Impromptu Fall Road Trip

Sometimes you just need to pack up and go.  No plans, no hotel reservations just pure spontaneity.  That’s exactly what my mom and I are famous for doing.  It’s a bit ironic that my type A travel agent mother never likes to plan anything out when she hits the road, but that’s just how we’ve always been.  The two of us are fall fanatics and have talked about taking a trip out east to see the fall foliage for a good five years now.  For some reason or another we were never able to.  But now, thanks to my current unemployment situation and my wide-open agenda, there was never a more perfect time to take this trip.

So we packed up and headed out.  We drove up north through Michigan and into Canada where the leaves were just beginning to change.  I had never been to Canada so this was definitely a first for me.  SPOILER ALERT!  Ontario doesn’t look much different than America.  But it was certainly fun trying to convert the metric system road signs to determine how many miles my mom was exceeding Canada’s speed limits, only to figure out that that’s what all those tiny numbers on your odometer are for.  Blonde moment…

We stopped for dinner in London, Ontario.  This was a personal request by me because I wanted to see if it looked anything like the London I lived in for 6 months.  Second spoiler alert: it didn’t.  But we had a lovely dinner at David’s Bistro, a quaint restaurant right in downtown.  The owner (one guess as to what his name was) took care of us recommending a few lovely dishes.  He happened to be from Ireland so we chatted about a few of our favorite spots over there.  For dinner I had Salmon over a zucchini patty with a fresh mango salsa.  Mom had wild boar with mashed potatoes and champ. Let me tell you this certainly beat typical road trip food.

I probably should be embarrassed to admit this but we were so tired and it was so late at night that we wound up sleeping in the car in a hotel parking lot.  This wasn’t the first time but when we need to hit the road early and get as much millage down as possible this vagabond trick works for us. 

We were rewarded after our uncomfortable night’s sleep and 5 a.m. wake up call with a gorgeous sunrise. Sometimes getting up at the crack of dawn is worth it, sometimes…

 From there we headed on to Burlington, Vermont.  But before Burlington we had to stop in Montreal, it was so close and it would have been a shame to miss this beautiful city.  Once you cross into Quebec, bye bye English.  Everything is in French (as it should be) but my little knowledge of the language was useless.  We made a pit stop in a Target off the highway and it was so strange to recognize this store and everything in it yet hear people speaking in French all around you.  Finally, we made it to Montreal.  If you don’t have the chance to make it to France but you would like a taste of Europe you need to check out this city.  It’s beautiful.  With its location set amidst the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, the city has the perfect mixture of Parisian charm and big city architecture.  Montreal is the second largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris of course.   The city is named after the most prominent geographical feature on the island, a three-headed hill called Mount Royal, topped at 232 meters above sea level.

 We drove through Mount Royal, the highest point in the city.  Along the way we ventured down a side street to look at some beautiful estates nestled into the hills.  We got lost a few times trying to find our way up but eventually we were rewarded with some of the most spectacular views.  Frederick Olmsted, the co-designer of New York’s Central Park, also helped design the magnificent Mount Royal Park.  We both wished we could have stayed longer (will have to make a trip back) but we wanted to make it to Burlington, Vermont before sunset.

 Once we crossed the border (it sounds so weird to say that) we were stunned by the beautiful colors.  I’m sorry to get all sappy on you but it was beautiful, and we hadn’t even seen the best of it.  Once in Burlington we made it a point to get a hotel.  One night in the car was certainly enough.  The sunset was spectacular as we headed into town.  Burlington is home to the University of Vermont, which is a smaller school with about 10,000 undergraduates.  But the campus was HUGE.   It was a wonderful mix of modern buildings and old architecture that you could tell had been there since the school’s founding.  The downtown area looked like a ton of fun.  Right next to campus Burlington’s downtown area is full of restaurants, boutiques, cafes and it’s right next to Lake Champlain.  On the weekends Church Street is the place to be.  We stopped for dinner at one of the town’s most adored restaurants, Trattoria Delia.

Walking up to it you might not think anything of it but this historic restaurant once used to be a turn of the century hotel.  The interior of the restaurant was at one time a working sugar house.  The restaurant was warm and cozy complete with a large fireplace at the front of the room.  

The restaurant serves traditional Italian cuisine, which was the perfect hearty food we were looking for on that chilly evening.  We sat at the bar so we could pick the bartender’s brain on what we should do the next day.  We enjoyed a wood-grilled vegetable dish to start and finished with a rich Gnocchi and mushroom dish.  I was so focused on inhaling my food that I totally forgot to snap some pictures of our dishes.  You’ll just have to trust me that they were delicious.

By that time we should have probably just gone home but my mother, being the bad influence she is, was curious about the item on the desert menu called the Grolla.  Let me enlighten you on what this is.  The Grolla is the friendship cup.  It is a hand carved vessel, which originates from the Northwestern region of Valle d-Aosta.  Each person takes a drink from one of the spouts and then passes it on to the next person.  Tradition says to never put the cup down until the drink is finished.  AKA this is an ancient Italian glorified drinking game.  The drink itself is a warm combination of lightly sweetened espresso, grappa and fresh orange wheels.  Usually the drink is shared amongst about six people, there were only two of us, you do the math…

Thanks to the bartender’s great recommendations, we headed south to Stowe, Vermont the next morning.  Apparently, this year’s foliage was reversed.  Normally, the colors peak first in the north and later in the south.  Stowe’s colors had just peaked while Burlington was still not quite there.  We drove around to explore Burlington a bit more.  Stopped for my first ever vegan muffin and coffee at a local bakery and then were on our way.

 On the drive down to Stowe it was as if you couldn’t take in all the magnificent colors and views fast enough.  One of the distinct differences between autumn in Vermont as compared to the Midwest would be: the mountains.  There is virtually no comparison to this display back in Illinois. It was incredible how the mountains were vividly painted in all the colors of fall, for as far as your eye could see.  Another component were the vast number of sugar maples on their mountains.  It’s endless. 

 Our drive to Stowe was by far the greatest reward for all of the past several days drive.  The richly painted color palette was so incredibly magnificent it was almost too perfect.  Before we got into Stowe it seemed as if any direction you turned there was a perfect photo opp.  Cute red barn to the right, mountains covered in color to the left. Everywhere you turned it was just like autumn threw up and was begging you to take a picture and Instagram it with the Toaster filter.

 We walked around town a bit before heading to the Mount Mansfield toll road.  

Stowe is a ski town but in the fall you can drive up one of it’s peaks and enjoy the fall colored forests all the way to the top.  My mom and I were in heaven.  

The colors were magnificent.  I honestly think I might have taken over a thousand pictures on our drive up (I’ll spare you from looking at all of them but seriously they were amazing).  By the time we had driven up and down the summit we had worked up quite the appetite.

We had lunch at a local brewery called Crop.  The weather was perfect and we sat outside on their patio as the leaves gently rustled around us.

 From there we went on a search for covered bridges.  Whenever I think of covered bridges I think of the East Coast.  I really think the two go hand in hand.  The reason these bridges were covered was to extend their longevity and protect the structure from the elements. 

The first one was right in town and was rumored to be haunted.  We had to take back roads through the forest to get there. It was beautiful during the day but possibly very creepy at night (we would know for sure later on).  So the story goes that Emily’s bridge is haunted by a woman named, I’ll give you one guess… Emily.  At night it’s rumored that if you park your car on the bridge she will shake it back and forth.  People have also said that if you walk across the bridge she will scratch you with her phantom claws.  Naturally, my mom and I were intrigued.  I totally believe in ghosts and there was a small part of me that wanted to go back and see the bridge at night. 

After Emily’s bridge we went in search of another covered bridge.  We found another one about 15 miles up the road along some roads surrounded by farms.  The drive, as expected, was gorgeous and we were once again surrounded by all the colors of fall.

 By the end of the day we had accomplished what we had set out to do: take an exorbitant amount of pictures of trees.  It was quite the tiring process, definitely not something for the weak of heart. 

 We decided to stay at a beautiful Inn right in the heart of downtown Stowe called the Green Mountain Inn, which dates back to 1833.  

We had a nice dinner at their restaurant where we debated on whether we should revisit Emily’s bridge.  Mom was up for an adventure and promised to hold my hand so I caved and we made the trek.  Let me assure you that the back roads at night were entirely different than the charming roads we visited earlier in the day.  There were absolutely no lights except for our car headlights.  We wondered how anyone would want to live all the way out in the forest in the pitch black at night.  Talk about the perfect set up for a horror movie.  We decided we weren’t going to stick to our original plan of getting out of the car and walking across the bridge.  We forgot to factor in the very real possibility of being attacked by a bear in the woods.  So we crossed the bridge several times pausing each time to see if the car would shake.  And just when we thought nothing was going to happen…nothing happened.  I would say my reaction was split 75 percent relief and 25 percent bummed.  I still believe in the ghost story though.

The next day we set out for Salem Massachusetts.  What October trip to the east coast would be complete without visiting one of the most spooky spots on the map?  But before we left Vermont, we had to stop at the Ben & Jerry’s Factory.  Ben & Jerry’s began their ice cream empire out of a gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Now, they do factory tours at their location in Waterbury, just outside of Stowe.  This was going to be heaven.  Can you say free samples?! After taking the tour, and hearing about how environmentally conscious and locally driven their company is, I have vowed to only buy Ben & Jerry’s on the rare occasion I buy ice cream at the grocery store.

From there we headed to Massachusetts.  That evening we decided to have dinner in the seaport town of Gloucester at one of their best restaurants called Duckworth’s Bistrot.  In seaport towns like Gloucester, streets are narrow and restaurants like Duckworth’s are petite.  It was the tiniest restaurant and every table was completely full (good thing we called ahead).  It was a rainy evening so their butternut squash soup sounded like the perfect fix for my chills.  Mom had the scallops; it would have been a crime not to have some seafood so close to the bay.  For dinner we split lobster risotto.  Talk about decadent.  It was absolutely delicious and we both walked out of there looking like balloons.  But it was so worth it.

Finally, the next morning we made our way to Salem.  We took the beautiful Route 27, which was a windy road right along the water through a town called Beverly with massive estates on either side. Once in Salem we quickly recognized what the month of October means to a town with a history like theirs.  It was pretty much down pouring all day so any of the witch and ghost walks I had wanted to do were kind of out of the question.  The town was preparing for their month long Halloween celebration.  It was just as quirky and gimmicky as you might imagine but the crowds of tourists were already here in droves, rain or not.  We were able to take a stroll through the second oldest cemetery in the country known as the Old Burying Point Cemetery. This was also the site of the witch trials memorial.  A concrete bench commemorated each person hung during the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

Salem was also the setting for the movie, “Hocus Pocus”.  Many of the scenes in the movie were shot in Salem and this was Allison’s house.  I guess it’s only cool if you’ve seen the movie.  And if you haven’t, you need to rent it.

 Another site to see in Salem is the house of the Seven Gables.  It’s the oldest surviving 17^th century wooden mansion in New England.  This house inspired author Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his book The House of the Seven Gables.  Kinda spooky huh?

Another home on the historic register is the Witch House, right in the heart of downtown.  This is Salem’s only building with direct ties to the Witchcraft Trials of 1692.  The home’s most famous original resident Jonathan Corwin served as both the magistrate and judge in the witch-hunts.

 We stopped for a casual lunch at Rockafellas in downtown Salem.  The best part about this restaurant was its history.  The building was actually the town’s first church.  The top floor was the church and the bottom was used for various commercial ventures to help pay for the building.  The most recent tenant was a jewelry business.  Many of the original features of the building, like the jewelry store’s massive vault, are still intact today.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end.  But I can’t believe how lucky I was to be able to take the time to see this part of the country during one of its most spectacular times of year.  While autumn is present in quite a spectacular fashion in the Midwest, I still must admit that nothing will compare to these incredibly stunning shades of crimson, orange and gold that painted this region of the Northeast.

Until next time, cheers!

A