house with a few Mickey
Ds signs out back for the drive thru, and an Abercrombie and Fitch that has honestly taken over a library for parent and teen enjoyment. We made a quick stop at the L.L. Bean flagship store, its flag being a gianormous boot near the side entrance (I promise pictures are forthcoming!!), and then again at Maine's desert before kissing goodbye to Freeport.
As we rolled into Portland, we decided on a seniors dinner (before 5) to beat the crowds at the Portland Lobster Company where T*Star conquered her fear of foods that watch you while you eat them. It was a momentous occasion that we topped off with a picture of T*Star and Colleen and a life sized lobster whose shirt (in case you can't read it) says: The Cheapest Tail In Town... and the back says EAT ME!. This gave us plenty of time for the Bug Light lighthouse and the Portland Headlight Lighthouse. Even the fog couldn't take the beauty
out of that second one, though fisherman at the Bug Light pointed out that normally June and July are full of perfect, beautiful weather, not the 59 degree fog that we found upon arrival. We assured them that the cool was welcomed by the three of us, and bought postcards to insure that we got the feel of the perfect weather version.
nt, we spent Tuesday night at a cabin in New Hampshire and were busy "being at one with nature". (Translation, I've got a skeeter bite on my bum and have been sneezing nonstop, but I swear, I love nature.) To recap, we woke up on Tuesday morning in Montreal and raced for the English signage border and all of the treasures Vermont and New Hampshire could bring. The border cop made it into the top ten nicest police officers we've ever met when he a- didn't yell at us, b- laughed with/at us, and c- gave us a tip on Vermont: it's beautiful even if/when you get lost. With his directions 
and blessings, we left Canada for good and began to wind through the lakes of Champlaign.As lunchtime rolled around, we asked our tour guide, Jill Garmin (not to be confused with Isabelle as we weren't in our Spanish hour yet), where some good eats were. As we drove past some "snack shacks", aka tents in people's front yards, we decided to take a slight detour for a restaurant approach. Suffice to say our detour was an adventure in and of itself and Shaggy's was everything we hoped for and more. Since we pl
anned to cook hotdogs over the fire for dinner, we were happy to see that Shaggy’s provided alternative grill foods like cheeseburgers and corn dogs and soon made the half hour trek back to our original route. The monsoon muffled some but definitely not all of the beauty of Vermont, and before we knew it we had arrived at the one and only Ben and Jerry's Factory where tours were led every ten minutes. Talk about heavenly convenience!! We made it into the 4:20pm tour and enjoyed our samples before heading to the flavor graveyard where Nancy Pants taught us how to ride a cow.After some quality seconds with the B&J Bovines, we rac
ed back to the car and onto our cabin in the hopes of arriving in the woods before nightfall. Our timing was good, as was our luck, depending on your seat in the car and point of view. Unsure where I'm going with this? Imagine you're in the car with us for a second: If you see a bear in the woods not more than 20 feet from your car on the strange possibly deserted road that may or may not house your cabin at the end of it, do you a- roll down the window closest to the girl figuratively crapping her pants, b- drive like the wind and hope it didn't see you and won't follow you down the road to eat you in the 
middle of the night, or c- ask politely if it has seen any moose nearby as you'd really really like to see one before you depart the moose states of New Hampshire and Maine? We chose a... and I could barely keep my hands steady to hold a camera much less snap a picture, and so the bear made some threatening eye contact and ran off to join his mother... who was 3 feet away. We managed to snap a picture of the house I'm sure they have taken as their own for your viewing pleasure:
The bear spotting site was not next door to our cottage, hence our safety and livelihood, and so we checked into the cottage and waited for a fire to light itself. Our cottage manager, who was on a whole different spectrum of road trips lasting 5 years to date, started a fire for us and did his best not to laugh as we learned how difficult it truly is to roast hot dogs on thick sticks. In an effort to make friendly conversation, he asked us how
our stay was in Canada, and as we each looked down, we remembered that we were all sporting Canadia hoodies that we had so earnestly bought while on the road... in Canada. We made sure to "burn the nature off' the roasting sticks and moved along to dessert: marshmallow, or BONBON (word of the day in Espanol, yo), roasting and s'mores!!! Nancy led the way with the first m
arshmallow that was perfectly roasted... so well in fact that it slid off her nature free stick and into the fire. Just sharing a taste with those who have roasted mallows before us.THIS morning, Wednesday morning, we woke up with nature coming out our ears, or nose if you're allergic to foreign items such as trees, grass or mold. We packed our bags and hopped into the car and on to Freeport, Maine where we passed entertaining sights such as Hobo Junction (a theme park complete with miniature golf and extra benches for hobo sleeping pleasure, I'm sure), a McDonalds that is an otherwise normal looking house with a few Mickey
Ds signs out back for the drive thru, and an Abercrombie and Fitch that has honestly taken over a library for parent and teen enjoyment. We made a quick stop at the L.L. Bean flagship store, its flag being a gianormous boot near the side entrance (I promise pictures are forthcoming!!), and then again at Maine's desert before kissing goodbye to Freeport.As we rolled into Portland, we decided on a seniors dinner (before 5) to beat the crowds at the Portland Lobster Company where T*Star conquered her fear of foods that watch you while you eat them. It was a momentous occasion that we topped off with a picture of T*Star and Colleen and a life sized lobster whose shirt (in case you can't read it) says: The Cheapest Tail In Town... and the back says EAT ME!. This gave us plenty of time for the Bug Light lighthouse and the Portland Headlight Lighthouse. Even the fog couldn't take the beauty
out of that second one, though fisherman at the Bug Light pointed out that normally June and July are full of perfect, beautiful weather, not the 59 degree fog that we found upon arrival. We assured them that the cool was welcomed by the three of us, and bought postcards to insure that we got the feel of the perfect weather version.Our last stop in 
Maine was a small confectionary in Scarborough, aptly named Len Libby, where one can find until 9:30pm on a weeknight a life-sized chocolate moose named Lenny and 3 (count them 3!!) black bear cub sized bears made of dark chocolate named Libby and company (ok, I forgot the cubs names, but you get the idea).
It was the perfect set up for the one thing Jill had no feature for: Moose finding. With 2 miles left on the road in Maine, and white flags in hand, we were about to give up on seeing a living and breathing moose when low and behold, there were break lights ahead. Had we not assumed there was traffic and groaned, I'm sure no moose would have appeared, but we were all able to shriek and squeal with glee as a REAL LIVE WILD MOOSE ran across the road safely a good 10 feet in front of us. Way to pull through, Maine, you might just be our favorite state yet! We giddily crossed the border into Massachusettes where we set up shop in Danvers for the next two nights to get a better appreciation and understanding of Boston.
We are even more than moose excited for tomorrow morning's main event: PICKING UP EVABUG AT THE AIRPORT!!!!! Have a safe red eye flight, Evabug, and we'll see you pronto!!!! To the rest of our adoring fans, our apologies for going a night without words, hope this unbelievably long recap made up for it! Don't wave any white flags of hope on our blog pictures, the future may hold moose for all of you...
Maine was a small confectionary in Scarborough, aptly named Len Libby, where one can find until 9:30pm on a weeknight a life-sized chocolate moose named Lenny and 3 (count them 3!!) black bear cub sized bears made of dark chocolate named Libby and company (ok, I forgot the cubs names, but you get the idea).It was the perfect set up for the one thing Jill had no feature for: Moose finding. With 2 miles left on the road in Maine, and white flags in hand, we were about to give up on seeing a living and breathing moose when low and behold, there were break lights ahead. Had we not assumed there was traffic and groaned, I'm sure no moose would have appeared, but we were all able to shriek and squeal with glee as a REAL LIVE WILD MOOSE ran across the road safely a good 10 feet in front of us. Way to pull through, Maine, you might just be our favorite state yet! We giddily crossed the border into Massachusettes where we set up shop in Danvers for the next two nights to get a better appreciation and understanding of Boston.
We are even more than moose excited for tomorrow morning's main event: PICKING UP EVABUG AT THE AIRPORT!!!!! Have a safe red eye flight, Evabug, and we'll see you pronto!!!! To the rest of our adoring fans, our apologies for going a night without words, hope this unbelievably long recap made up for it! Don't wave any white flags of hope on our blog pictures, the future may hold moose for all of you...
